Tag Archives: free time

My 2024 Goals (or Things Already Might Need To Change A Bit)

Posted on January 3, 2024 | Comments Off on My 2024 Goals (or Things Already Might Need To Change A Bit)

Happy 2024! I hope everyone had an amazing New Year’s and the year has gotten off to a good start already. I had a pretty chill and low-key New Year’s (except for one thing) and that’s exactly how I like to do things. Before I went out to celebrate with friends, I set aside some time to work on my goals for 2024 and I came up with 4 that I really want to focus on for this year. But I might have to make a few modifications already.

My first goal for 2024 shouldn’t surprise anyone who has seen my goals over the past few years. I want to do at least 200 workouts this year. This is the same number I have had as my goal for a few years, and I don’t expect that I will ever change this since 4 workouts a week at Orangetheory feels right to me. I know I’ve had random weeks when I’ve done 5 workouts in a week, but I can’t imagine doing that regularly. I hope that I will do a few more than 200 this year, but this number allows me to have some missed classes if I get sick or something else prevents me from getting to a workout. But as long as I get to at least 200 workouts in 2024, I’ll be happy.

My second goal for 2024 might need to be changed. The original goal I had for myself was to find a way to save money so I could finally go on a vacation. I still want to see if I can accomplish this goal this year because it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a vacation. I think my trip to Catalina was my last vacation, which was awesome, but I’d love to get away from LA for a fun trip this year if possible. But on New Year’s Eve, my car was hit by a firework and has some pretty decent damage on the door. My car is drivable and the lock and door work, but it will need to be fixed. And I know that any work I do on my car will be pretty expensive. I’m going to work on getting some estimates soon and I’m going to look into whether I want to go through my insurance or not (going through insurance might end up being more expensive if my premiums go up after making a claim). But the amount that I was hoping to have for a vacation may have to go into fixing my car instead and a vacation might have to wait another year. I’ll just have to see how expensive the repair will be.

My next goal is a continuation of one from last year. I want to go as full force as possible with my acting career this year. I am starting the new year in a good place with a lot of things happening for my acting career. I have a new agent, I’m getting new headshots, I’ve re-edited my reel, and I’ve worked on updating my online casting pages. There are other things I haven’t had a chance to do or look into just yet, but I’ve made a lot of progress in the last month that will help to support things moving forward this year. I know that getting auditions and booking jobs aren’t fully in my control, but I’m doing whatever I can to make sure I’m ready for opportunities and I hope that I see some new progress in my career over the next 12 months.

My final goal for 2024 is another one that I feel like I’ve kind of done in the past, but it’s still important. I want to find the time to enjoy life. It’s so easy for me to wake up early, go to my workout, work my day job, make dinner, go to bed, and repeat. Week to week my schedule is pretty consistent, which isn’t a bad thing, but it also makes time go by without me realizing it at times. I want to enjoy my life as much as possible because that is the point of life. I do make plans with friends when I can, but I need to be more active in reaching out to friends and scheduling things. I have some days that are really difficult for me to do things after work, but that’s not every day. So I should take advantage of the evenings when I do have more flexibility and do things that aren’t just sitting at home and doing nothing.

I know these goals aren’t anything crazy or extreme, but I think they are good goals for me to focus on so that I can make the most of 2024. I still will have my monthly challenges that will push me to do more than just these goals throughout the year. But I think these main 4 goals are things that will really benefit my life in the long run. And I hope in a year, I will be reflecting on these goals and proud of what I have been able to do.

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Default ThumbnailMy 2016 Goals (or I’ve Got Some Big Ideas This Year) Default ThumbnailMy 2023 Goals (or Some New Goals and Some Repeats) Default Thumbnail2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals) Default ThumbnailMy 2021 Goals (or Preparing For A Year With Lots Of Unknowns) Default ThumbnailMy 2017 Goals (or I Know This Year Will Be Amazing!) Default ThumbnailWhat I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals)

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Saving

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Still Setting Myself Up For A Good Year (or Transitioning From One Monthly Challenge To Another)

Posted on January 5, 2023 | 1 comment

My monthly challenge last month was to do what I needed to do in order to have a good 2023. This involved several different things, but the main ones I focused on were around setting up my living space for success. This included going through my clothes to see what I could get rid of and going through my kitchen to take an inventory and make sure I don’t have anything expired.

I know this wasn’t too crazy of a monthly challenge, but I’m glad I did it because sometimes the simplest things are the things you seem to put off the most. I really needed to do these things and I’m happy I had a push to do them. Even though I went through a lot of my clothes when I moved, there were still so many things I didn’t need and were taking up space. Since I want to redo my closet and I’m looking for a new dresser, getting rid of things I don’t need will help me figure out how to set up my clothing storage. And going through the stuff in my kitchen was very helpful too. Since I’m trying to cook more, I really don’t want to think I have a spice in my cabinet only to discover when I’m about to use it that it’s expired. I know that not all expired spices are bad, but I don’t want to use something that could make the food I make taste off. I still have more that I want to go through in my kitchen since I know that I have other things that may have gone bad, but at least I got through the things I’m expecting to use more frequently.

After getting some things set up for the new year, I wanted to continue that trend with my monthly challenge for January. This is a variation of something I’ve done before, but my challenge this month is to create a good weekly schedule for myself to get certain things done. What this means to me is to create a schedule that will help me figure out when I should do certain weekly errands, what days might be best for different cleaning tasks, and what days are best to try to cook. I know that doing this will help me not only stay on top of the regular things I need to get done, but it will make it easier for me to find where I do have free time to do other things.

The only regular task I’m good about doing on a schedule is doing laundry. I used to do laundry every Sunday, but now I do it every Saturday. I rarely have to do laundry other times, but now that I have my own washer and dryer I do sometimes do non-clothing laundry on other days. But having that routine makes things easy since I don’t have to think too much about when I can set aside time to make sure I have clean clothes each week. But I want to feel that way about other things that need to be done regularly like vacuuming and mopping. I know for some things like cleaning my bathroom and dusting, need to be done more frequently so it might not be as easy to schedule.

And in the same way, knowing what days I have free time after work to cook will help me plan what to make and what groceries to get each week. I also like knowing when I’ll have leftovers so I have easy things to make for lunch or get ready for dinner. I don’t always plan out leftovers well when I have them, but this will almost be a way to do some meal planning with less effort. If I know I’m cooking on a Monday and will have 3 meals of leftovers, I will know when I need to cook again or when I might have to have something easy to make. I also can use this planning to start stocking up my freezer with leftovers again, which I haven’t done much since I moved. All of this will help me not feel like ordering food because I should have options available for me.

I’m not sure if there are other things I want to figure out for a weekly schedule, but I feel like these are good things to start with. And as this month goes on, I guess I’ll see how it goes and if it works out to do this idea with more in my life. The more that I can get into a routine where I don’t need to think too much about it, the better.

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Default ThumbnailFirst Monthly Challenge Of The Year (or Setting Up For The Year And Self-Improvement) Default ThumbnailAlmost Through A Year Of Monthly Challenges (or Picking A Good Challenge For November) Default ThumbnailA Failed Monthly Challenge (or I’m Possibly Going To Fail Again This Month) Default ThumbnailAn Isolation Monthly Challenge (or Just Trying To Keep Things Going) Default ThumbnailDecember Monthly Challenge (or Wrapping Up For The Year) Default ThumbnailTaking A Month To Reset (or This Doesn’t Really Feel Like A Monthly Challenge)

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Not Quite My Traditional Christmas (or Relaxing And Enjoying My Time Off)

Posted on December 27, 2022 | Comments Off on Not Quite My Traditional Christmas (or Relaxing And Enjoying My Time Off)

I rarely get a long break from work, but I was so lucky that I had almost 4 days off for Christmas. I only had to work in the afternoon for 2 hours on Friday, but I had all of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off. And going into the holiday weekend, I didn’t have many plans figured out. I knew I had work on Friday and I’d be going to a workout on Monday, but that’s all I really planned in advance. I didn’t want to make too many plans since I wanted to see how I felt about things, and I knew that if I wanted to do something at the last minute, I probably could figure something out.

It was nice to be able to sleep in later for those 4 days. I still don’t sleep in that late, but even getting the extra hour of sleep made a difference in how I felt. And I know more than ever that I need to work on my sleep schedule because I want to feel like this more often. And since I didn’t have to work until the afternoon on Friday, I enjoyed a nice lazy morning before logging in for work. Being able to do my routine things at a more leisurely pace was a nice change. And even though work was a bit stressful as the last shift before Christmas, it wasn’t too bad. And I think being more relaxed and rested helped me get through some of the craziness.

My normal plan for Christmas is to watch movies (either at home or going out to a movie theater) and ordering in Chinese food. But I had been invited to my friend Erin’s casual Christmas gathering, so I decided to order food on Saturday instead. Ordering on Christmas is usually really busy and crazy, so ordering a day early made it a lot easier to get food. And I still had leftovers so I had some to eat on Christmas Day as well.

On Christmas Day, I went over for a late lunch at Erin’s place. It was a very low-key and relaxed gathering and there weren’t too many people there. It also didn’t feel like a Christmas thing, so it wasn’t as awkward that I don’t celebrate Christmas. It was more like just a regular party where everyone was just enjoying being together and being social. And she made some really great food like lasagna and cheesecake, which was an awesome lunch!

After lunch was done, I went back home and watched some movies on Netflix, so I did still have a little bit of my normal Christmas. But it was a nice change to be around others instead of spending the day alone like I normally do.

And on Monday, I had to work on getting back to a bit of my normal routine so Tuesday wouldn’t be too much of a shock for me after several days of no schedule and nothing needing to be done. I did a lot of things that I usually do on Sundays like getting my house clean and figuring out what I need to plan for during the week. I still had a lot of free time to relax and I spent that time reading since I had downloaded a bunch of books from Kindle Unlimited over the weekend. I think Monday felt the most like a normal weekend day for me, which was probably a good thing.

I do have another odd week coming. The rest of my work week this week is normal since Friday isn’t a holiday and Saturday is a half day at the other job, but Saturdays are already half days so that’s what I’m used to. But I’ll get another Monday off in a week so I’ll have another opportunity to relax before I really have to get back to my normal routine and being busy at work.

But before I get to that craziness, I’m glad I had these past few days to get ready and I’m so happy that I got to mix a bit of my old Christmas tradition with a new plan to have a really amazing holiday weekend.

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Still Trying To Find Free Time (or Not Having Time Or Energy To Do Things I Want)

Posted on August 19, 2022 | Comments Off on Still Trying To Find Free Time (or Not Having Time Or Energy To Do Things I Want)

I know that everyone has struggles with time management and finding free time. But for a while, I was doing ok with figuring out my schedule because my work hours weren’t normal business hours. When I was done with work at 3pm, even though sometimes I was too tired to do much after work, I had a lot more time to add things to my schedule. Even with working on Saturdays, I knew I always had Sundays and Mondays free as well as every afternoon. And I often would plan things on Mondays since I was always free then and I didn’t have to worry about anything else that might come up that day.

But now, I’m working longer hours and I have more work days. My only day each week without work is Sundays. This has been this way for about a year now, but I’m still getting adjusted to it. And it is surprising that being done with work only 2 or 3 hours later makes such a huge difference. When I’m done with work, the afternoon is over. And I do have things as soon as work is done either 2 or 3 days a week. So my weeknights aren’t that free until sometimes after 7pm. And if I have gotten up before 6 in the morning to work out and then am not done until after 7 in the evening, I really have no energy to do anything else that day.

I have wanted to have more fun things in my life. I want to feel like I have the time to make plans or see friends. And I want to look into acting classes again. But because of my full schedule, I am really struggling to find when I can add those things in. And when I do have the time to add them in, I don’t have the energy. I know I need to have energy if I want to get back into acting classes. If I’m going to spend money on a class, I want to take full advantage of it.

I know that part of me not having energy is because I’m not getting enough sleep. But getting enough sleep also would limit my free time after work. If I was making sure I was in bed by 10pm, I couldn’t be in a class that was from 7-10pm like so many are. As much as I would like to sleep in a little later, if I did my workouts after work then there goes any free time I might have. In some ways, this feels like a no-win situation.

But I know that’s not true. There are ways to work this out and figure out how to add in more time so that I can do what I want. But I just have to be much more careful with when I have things scheduled. I might have to decide to not keep all the obligations that I have right now. I don’t know what I would drop or stop doing, so I haven’t tried to do that yet. Maybe I just want to do too much. I don’t know.

I know that I’ve had time management issues plenty of times in the past. I do always work it out eventually, but while I’m in the middle of it, it can feel like there are no solutions. And I should be grateful that even if I’m working more hours than I would like, I am working and I’m in a better work situation than I have been in before. But life is always a balance so when I’m doing better with work, I might not be doing as well with other things in my life. So I just need to work on that balance some more and hopefully I will come up with a good solution for myself soon.

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Wondering How To Complete Some Goals (or I Have An Idea But Not A Plan)

Posted on January 10, 2019 | Comments Off on Wondering How To Complete Some Goals (or I Have An Idea But Not A Plan)

Because there were so many goals in 2018 that I didn’t complete, I am working hard this year to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I always set my goals with the expectation that I will be able to complete or accomplish them. Sometimes they don’t seem that hard for me to do, but I’ve realized that is also my downfall. When I assume that I will be able to complete a goal without too much work, I can slack off on doing that. I’ve seen that happen a lot recently and I don’t want to continue that bad habit.

I think this all started when I started to do more abstract goals and challenges. When I don’t have a way to track and measure, I can tell myself that I am doing the right things even if I’m not. That’s why budgeting and tracking food and weight is important. I don’t want to ignore the signs that things are going the wrong direction. I will admit, I haven’t been great in budgeting and food tracking lately either. Budgeting is a weird one since I know that I am not making enough to support my lifestyle. I don’t need to get a bunch of alerts and red numbers telling me I’m over budgeting for my rent when I can’t reduce it. But as soon as I find a new job, I will be back on it since I know I need to.

One of my goals for this year is to use my free time in a more productive manner.  In a perfect world, a lot of my current free time would be getting used by a new job. Unfortunately the job hunting isn’t going as well as I hoped it would be and I’m still looking for a new one. I guess the job hunting could be considered a productive use of my free time, but because I was getting so burnt out from looking I’ve had to limit my job search time to 4 hours a day. I know that probably seems like a lot, but I need a job now and for some reason I’m struggling to find one.

I’ve also been doing online class stuff during my free time, but that’s not taking up as much time as I have. I’m trying to limit how much time I’m doing mindless things online or watching tv or movies, but sometimes I just don’t know what else to do with that free time. My biggest issue is while I’m working because I have to be on my computer then. I can’t go out and do things and I can’t really be doing things in different parts of my house. Even though my house is tiny, I can’t be in my kitchen cooking if my phone rings or a customer reaches out via online chat. I’m stuck at my desk and looking at a computer.

I have added a few educational apps to my phone like the New York Times crossword and I’ve gotten pretty good at it! But each of these little things I’m adding just doesn’t seem like what I need to have in mind when I’m thinking about spending my free time more productively. I’m honestly opening it up to suggestions because I don’t know where to start or what to consider.

I think realizing that one of my goals this year doesn’t really have a plan yet is a good thing. I’d rather realize it now instead of 6 months later and figure out that I have been wasting the time that I have. And with many things in my life, being hyperaware that there is something I want to fix is always a good thing and is very useful to me in making changes. I’ve been considering trying to track how I spend my free time, and I know there are apps I can use for that on my computer, but I’m not sure if that’s the right move for now. I really just want to figure out a plan for how I can change things and make them better before I try to see what my current screen time usage is like. Hopefully when I have that plan, my screen time during work will be limited to just my work stuff and perhaps whatever productive things I find to do between customers if they are things I do on my computer.

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Just Trucking Along (or Enjoying Like Being Normal And Boring)

Posted on August 24, 2018 | 1 comment

In the past, when my life has gotten boring I have written about how I need things to make like interesting again. I feel like I need to schedule more fun in my life and then after I do that I end up feeling overwhelmed and over-scheduled. Then I need to focus back on myself and get things to calm down and the cycle between being bored and being overwhelmed continues. This keeps going and every time it happens I write about how I need to find a happy medium.

I don’t know if I have found the happy medium in my life, but lately things have been a bit boring and I’m so happy with that. I have been doing lots of fun things when I can, but then I have a lot of time where I don’t have anything planned. For example, this week after work I haven’t made plans for anything. All I’ve been doing is laying low at home and relaxing. I’ve read a lot and caught up a bit on Netflix and it’s been making me really happy. It’s not that I have been avoiding plans, but I haven’t been that active in making plans either. If someone invites me to something I would go, but I’m not going out of my way to try to make more plans in my life.

It’s also the tail end of the slow season for one of my day jobs. The slow season can make time drag on a bit during a shift because sometimes I only help 1 customer in 7 hours and I just stare at my computer to see if there will be another computer. But I’ve been enjoying the lack of work with that job. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts during work and when I’m caught up on those I’ve been going down random YouTube rabbit holes. I’ve watched some very odd things online lately, but I’ve been entertained by them and it helps the work day go by faster.

When the busy season starts again I won’t have as much time to goof off between customers, but that’s fine since I was hired to do a job and not to just sit at my computer and stare at it. But I also may be getting more hours at my other day job when I sign my new contract soon which will also help to keep me busy between customers. And having more hours at that job will be amazing because that also means I will have more money coming in. I would love to spend that money on fun things, but I have gotten behind in paying off my credit card and really want to get that back on track. So the extra money will go toward that so hopefully I can reach my debt goal I had set for this year. It’s going to be tough to do that, but if I get the hours my boss is hoping they will be able to offer me, it may be possible.

Even with things being a bit boring right now, I’m really appreciating that time. I think I needed the lack of plans in my life to just get back to me and I am grateful that I had that opportunity. I have written about how I was feeling a bit off and low lately and I’m finally starting to feel much more like myself and ready to handle whatever comes up for me next. I want to feel reinvigorated and while I’m not quite there I know I’m getting close. And I think feeling that way will help me when I’m feeling very overwhelmed when it’s the busy season for work, I have more hours at my other job, and my free time is over-scheduled.

I was telling a friend of mine about this the other day and she said that being happy when things are boring is something that comes with age. And I do agree that it’s possible that I’ve grown into feeling ok with this. But I also think in a way it was like exposure therapy because I have had to deal with this so many times over and over. And I finally have learned from it and can take those lessons and apply it to when it’s happening instead of wishing for it after the fact.

Of course knowing my life, I’m writing this now and in a week or two I will either be upset by the lack of fun in my life or I will be so overwhelmed and missing this time and trying to figure out how I can get back to it.

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Remembering To Do What I Like (or Weird Disappearing Time)

Posted on March 28, 2018 | Comments Off on Remembering To Do What I Like (or Weird Disappearing Time)

I’ve written about being over-scheduled in the past, and this is kind of the same idea. But at the same time it’s different and it’s weird. But somehow it feels like my time is disappearing from me. And with that disappearing time, I also feel like I’m not doing as many of the things that make me happy each day when I know there is time to do them.

I seem to be losing my Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Those used to be my workout times, but lately I’ve been working out in the mornings and those afternoons are free. But somehow that time it going by without me realizing it and I’m losing that time. I need to be a bit more intentional with how I schedule my time so that I don’t end up sitting at my computer going down a YouTube or Buzzfeed rabbit hole after work and wasting those hours. I’ve had weekend days like that as well when I get up at 7am and then all of a sudden it’s 7pm and I have no clue how I spent my day.

And part of the disappearing time is realizing now that my routine is a bit different that I don’t have the same time to kill that I did before. When I was driving to the Brentwood Orangetheory location after work twice a week, I had so much time in my car. I spent about 30 minutes in my car driving there and driving home would take between 1-2 hours (I know that sounds crazy, but since I work from home I figured this was my commute). During that time in the car, I would listen to podcasts. I usually would get through at least 1 podcast each time I drove to my workout.

But now that I’m not going to that location when the drive would take that long (going on Mondays is a pretty fast drive), I don’t have that time that I’m listening to my podcasts. And that wouldn’t be a problem for that many people, but since I listen to over 50 podcasts they were starting to pile up! I’m not using those afternoons to listen to podcasts while I’m home, so that time to listen has gone away. So I’ve had to make more of an effort to listen to podcasts since the time that I used to listen to them wasn’t really there anymore. So now I’m trying to spend my time during work between customers listening to the backlog and I’m finally starting to get close to being up to date on them again.

I know that everyone has this problem and seems to lose track of time, but because I’m really trying to be more mindful of so much in my life I want to work on making this not happen as often. There will always been random days every so often where the day will be wasted watching lots of random things on Netflix. But I want those to be rare and not happening as often as they have been recently. The example of losing my afternoons and then also losing podcast listening time shows exactly what is happening. I’m losing that time, but I’m also losing the time that I used to spend doing something that makes me happy.

I love listening to my podcasts and I need to dedicate time to listen to them. In the same sense, I need to make sure I dedicate time to doing other things I enjoy. I do read pretty much every evening before going to bed, but I should make an effort to read more often. Reading before bed is only for a little bit of time because then I fall asleep. But I get so much pleasure out of reading and I should be doing it more throughout the day.

Scheduling fun things doesn’t necessarily sound like the most exciting thing, but I really do need to work on it. I think scheduling it helps me find the balance between being over-scheduled and under-scheduled and helps me plan where I have empty time in my schedule that I might want to fill with something else. While there is always time I want to use to watch TV, I don’t want to spend an entire day just watching junk. I’m working on only watching shows that I have recorded so that I limit how much TV I’m watching and I also can stop mid-way through a show if necessary (I do make an exception to this for news).

I’ve also realized lately that I haven’t been doing as many things from my happiness checklist as I was doing before. I’ve thought about maybe changing some of the things on the list, but all 10 of the things still are things that make me so happy when I do them. And I haven’t thought of something else that makes me just as happy or happier to replace them with. So instead of changing them (which is what I’ve done in the past), I am just trying to be more intentional and trying to make the effort to add them back into my schedule. I probably need to set some reminders on my phone or add them to my calendar so I don’t forget, but having reminders isn’t a bad thing.

Hopefully the combination of realizing I’m losing time to doing nothing and I’m not doing as many things that make me happy as I should that I can start planning better and that will just make me feel happier and not that I’m wasting time in lots of aspects of my life.

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Working On Productivity (or Taking Advantage Of The Slow Season)

Posted on March 14, 2018 | Comments Off on Working On Productivity (or Taking Advantage Of The Slow Season)

It’s been the slow season for one of my day jobs for about a month now. Things are crazy from Halloween until Valentine’s Day, pick back up in May through the summer, and then are slow again in September. It’s nice to have a slow season because during the busy season we can be talking to a customer on the phone and have 3 on chat and still have more customers trying to reach us. So when we have downtime, I think we all relax a bit and get things back in order.

I’ll admit that I’m not the best about what I do with my time during work during the slow season. I have to be sitting in front of my computer waiting to see if a call or customer chat comes in, but I’m usually on some website looking up random things or watching videos online. It’s not the best way to spend my time, but sometimes that’s what helps me get through a very slow day. When you are stuck at a computer for 7 hours and you only end up working with a customer for 3 minutes (which happened to me the other day), you kind of need something to help keep you sane.

For a while, I was using the time to watch the Olympics or catch up on things that were on my DVR (my shows piled up in there after being gone for a few days). Mindless entertainment is fine (and I’ll still probably end up using my time to catch up on TV occasionally), but it’s not what I should be doing. I’m using it as a distraction and not as something productive to do in the free time that I’m lucky enough to have.

I’m also lucky that even though I’m working from home I don’t feel isolated. But in reality, I am isolated because I’m just stuck behind a computer without any real human interaction. I do use our messaging system to talk with my co-workers and I talk to customers on the phone, but it’s not the same as going into an office. So if I can figure out how to be more productive during my work downtime, maybe I’ll find more time in my schedule to be social when I’m done with work. I shouldn’t have to be stuck behind a computer after my work shift is done and I’m trying to work on staying off my computer if possible (even for fun things) when I log out of my work shift. I’ve been getting better at doing that, but I know there’s a lot of improvement I could make in that aspect of my life.

I really want to get out of the pattern of just getting through my time at work during the slow time and not really knowing what I did with my time when I’m done. I do have my other job I work between customers, but that job had to significantly cut back my hours so I’m only doing that a few hours a week. And I was thinking about spending the downtime looking at other job options because I do need to start making more money, but I honestly don’t know when I could work since most jobs wouldn’t allow me to work between customers at a job (I’m so lucky my other job lets me do that). I’m also hopeful that I will be getting more hours at my other job so that will make it so I don’t need to find something else.

So I’ve been trying to figure out what I can do while stuck at my computer that is productive but not something that requires so much focus that I couldn’t put it down when I do have customers. So far, I’ve been doing a lot of reading books and news online. I’ve been listening to the backlog of podcasts I’ve got on my phone. And I’ve been doing some of my educational apps on my phone (although that only takes maybe 20 minutes to get through). There are other things I wish I could do during my downtime, but if it requires me to be away from my computer (like cooking so I have more home-cooked meals), I can’t really do it. Work still needs to be my priority, but there’s still so much time that I can devote to something else awesome.

I’d really love some suggestions on ideas of what I could do while I’m waiting for a customer to need help. I know that the slow season will be over before I know it and I’ll be missing all this downtime, but I still want to make sure I use this downtime well and take advantage of the opportunity I have. I know there are better ways I could be spending my time even if I am stuck at my desk, but I just don’t know what they are yet.

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What To Do? (or Day 1 of Unemployment)

Posted on March 1, 2013 | Comments Off on What To Do? (or Day 1 of Unemployment)

Today is the first day of my unemployment. It doesn’t feel like I’m unemployed, and I have no idea if it will ever feel that way.

I’ve got a busy day planned for myself. I’ve already filed my unemployment paperwork online (much better than the last time when I had to mail it in) so now I just have to wait to make sure I’m approved.

I need to go to the school district I sub for and get a parking pass and make sure I don’t need to do a new TB test before they let me sub.

I need to get my car fixed (oil change, tire rotation, new wiper blade, brake light is out), which has needed to be done for a while. But since most shops aren’t open on Sundays, I’ve been putting it off because I didn’t want to have to take a day off to do it.

I have plans with a friend tonight to go to happy hour and catch up.

And I want to get a workout in (although probably not a spin class since my favorite teacher isn’t teaching until tomorrow).

The plan has always been to keep myself busy during unemployment, and based on my schedule for the first day, I think I’m doing ok so far. This weekend, I’m going to print out the calendars for Women in Film, SAG Foundation, and The Actor’s Network and pick out all the lectures/speakers that I want to go to next month. I’m so overwhelmed by all my options, but I’m pretty excited too.

Most of all, I want to spend this time focusing on me. I’m not where I’d like to be in my life, and I need to work on taking the steps to get there. And there is no better time to focus on yourself than when you don’t have to go to work 6 days a week every week!

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Scheduling Without A Schedule (or Hoping To Make The Most of My Unemployment)

Posted on February 22, 2013 | 3 comments

Less than a week to go before my unemployment starts. I’m preparing to get to do some really fun things while I’m not working 6 days a week like go to San Diego to visit my grandparents, take advantage of my Disneyland pass, and of course focus on my acting career as much of the day as possible.

But I really want to make sure I keep a schedule even on days where I have nothing planned. Right now, I get up at the same time 7 days a week (that’s supposed to be good for your sleep) and I know that if I’m not doing something by a certain time I’ll be running late. I know when I wash my hair before work, if I don’t start to blow dry it by 10:30 I won’t have enough time to do everything I want to do before leaving for work.

Having that sort of schedule really helps to keep my day moving. I don’t have time to sit on my butt and read or watch tv as long as I’d like. And I don’t want to be doing that while I’m unemployed either. I need to maximize those hours of the day.

I’m not exactly sure how I will do this, so I’m open to suggestions. I know that I’ll keep my alarm schedule the same so I won’t be sleeping away the day. I’m trying to plan at least 1 time sensitive activity every day that I’m unemployed. It might be something like going to Disneyland, seeing a speaker at The Actors’ Network or Women in Film, or even just meeting a friend for lunch or dinner.

That way, I’ll have something to use as a finish line so I can work backwards and schedule all the other things I want to do (like maybe take more than 1 class a week at SoulCycle).

I’m also looking into seeing if I can get some writing jobs. I’m currently contributing to The Pet Matchmaker (it doesn’t pay but it’s great experience), and I’ve just found another blog that I want to be a contributor for as well. Maybe I can find a way to get some paid writing gigs and I could use that money to help pay down my credit card debit.

Anything is possible, I just have to make sure I don’t get lazy with all the free time.

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