Blogging Ottinger (tim)Exhausted
This has been a little rough. I have a new family member, a great niece between the ages of my boys. We’ve just put them in a private school about 1/2 hour from home. The school day is rather shorter than the work day, and there is a commute between work and school. There are after-school sports to deal with, and then meetings every night (well, the nights without have been filled with school supply or school clothes shopping).
I’m sleeping better, but my days are so busy and there is so little time for work or personal development. I fear that I’m just falling further behind, and feeling the stress of that. I have got to learn to be more productive in a four-to-five hour day, because the rest of the day I’m pretty much driving or sleeping or attending meetings in Mundelein. In the late evenings and early mornings, it’s time for chores like getting laundry done. Some days my kids are getting their wardrobe from the dryer before getting in the van. It’s a different routine here.
I wish I could read while driving, but programming books tend to require more concentration and eyes-on than if I were learning about some other aspects of business or theology or what-have-you. Technical reading doesn’t translate well to books-on-cd. I think I’d be willing to try it, though, if my trips weren’t ferrying kids who are themselves trying to adjust to a lot of newness at once. They have a new school, a new family dynamic, their first time at sports, and the expected interrelational problems between themselves. The three of them have more things they all want to tell me at the beginning and end of the day, but I’ve still only got the ability to listen to one thing at a time. Trying to layer on some audio learning doesn’t seem very likely.
Of course, I’m playing catch-up with my wife and friends and remote family also. It’s quite overwhelming for a bear of little brain.
Eventually we’ll all get good at this. In the meantime, I will just remember that this is all for a good reason and a good purpose. I will try to be responsible to all the people who rely on me. I’ll also pile on the vitamins and get the best rest I can.
Many of my conversations at the Agile 2007 conference (including with A. Cockburn) were surrounding the issue of having a successful career and limiting it (time) so that we could also live life happily. Is the integration of technology into our life making it harder? I know that when I go on vacation for a week, I don’t check email or carry my cell phone. Now that I have a kid, I wish I would do the same thing when I’m at home.
Good luck, keep your head up… make sure that the things you like, you make time for… and the things you don’t like to do, you do as a means to support the things you do like. Outsource the rest!
Comment by Kevin S. — 2007-September-12 @ 03:11