| pink | A+ (childcare) |
| yellow | Business - Connect |
| red | Business / Work |
| green | Discretionary - Play |
| blue | Discretionary - Productive |
| dark blue | Discretionary - Productive - Emacs |
| yellow | Discretionary - Social |
| purple | Personal |
| gray | Sleep |
| orange | Unpaid work |
#+end_export
I can see that:
- childcare mostly came out of my consulting, personal, and play time
- I've managed to get back to doing more productive stuff and Emacs stuff
Here's the [[file:hours-per-day.py]] script I used to
analyze it, using Pandas to sum it up, Matplot to
graph it, and [[https://mpld3.github.io/][mpld3]] to add some Javascript
interaction so we can hover over points to get the
label and value. I wrote a little SetViewbox
plugin so that the graph could be more responsive.
** Fragmentation
:PROPERTIES:
:CUSTOM_ID: looking-at-my-time-data-from-2012-to-2025-fragmentation
:END:
My life is still fragmented, but I'm slowly
becoming more okay with this. The general advice
is, of course, to try to consolidate some focus
time, but my life doesn't work that way. Besides,
it's fragmented /because/ the kiddo likes to spend
time with me, which is wonderful.
I liked this quote from Eleanor Coppola from this [[https://murielmurch.com/2024/05/19/eleanor-coppola/][Living with Literature interview]]:[fn:eleanor-coppola:[[https://murielmurch.com/2024/05/19/eleanor-coppola/][Eleanor Copolla's interview in Living with Literature]], quoted in [[https://austinkleon.com/2018/01/23/the-best-thing-ever-written-about-work-life-balance/][The best thing ever written about “work-life balance” - Austin Kleon]], which I found via
[[https://workflowsbeforerainbows.com/posts/interruptibility-is-a-superpower][🌱 Interruptibility is a superpower - Workflows Before Rainbows]]]
#+begin_quote
The men artists I knew had a studio, and they went out to their studio, and they spent the day, and worked, and then they came back. I once read a book by Judy Chicago, who interviewed all these women artists, and they made their art on the back porch, they made it on top of the washing machine, they made it next to the kitchen sink, and they made it anywhere they could, for the hour and a half while their kid was taking a nap, and for the two hours while they were at the play group. They made it in between. It wasn’t, like, you get to make art for eight hours. You make art in 20-minute snatches, and you don’t, like, fiddle around. I know one time I went to see Francis in his working room, and he had his pencils all laid out, and his espresso there, and there was this whole little ritual of getting into yourself and into your work. There was no time [for women] for the ritual of getting into your work! You just snapped into that taking 10 minutes and making 3 lines on your drawing or whatever was possible. It wasn’t the same as the way men worked. And that’s how women got their work done.
#+end_quote
This reminds me of the reflections on
interruptibility in [[https://www.oliverburkeman.com/meditationsformortals][/Meditations for Mortals/]]
(Oliver Burkeman, 2024): yes, try to ringfence
three to four hours of your day for focused time,
but don't try to control too much of your life;
stay distractible, don't fight life, give your
full attention once your focus has already been
diverted. It also reminds me of [[https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59486007-good-mom-on-paper][/Good Mom on
Paper/]] (edited by Stacey May Fowles and Jen
Sookfong Lee, 2022); there are lots of other
people who are finding their way through the "Mom!
Mom! Mom!" phase. (A+ still has a finely-tuned
attention detector. She can sense the moment I
begin to think about something and interrupt it
with "Mom, look at this!" even when W- is right
there beside her.)
A+ grows more independent every year. It's like
life is slowly easing me into this independence
too. [[https://sachachua.com/blog/2022/08/making-better-use-of-time-as-we-grow-more-independent-together/][2022]] looked different from 2025, and 2028
will be different too. I used to have 5-10 minute
snippets of time (still do). Now I occasionally
get 1-hour chunks. Eventually I'll have 3-hour
chunks again. I know from my experiment with
semi-retirement that time isn't the thing holding
me back from making a useful website or writing a
book or saving the world, so that's actually kind
of liberating. It can just be about trying things
out and seeing where I want to go with that.
** Sleep
:PROPERTIES:
:CUSTOM_ID: looking-at-my-time-data-from-2012-to-2025-sleep
:END:
One of the things I've learned is how much of my
day depends on feeling well-rested. When I've
slept well, I can parent better and I can take
advantage of little pockets of me-time better.
It's surprisingly tricky to get my sleep sorted
out. My sleep isn't as fragmented as it used to be
in the early days of parenting A+, but it's still
a little challenging. These days, I usually start
nudging A+ towards bed at 9 PM. I'm still an
integral part of her bedtime routine. Sometimes
she stays up because she wants to chat or
improvise stories, and unless I'm super tired, I
like to spend that cozy time with her. I snuggle
her until I think she's fallen asleep. Sometimes I
try to slip away too early and she sleepily asks
for more hugs, so then I snuggle her for another
ten or fifteen minutes. I try to stay awake
because whenever I fall asleep in her twin bed,
we're both a bit tired and cranky in the morning.
After A+'s finally asleep, I call my mom to check
on her. Sometimes I do a bit of reading or drawing
as my personal time.
I can remind myself not to stay up late reading
because then I'll get too little sleep and then
I'll feel tired. I can find time to read the next
day. Come to think of it, this is what I tell A+
too, and just like me, she also finds it hard to
put books down.
I could also get a bit more sleep by accepting
that A+ will probably wake up at 7:30 or so, and
set my alarm for 7:25 instead of 6:55. She usually
likes a lot of snuggles before finally waking up,
though, so starting the snuggles early in the
morning gives us more of a leisurely start to the
day.
If I go to bed at about 10 or 10:30 PM, I usually
wake up before my alarm goes off. If I move some
of my personal reading and writing to that time
(RSS, books, etc.), then I can swap out some of
the less-useful scrolling through Reddit and start
the day better.
** Other thoughts
:PROPERTIES:
:CUSTOM_ID: looking-at-my-time-data-from-2012-to-2025-overall
:END:
[[sketchFull:2025-04-29-02 Time over the years -- time life]]
#+begin_my_details Text from sketch
Time over the years
- Minutes are not all the same
- 8.4 hours of sleep, 2 hours of me-time:
- fragmented < all together
- family time: 0-18 > 18→
- How much time I have & how much time I feel I have are two different things.
- It's okay to have downtime. No sense in grumping at myself about it.
- Energy matters. Sleep is my foundation for everything else
- Time comes from somewhere. There's time for everything I really want, just not all at once. Constraints clarify choices. If I want to do more of something, I need to change something else.
- I like a small, leisurely life.
sachachua.com/2025-04-29-02
#+end_my_details
Tracking my time is surprisingly reassuring. I can
see that I have time for a few discretionary
things, and I can see the trade-offs. More time
spent doing one thing means less time spent on
another, so it makes my actual priorities clear.
In the beginning, I tended to fall back to
consulting a lot because it came with clear tasks
and the satisfaction of helping other people. I'm
happy to see that I'm becoming more comfortable
with choosing things like playing piano, going for
walks, writing, or working on personal projects,
or playing Minecraft with [[abbr:my husband][W-]] and [[abbr:our 9-year-old daughter][A+]].
W- does so much around the house, and we really
enjoy the benefits. (Mmm, fresh-baked bagels.) It
makes me want to increase my "Unpaid work" time so
that I can increase the satisfaction I feel from
helping improve the household. If I can tempt A+
along (say, cooking or gardening), then that would
be an effective way to shift that time around.
When I switch from "Personal - Routines" to
"Unpaid work - Clean the kitchen," it feels nice.
I know it'll add up.
[[https://sachachua.com/blog/2014/09/figuring-deal-sub-optimal-times/][When I don't feel particularly energetic or
focused]], I've learned to be kind to myself and
just chill out with a book or my iPad, or do some
tidying around the house. Sometimes I have a nap.
No point in grumping at myself about it. I'm
learning that I enjoy having a simple, leisurely
sort of life, without feeling like I need an
internal [[https://sachachua.com/blog/2014/01/conversation-writing-reflections-taskmasters/][taskmaster]]. When I do have an idea, I'm
fine with going with it even if there are lots of
other things on my to-do list from before. As long
as nothing urgently needs to be done, there's room
to play, and it's easier to work on stuff I'm
curious about or care about, even if it might not
be the theoretically optimal way to use that bit
of time.
** Do I want to find time for the activities I used to spend time on before?
:PROPERTIES:
:CUSTOM_ID: looking-at-my-time-data-from-2012-to-2025-do-i-want-to-find-time-for-the-activities-i-used-to-spend-time-on-before
:END:
I don't think I'll go back to my pre-parenting
socializing any time soon. I miss bumping into
interesting ideas and people at tech meetups and
[[https://hacklab.to][Hacklab]], and hosting people for tea, but it's
okay. We're still taking COVID precautions, so we
don't hang out indoors. The weather's warming up
so maybe people will be outside more. I bumped
into [[https://hyfen.net/][Andrew Louis]] at a park the other day. That
conversation reminded me that there are lots of
wonderful people who don't blog nearly as often as
I do (and even I don't write as often as I'd
like), so spending time with them (either
one-or-one or as part of larger conversations) is
the main way to find out about the cool things
they've been up to, enjoy that feeling of "I'm
glad you exist," and perhaps develop friendships
further. Someday, maybe. In the meantime, I like
[[https://emacsconf.org][EmacsConf]], I occasionally join online meetups, and
I've dusted off my feed reader and filled it with
people whom I also appreciate.
All my gaming time has shifted over to Minecraft
because that's what A+ and W- play. I like playing
with them. It's a fun way to spend time together
and explore different situations.
I probably won't take up Latin or Japanese again
for now. I enjoyed feeling my brain get the hang
of something new. At the moment, my brain seems to
want to get that from piano practice, so that's
fine.
I'd like to [[https://sachachua.com/blog/category/sewing/][sew more]]. A+ wants more skirts,
skorts, and dresses, and she doesn't often find
clothes to her liking in the stores. She likes it
when I wear a matching skirt, too. If I'm working
with stretchy fabric, that means using the serger
at home. If I'm working with wovens, I can bring
the project to the playground for something
tangible to work on while the kids play. At home,
it tends to feel like a choice between coding,
writing, cooking, tidying, or sewing, and I don't
pick sewing very often. At the park, sewing gives
me something to do while I listen to other
grown-ups chat.
I like what I've shifted my time towards: more
time outside, time with family, biking and walking
(especially awesome when we're out biking as a
family!), more gardening, more writing, more
drawing. It's okay that other things moved lower
on my list.
** How much time does it take to track and analyze time?
:PROPERTIES:
:CUSTOM_ID: looking-at-my-time-data-from-2012-to-2025-how-much-time-does-it-take-to-track-and-analyze-time
:END:
It doesn't take a lot of time to capture the data:
just a few seconds to tap into my most common
categories using my phone. I recently added some
Tasker tasks and Google Assistant routines so that
I can track common categories by voice ("Hey
Google, kitchen"), using face unlock to authorize
it in case my hands are full. I've written code to
automatically add time use tables to my weekly,
monthly, and annual reviews, so that's also
straightforward.
This particular analysis took me a couple of extra
hours spread over several days.
- I noticed some entries I wanted to clean up
(mostly when I didn't track when I slept), so
that took a little time.
- I wanted to tweak my graph visualization to make
it easier to visualize a whole year of data, so
I modified it to take up the full width instead
of a fixed width, changed the outline to a
slightly-transparent version of the category
colour, and recoloured the categories based on a
palette I picked up from somewhere. This meant I
needed to re-figure-out how to modify my
web-based tracker, as there were some gaps in my
notes.
- I wanted an Emacs Lisp way to visualize a single
day, which meant adding ~quantified-svg-day~ and other functions to [[quantified:lisp/quantified.el]].
Then I could define a named Org Babel block like this:
#+begin_src org :noweb yes
,#+NAME: day-graph
,#+begin_src emacs-lisp :exports results :var day="2012-04-25"
<