Twelve Pomodoros a day with 5-minute breaks plus one 60-minute break isn’t really working. I’m managing the Pomodoros okay, but the short breaks are too short.
Five minutes isn’t long enough to empty a full dishwasher or fill it with a full load. Five minutes isn’t long enough to sort out, hang out, fold up or put away one washload. Five minutes isn’t long enough to go out into the garden and do a dog-poo patrol or feed the birds or the chickens. Five minutes isn’t long enough to absorb the unexpected.
I ran out of steam again yesterday too. probably because I was dashing around trying to complete a task or chore in too short a time slot.
The morning was spent writing the Cadbury book. But I’m doing note-taking again, so it’s a lot slower than the day before. I still managed to add 1,119 words to the book, though. So it’s still going in the right direction. I have 13,455 words so far, leaving 56,545 to go … I can do it!
I wrote my daily blog post, which is my writing warm-up for the day. I also did some mugging up on the new client before their scheduled phone call. I ended a contract that was no longer working for me (but with the option to revisit should circumstances change on either side – his deadlines were far too tight and he was on a very good deal with the fee). And, of course, I took the call, which lasted for only around 15 minutes but still gave me something to think about.
Bird lovers will be pleased to know I managed to feed our starving garden birds. Only three of the feeders needed topping up in the end, so that took less time than I thought it would. (Blummin’ fusspots … and con artists … don’t forget they were banging on the windows the day before, making me feel guilty.)
Following the morning phone call, the afternoon was spent doing background work for the new client. I wanted to read their brief and take it in, and I wanted to learn more about the product I’ll be writing about.
And that was it. That was all I managed all day. By late afternoon, about 4:30pm, I’d run out of steam. So I switched everything off and moved into the living room to read for a while.
My first job today was to rejig those Pomodoros. I’ve reduced the 12 Pomodoros down to 11, increased the 5-minute breaks to 10 minutes, and reduced the dinner break from 60 minutes to 55 minutes. I’m still at my desk from 10am until 5pm.
The rest of the day, then, the plan is more (uninterrupted this time) writing for the Cadbury book this morning, and client work this afternoon. At some point, I need to raise the Hong Kong invoice too. And I have gig list admin to do as well.
During the week, when the poet was in the Midlands, he dropped in to see my mom. We couldn’t go to see her last weekend as we were both either full of or recovering from bad colds and didn’t want to share our germs unnecessarily. This means we have another empty weekend ahead. We’ll probably go and visit his mum, but the rest depends on the weather.
If I get some time, or if I make some time, I’ll do some more writing work. Probably on the Cadbury book, but prep work for NaNoWriMo also needs doing.
Have a great weekend!
