week zero
I spent 29.2% of my time last week with family and friends. Beautifully, this was the largest slice of my weekly time pie. I shared a lovely meal with my fiancé's parents. We exchanged gifts and went through photos from our big holiday travels. I attended a philosophy lecture on causality. I enjoyed pizza and wine with a new friend who just had a baby. I enjoyed pizza (again) and beer with other dear friends who are nowhere near having a baby. I went on a long, happy walk with friends who are reading the same book as me. I texted and called my parents and sister, my long-distance friends, my acquaintances.
The second largest slice of my time, at 23.3% of my total waking hours, comprises moments I spent alone, doing things I enjoy doing. I played mahjong on my phone (sometimes with my fiancé and bots, sometimes with all bots). My mahjong screenname is MulanRouje. I took walks, did some strength training, finished reading that book (which brought me to tears). I scrolled, looked up blogging, found Bear Blog, researched how to properly clean my apartment.
It turns out I required ~18 hours to administer my life, which was 16% of my time last week. This chunk includes tasks like getting ready for bed, getting ready in the morning, commuting, budgeting, tracking all this time, and various miscellaneous admin tasks that escape me now.
I completed ~11 hours of research, my livelihood. This category represents only true, deep research time where I am fully focused and plugged in. If I context switch to something else, like social media, so does the timer. I wonder if I should be doing more research. Probably. Next week.
I only did 7 hours and 6 minutes (and 16 seconds, but who's counting) of housework, such as cooking meals, cleaning up, and buying groceries. This time can't be right because the dishes alone felt like five hours. Time moves slower when you do things you don't want to. That's why my latest attempt at eternal life is to do things I dread.
I spent around 6 hours planning my wedding, 6 hours teaching, 2.5 hours on coursework, and another 2 hours and change on odds and ends at work and at my other teaching gig.
All in all, it was a good week, in good time, with great people. I am happy I spend so much of my days with fellow humans who raise my spirits. It also seems I do in fact get a lot of alone time for myself, despite complaining internally that I do not. My goal for next week is to double my research time, perhaps by shrinking my wedding planning and social time? I haven't thought that far.
A note on what is happening: Lately, I've been so bewildered by how the days pass me by. I hope this absurd exercise in time-tracking helps patch the leaky boat. I've been doing this since April of last year, a relic of my consulting days logging billable hours (in a spreadsheet titled "Hours on End") that I've sought to spin into something useful for moving through my life. My inspirations include Four Thousand Weeks and 168 Hours.
You are now reading this, because "writing" is one of my "prisms" that I've set for viewing life through this year, in lieu of 2026 resolutions. The other two are "romance" and "research".
I swear I am just as insane as I sound. I log everything except sleeping (now that would be daft). Speaking of, it's time I go do that now.