Now

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You can learn more about this idea here. It's basically what I'd tell someone I hadn't seen in awhile.

I think the best way to approach this is to describe how I spend my time. I try to bucket my time into 5 categories:

Here's what a typical day looks like for me.

0500  Health
0600
0700  Get ready
0800  Daughter to school
0900  Write
1000  Read
1100  Work
1200
1300
1400
1500
1600  Daughter from school
1700  Dinner
1800  Family
1900
2000  Read
2100
2200  Bed

Health

Most mornings I get up early and go for a bike ride – lately it's on a trainer in my garage in preparation for a trip to Tucson in late February. Trainer rides are always harder than outdoor rides, both mentally and physically, but I feel great afterwards.

Family

The walks to and from school are the bookends to my day. They're also some of my favorite parts of the day. I enjoy holding my daughter's hand. Chatting with her. Watching her walk into school. She exudes confidence and calmness that I don't remember feeling when I was her age.

Establishing an enduring, trusting relationship with her is my primary focus right now. Not that we didn't have a good one before, I just feel like she's starting to assert her agency, which means I'm better able to understand how she ticks. She can describe her thought process and articulate her opinions. I can challenge her a bit more. Present different perspectives. Maybe even change her mind, and help her realize that's a good thing to be able to do. And sometimes she does it to me! That's the best.

We all hang out after dinner most days. Sometimes my daughter wants to snuggle and "watch a sport" (usually hockey). Sometimes we'll play a game. Exploding Kittens is the recent favorite. And sometimes we'll all just sit and read.

Writing

I've journaled on and off for years, but have recently gotten away from it. I ended up feeling like shit pretty quickly, so I decided it was best to just block off time to do it. For now, I just journal for at least 30 minutes every day. I can certainly foresee devoting more time to it or doing some more formal writing that I share, but I'm not quite there yet.

Reading

I've always been a regular reader, but it comes in fits and starts. Like journaling, it's something I find helpful but drift away from. So I block off time for it.

Lately I've been reading two books at once – one fiction, one non-fiction. I don't give much thought to the fiction books I choose. Usually it's something someone recommended or just sitting around the house. I kind of like it that way.

I try to choose non-fiction based on what feels relevant to where I am in life. Recently that's been books about creation and purpose.

I do my best to keep my reading list updated.

Work

Client work. Preparing to show off a new modeling tool we've been building at a conference. Also a few things that I'm not ready to talk about publicaly yet.

I've been in a bit of a malaise around work the past few months. I think I'm coming out of it, but I also think I need to do something different. My current hypothesis is that I need to set aside time to just "play". Follow my curiousity and see what comes out without having any expectations. That can be challenging for me.