Monthly Archives: June 2021

A Working Memorial Day (or Just Having A Regular Monday)

Posted on June 2, 2021 | Comments Off on A Working Memorial Day (or Just Having A Regular Monday)

Last year, for Memorial Day, I had a virtual hangout with my friends. That was one of the first big virtual hangouts I had with my friends last year and I remember us thinking that we would hopefully be together by Halloween last year. It was also one of the first big traditions that I missed having since I usually am spending the day with my friends and enjoying a fun BBQ. But last year, we all understood why we couldn’t be together and I am still grateful that everyone in my friend group has been able to stay safe.

This year, I know some people were able to get together and the guidelines do say that vaccinated people can be together. But my friends and I have all been very cautious about things and I knew that we weren’t going to have a hangout this year. But that was ok with me since I had to work on what is a day off for so many people.

When I was only working my box office job, having Mondays off was a normal way of life. I never worked on Mondays so having a holiday on a Monday just felt normal to me. But now, I do work my other customer service job Monday-Friday (between all my jobs, I’m working Monday-Saturday with occasional Sundays). So having a Monday holiday would usually mean a day off. But at my customer service job, we also rotate who does holiday coverage.

Working on a holiday does mean extra pay, so that’s nice. And it’s only one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. And I didn’t have to stress too much about getting all the work done because holiday work means that you look for the most urgent issues. There would likely be a lot of customers that I could wait to do until we reopened on Tuesday, but I also had the option to do some of the other work if I had the time. This was my first time doing the holiday work, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

And I’m glad that I did it because I was able to get a lot of work done that I would not necessarily have had time to do on Tuesday. I did have some slightly urgent client issues that I immediately handled first when I logged in for the morning, but I was able to do other work to fill the rest of that hour. Then I had several hours where I could relax if I wanted to. And I spent that time getting a few things done around my house and reading before I had to log in for the evening. And somehow, I managed to almost complete all the work before I had to log out. I know that saved me at least 2 hours on Tuesday, and when I was working on Tuesday I had a lot more work to get done. So I never would have completed everything from the weekend in a single day. It was nice to have a day to get myself caught up and ready for the week.

And honestly, it was fine working on a holiday. Maybe I would have been a bit more upset if there was going to be an in-person hangout and I was going to miss my first chance to see my friends in person in over a year. And if there had been something planned, I’m sure I would have been able to figure something out so I didn’t miss out on it completely. But I’m glad that I didn’t have to add that stress into my day. And even though I had a working holiday day off, I was still able to relax a bit and enjoy my free time.

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Default ThumbnailThe Longest Week (or Having A Regular Work Week Again) Default ThumbnailLow Key Labor Day (or Just A Regular Weekend) Default ThumbnailMemorial Day Weekend (or Not Really Doing Much) Default ThumbnailWorking On A Work/Life Balance (or Almost Repeating A Recent Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailJust A Simple Dinner Out (or A Union Working Hangout) Default ThumbnailProductive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time)

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A Failed Monthly Challenge (or I’m Possibly Going To Fail Again This Month)

Posted on June 1, 2021 | Comments Off on A Failed Monthly Challenge (or I’m Possibly Going To Fail Again This Month)

I hate when I fail my monthly challenges. I try to set them up to be things I can be successful at as well as things that I want to do. I always feel so accomplished when I end a month and see what I’ve been able to do. And so many of these monthly challenges are things that I still keep up with every day. I love that I have created so many positive and productive habits. And I always hope that whatever my next challenge will be that I have the same outcome.

But that wasn’t the case for this past month. Honestly, this may have been the biggest failure of a monthly challenge for me. I challenged myself to try to work on creating some weekly meal plans that I could have ready to go. A weekly meal plan seems easier to me than figuring out each day one by one to be ready for a week. And while having a meal plan still feels like a bit of a reach for me to be able to do, having a plan is the first step to making it happen. So even if I only planned out a good weekly meal plan but never used it, I would have considered that a win with this challenge.

I didn’t even get started with planning last month. Some of this was due to being busy with other things, but I can’t use that as an excuse. I could have found the time to do this if I really wanted to. But I never had the motivation to do it. I know that this would be something good for me, but I just didn’t want to. And this is the ongoing struggle I’ve had with being better at cooking at home. I don’t like to meal plan. I don’t seem to always feel motivated to cook. I don’t know what it will take to make this click for me, but I really want to be hopeful that something will. And I just have to keep trying until I figure it out. And I guess this idea wasn’t the right thing for me at this time. I’ll keep the idea in case I do find the motivation to do it, but I guess this past month made me realize while I loved the idea it wasn’t right.

And while I would love to have a monthly challenge this month that I know I will be able to be successful at to redeem myself from last month, I’m not going easy on myself. I picked another challenge that I have been putting off and I know there is a high risk of me having another big failure at doing. My challenge this month is to reorganize my desk and filing system.

This might not sound like a big deal, but my desk has become a catch-all place in my house. If I have paperwork I need to save for taxes, it gets dumped on my desk. Eventually, I’ll put it in the file folder I have for taxes, but there is almost always a huge pile of paperwork on my desk. And if there is something I want to put into my filing cabinet, all my file folders have labels for things that I don’t need or use so I don’t know where to file them.

I’ve been putting off organizing my desk for a long time. I know I need to do this, but I was always finding excuses why I shouldn’t. When I wasn’t sure what my job situation would be, I was putting it off because I wanted to make sure I was creating files that would be right for my new job (even though I knew almost every job I have is mostly digital files and I wouldn’t need to file things away). I’ve held onto things that I know I do not need or use, like information from when I was a substitute teacher.

And because I spend so many hours of my day at my desk, I want the space to be much more functional and not feel cluttered and hectic. And the only way to accomplish this is to do a big cleaning and organizing mission. And I also know that to do this, things will have to look messier for a while. I need to pretty much clear everything out of my desk and sort through them before seeing how to put things back. And maybe because things have to get worse before they get better, I’ve been putting this off every time I tell myself I need to do it.

I do hope that this month, I follow through with this. I know I might keep putting it off and fail again, but I have to set it as a challenge because I need to try. And maybe I’ll surprise myself and this won’t be as bad as I think it might be. And in a month, I might be writing about how I was overreacting about this challenge and it wasn’t that hard to get done.

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