Eight to Five
So, 2007 was weird. After starting it off pickled, I spent the whole year in crunch time, compounded by a time-consuming happy puppy (who was supposed to be a post-thesis prize), then burnt-out and effectively took a year to do what I wanted to have finished by September. My time was very unstructured, since I only really had 1 responsibility (thesis) and one time commitment (meeting with my supervisor).
Now, it’s time to shed the student lifestyle. Em has a job, I’m not a pickle, Olive needs to pee before 7:30am, I want to spend my evenings with my little family. It’s time for an 8-5 kind of Rob. At first this seemed like a pain (in execution, not conceptually). I’m still not doing it perfectly 100%, but I’m that as I am slowly wrought into 8-5, I’m feeling strangely better about everything, and confident it will continue to improve. No school after 5 except for the occasional, inevitable, crunch time. These should be dodged most of the time with a little calendar loving and time management.
Anyway, this 8-5 vibe is nice because it is good practice for the rest of my life. My wise and married friend Joel put it excellently when he was in town. In a discussion about work, family, and priorities he said it was most important what your kid thought of you (to simplify and paraphrase). An indicator of a healthy separation of work and life is what your kid says when asked to describe his dad. And that’s totally true. I don’t want bébé Rob to say “My dad is a bad-ass researcher who writes killer apps”, I want him to say “He can’t defeat his 4 year old at Carcassonne, agility-trains our 3 schnoodles with me, and makes sawdust in the garage”.
I also like to whine to myself that this means I don’t have time to do my creative stuff I enjoy. But really, I’ve always gotten in my own way of doing that. If I browse the web for half an hour, that’s me wasting my own time. I could doodle something in 30 minutes. I like to think that with a stricter schedule, I’ll appreciate time consumption more, and over all I’ll come out on top.