Mondays were almost always the busiest day of the week for me. I was out the door by 6:30 so that I could be on one of my campuses by 8:00. It didn’t matter if it was BGSU for class or TU for my internship the day started off with a 90 minute drive. I would spend the day in class, working, in meetings, all of the stuff a ‘typical’ grad student would be doing. By 4:30 (hopefully) or 5:00 (panic!) I was back on the road for a 90 minute drive home. If I had left by 4:30 and there wasn’t much traffic I would have time to run into the house, change my clothes, and grab some food before loading The Girl into the car for the 45 minute drive to ONU for her flute lesson. Depending on my mood I would spend the hour in the car studying (okay, and occasionally napping!) or across the street at the coffee shop studying. By 8:00 we were back in the car for the drive home, pulling into the driveway just before 9:00. By that time I had been on the go for 16 hours and was near collapse.

As you can imagine being a student, employee, parent, spouse, and friend combined with over 20 hours a week in commuting made for a pretty packed calendar. I’m also a person who requires a full 8 hours of sleep per night, so on an average day I would have about 5 hours to devote to studying, writing, extra-curricular activities, house work (which my family did a LOT of), parenting (sorry kids), and any other crisis that may arise (and there were a few).

And then BAM! Graduation and six weeks of looking for work. I’m lucky it was only six weeks because I was indeed going stir crazy by the end of the second week.

Now Mondays are different. The Girl can drive herself to flute lessons. (Thankfully!) I am out the door at 7 and home by 6. There isn’t any homework, or reading, or papers. I’ve spent the past five months making lists of goals and things I want to accomplish. Things like get my Ph.D., get published, get involved. In other words I was looking for ways to fill-up that schedule again. Having worked full-time for a majority of my undergraduate years (all 12 of them, thank you transfer credits) and then being part of an excellent and intensive graduate program for two years I don’t think I remember anything but that constant go-achieve-do-more type of schedule. The closest thing I could think of to relaxing for any length of time was the 8 weeks I was trapped at home with a broken leg.

So, in my new quest to fill time I started working with Sean Cook who is a great Higher Education Life Coach. I was looking to Sean to help me find some direction for all of this time I have on my hands. Several sessions with Sean have yielded great results in achieving some of my goals and putting myself on the path to achieve others. And achieving goals is what I’m all about! (well, except for that weight loss goal..but lets not talk about that right now)

During one of our early sessions Sean and I were talking about graduate school and schedules and he said something to the effect of ’sometimes you need to give yourself permission to relax’. Of course I *knew* that, but hearing him say it made a difference. Not only did I need to give myself permission to relax, but I needed to remember some of the promises I had made to my family about ‘when I finish school’. It was time to do my least favorite grad school practice – self-reflection! Nooooo!!!

So I reflected, and fretted, and reflected and decided that I do need to try something new. But not the formal add more to my schedule type of new. I need to learn that it is okay to not have a full calendar. So now instead of reading time management and productivity blogs (well, I still read them!) I’m taking closer looks at posts like these: 10 Reasons why lag is an advantage and Doing Less.
Wish me luck that I can keep my lack of focus through the new year! I think my family enjoys having me around working on jewelry, reading a novel, or working on my cross-stitch while watching television!

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