When To Ditch Your To Do List

My expectation of what I can get done in a day is unrealistic, and yet that doesn't stop me from continuing to add to my never ending 'To Do' list. My husband has been telling me for years, "normal people relax at some point." He isn't being mean. It's clear he thinks my behavior is abnormal in a good I like to push myself kind of way.  Still, he's right, there's no way I can possibly accomplish everything I want to get done in a day. That doesn't keep me from trying. 

I'm a list maker. I always have been. Probably because I'm a visual learner, it's easier for me to organize/keep track of all the different areas of my life if I can see them. I currently have 3 different to do lists on my computer right now. 1 for work projects, 1 for home/household stuff and 1 that I call my Master To Do List - which is a catch all for everything I need to do. At the top of the page is my daily log that I add to and delete as needed. Whenever I finish a task or realize something needs to get done that day it moves up to the daily slot. On my master list I have different colored categories for various things like work, events, kids, organizing, health, garden, to read, to watch etc. Why, you might ask, don't I use a calendar for all this? I do. I have one on my computer that I sync to my iPad and it's amazing. Using my lists and my calendar keeps me in a very productive space.

But there are days - sometime weeks - when I just have to ditch it all - chuck the never ending to do list - and play everything by ear. The past couple of weeks are a great example. H has been sick, sick, sick - out of school for almost 2 weeks. 1st it was the hip - synovitis - see http://andthencamehenry.blogspot.com/2012/02/star-wars-vs-me-time.html (he preferred to call it synovirus - cutie), then it was the stomach flu. Now my husband has it. Not the stomach flu, but a flu that has wracked his body with so much pain he's been flat on his back for 3 full days. Add to that two different sets of dear old, wonder friends visiting from out of town. Trips planned well before any of these illnesses were ever on the horizon. At one point last week we had 5 extra people living with us. No complaints. We love our friends and even with sick people around, we much prefer they stay with us when visiting rather than bunk at a hotel or with other friends across town in West Hollywood or God forbid as far east as Echo Park where we would never see them.

I guess the point of all this is that I've learned when there's no time to cross reference a list - when you're caring for a sick household, entertaining friends and basically on call 24/7 - you just have to do the essentials (by all means get your work done) and know that you'll get back to the other things on your lists at some point. And, in the meantime, try to catch whatever free moments you have to take a deep breath and relax. Yes, that's what ditching a to do list can do for you. For me anyway. It has forced me to take breaks to do nothing. It's a valuable lesson and something I need to remind myself to do more often.

I Have SelfControl

If you’re like me, mindless Internet surfing – checking my email and social media sites – has become something of an habitual behavior. 

Who am I kidding? It’s not “something of—” It is. 

ha·bit·u·al adjective \həˈbiCHo͞oəl\ Done as a habit. 

hab·it noun \ˈha-bət\ An acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.

Yes, I freely admit it. I have an Internet addiction. There, now that I’ve outed myself to whomever you are reading this, I feel much better. 

But my addiction is not really that bad. It’s certainly not nearly as all encompassing as Kord Campbell’s, the dude featured in the NY Times article I read yesterday: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?src=tp&smid=fb-share

Kord is truly an addict – no offense intended – but this guy makes my puny Internet addiction look irrelevant by comparison.  You see my addiction (now that I’ve let the cat out of the bag I can’t seem to stop saying it) doesn’t involve games or an iPhone. I don’t even own an iPhone for precisely the same reason I don’t have an Internet plan on my iPad, because I don’t want to be held hostage to an electronic device.  

For as long as I can remember I have been obsessed with productivity. Even as a child I was aware of the passage of time and the feeling like there just weren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things I wanted to. Maybe because I wanted to be a dancer, and as everyone knows a professional dancer’s career is fleeting – if you want to be a one you have to start when you’re young. In any case, this sensation of the importance of utilizing my time efficiently has only increased with age. Magnify it with the scheduling complications that adding a spouse and children to your life brings and what was once a mild obsession becomes even greater. 

Enter the Internet. A wonderful tool for work – I use it constantly for research – and an even more wonderful way to stay in touch with family and friends – yet an insidious time suck that threatens to take away the precious moments of not only my life but the memories I have of my family and friends as well. Sounds dramatic I know, but if you really think about it, it’s true, isn’t it? I mean we can rationalize all we want about how great technology has made our lives – and don’t get me wrong it has – I am in love with internet streaming on my TV – but do I really want to remember my children’s childhood as the time I sat nosed into my glowing computer reading Huffington Post or, God forbid, Deadline.com?  

During one of my recent late night web surfs I decided to investigate how computer scientists deal with productivity. Don’t ask me why, I just had a hunch that the guy’s who are bringing us this wonderful technology might have some cool tips for us greenhorns. Well, I was right. I found a terrific site: Study Hacks – http://calnewport.com/blog/ created by Cal Newport a former MIT computer science PhD candidate and now professor at Georgetown, whose blog is devoted to decoding underlying patterns of success. I love, love, love this guy. He has so many great tips for maximizing human potential. Once I started reading his blogs, I couldn’t stop – talk about a time suck. But one thing he mentioned that stuck with me that night and into the next day was an app called Freedom – http://macfreedom.com/, that apparently locks you away from the internet for up to eight hours at a time. I checked the site and was intrigued by the testimonials I read from such writers as Nora Ephron, Nick Hornsby, Dave Eggers, and Seth Godin (a virtual God of marketing). Days went by and I did nothing about it, still the thought of installing the program lurked in the back of my mind. 

Cut to a few days ago. I decided to do a global search to see if there were other websites that blocked the internet that were equally as compelling as Freedom.  Guess what? There are. Plenty. Not only is there Freedom, but there’s Vitamin Space – http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/, Concentrate – http://getconcentrating.com/, RescueTime – http://www.rescuetime.com/, and FlexTime – http://www.red-sweater.com/flextime/ – to name just a few. There’s also a free site called SelfControl -- http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/. After some deliberation, I decided to download SelfControl and try it, because A) I liked the name and B) I liked the price – free. And C) when I read about the artist, Steve Lambert, who had a programmer create the site to help him focus, I liked it even more. I also liked the fact that you could black list the sites you want to block. When I’m writing I sometimes need to do a quick fact check, so blocking the Internet completely doesn’t make sense at the moment. Maybe someday it will…

Well, I'm happy to report yesterday I installed it and gave it a 2-hour test run. Once launched, I felt a surge of relief just knowing I wouldn’t be able to access my favorite time suck websites. Before I knew it 2 hours had passed and I had written non-stop. Today I ran the application for 6 hours and was amazed as the time flew by. When it was over and the little ding chimed (another feature I love btw), I immediately went to my favorite sites to see what I had missed in my 6-hour absence. You know what I found out? I hadn’t missed a thing – nothing that couldn’t wait 6 hours anyway.

Does this signal a new wave of productivity for me and greater degree of focused, quality time with my family? If today’s output is any indication, I am extremely optimistic. 

Star Wars Vs. Me Time

Thursday I had to take our son to the doctor. He’s been having hip pain for almost 2 weeks now. He came home limping one day from school. He looked like a little peg leg Pete all crumpled over his left side, hobbling with an odd gait. He said it had started the night before right after dinner, but it wasn’t that bad so he didn’t mention it to us. The next day at school, he said the pain was so much worse that on his way back from the bathroom he collapsed right inside the classroom door – he said it hurt too much to walk any more. My husband and I immediately called his pediatrician. Thankfully, she saw him right away. No fever. No other symptoms. Definite loss of range of motion. She diagnosed him on the spot. It was a classic case of synovitis. Nothing serious. It should be gone in a few days. I mentioned that I felt like H. had lost some weight recently. She offered to weigh him the next time we came in, saying she didn’t want to make him stand on his leg to step on the scale. Excuse me? Our son has hip pain and has lost weight? He could stand on his sore leg for the minute it took to weigh him. I’m glad I didn’t let it go. Turns out he’d lost 2 ½ lbs since December. Even she agreed that was rather a steep weight loss. I tried hard not to freak out. Kids have pains all the time and it’s nothing serious. Later I googled his symptoms, careful to avoid Web MD, and was relieved to find out that synovitis is quite common in children 3-8 (especially boys) and that his symptoms (minus the weight loss) were completely typical.

Fast-forward a week. The hip was still bothering him. Although, the pain seems to come and go, it's still there nevertheless. Back to the pediatrician we went. She expressed cheerful concern and booked us an appointment with an orthopedic doctor for the next day. He would do X-rays and a complete blood count. Fine. He could draw blood; do an X-ray, an MRI, test whatever the hell he wanted, just get to the bottom of our little boy’s pain. Taking H. to the doctor is usually no big deal, unless there are needles involved and then it becomes a really big deal. We told him what to expect at the new doctor’s, but he couldn’t understand why the new doctor needed to take blood if the pain was in his hip. Lots of explaining and soothing from us. It would be fine. The next day we kept him home from school. We let him lie on the couch and watch unlimited TV. When your child is sick does it really matter how much TV he watches?  

When it was time to go, H. grabbed four of his favorite Star Wars books and off we went. I could tell he was very nervous. The entire drive over he chattered non-stop about Star Wars, peppering me with questions that I’d answered a thousand times before. Why did I like A New Hope best of all and how come I didn’t know that storm troopers were originally good guys? He rambled on about it as he limped through the parking lot, up the elevator and inside to the antiseptic waiting room. Star Wars. Star Wars. Star Wars. And when he crawled on my lap and showed me pictures of Ki-Adi-Mundi and grilled me on the battle of Naboo, I sat patiently, smoothing his hair, listening rapt with attention not because I love Star Wars, but because my son does and he was freaking out about seeing the doctor and talking to me about his favorite thing in the world was the only thing that seemed to be calming him down.

If you had asked me 8 years ago where Corsucant was I probably would have said a small village in the south of France. Now, thanks to our son who is, clearly from the above description, a virtual wookieepedia of all things Star Wars, I know that Corsucant, is the most politically important planet in the fictional world of Star Wars. I also know that Ahsoka Tano is Anakin Skywalker's padawan (apprentice) and that when Anakin was a young slave on the planet Tatooine he was freed by the Jedi knight Qui-Gon Jinn, who was convinced the boy was the “Chosen one.” After Jinn was murdered by Darth Maul the young Jedi Knight, Obi-Wan Kanobi, agreed to train Anakin in the ways of the force against the better judgment of the Jedi Council, whose fears, that the boy is too old to train, are later confirmed when Anakin is apprenticed to Chancellor Palpatine, who is really Darth Sidious, and that it’s Sidious who eventually lures Anakin to the dark side where he becomes Darth Vader. 

Oh yes I’ve learned a lot about Star Wars from our son, who has all the books, DVDs, figurines, Legos, Lego Wii games, board games, light sabers, costumes, kites, t-shirts – all the sh*t I told myself we would never buy when we had a child. No, our kid would sit patiently playing with wooden blocks or drawing with non-toxic crayons, while listening to classical music. H. does listen to classical music. In fact, we took him to hear a John Williams’ Star Wars concert at the Hollywood Bowl last summer. I suppose that counts for something at least.

I’d be lying if I said Star Wars didn’t bore the living f*ck out of me. Not that I hate it. I don’t, it’s I just have so many things I need to do with my time. But I’ve realized that if I want a continuing relationship with my rapidly growing son (and I do), then I need to take an interest in his interests. And if that means fully engaging in endless discussions about Star Wars, so be it.

He won’t always love Star Wars.

He won’t always be my little boy and want to share his favorite things with me.

I can put up with his obsession for a few more years and by then our daughter will have her own interests and whatever they are, I promise I will find them just as interesting and exhausting.

Back at the doctor’s office, we talked Star Wars all the while he was on the gurney getting his X-rays. I read his Star Wars books to him when he was getting his blood drawn. We talked Star Wars down the elevator, and walking back through the parking lot, and on the drive back home. Except this time, he paused periodically to interject how brave he felt he had been with the whole blood draw thing. I could only agree. I told him he was brave. Like a real Jedi. Which one, he asked? Anakin of course. That made him happy.

Turns out (Thank God), that his hip pain is only Toxic Synovitis – which sounds worse than it is – a form of transient arthritis and his case is just taking a bit longer to go away.

Right now he’s lying on the couch watching Star Wars. I can hear the music blaring all the way in the back of the house. One day I’ll miss it. And I’m sure when I bring it up he’ll barely remember how much he loved it. But I will.

The Importance Of A Regular Bedtime

When our son was born 8 years ago, we were younger. Obviously. And being rather self-involved, late to babyhood and having only one child, he was at the mercy of our schedule. Luckily, he is a very easy going kid. He could fall asleep in restaurants, airplanes, just about anywhere we dragged him. Good news is our inexperience doesn't seem to have hurt him. He's turned out great. Well, he hasn't actually "turned out" yet, being only 8 he still has a long way to go, but I'm happy to report we haven't completely f*cked him up. Fast forward to our daughter, born 7 years after our son and from a different gene pool entirely. This little girl has a deep need for a regular schedule. This is not something that comes from either side of our families. I'm convinced it's the sole by-product of her DNA.  Every night like clockwork 6:30 hits and if she's not  been fed dinner, given a bath and then rocked with her bottle to the sounds of ocean waves until she falls fast asleep in your arms with milky, white droplets dripping from the corners of her pacified mouth -- or she is at least droopy tired and ready to be laid in her crib -- she freaks. Not a little. A lot. This child has an innate sense of schedule that has forced us to become the parents we swore we'd never be -- people whose lives revolve around their children's schedules. We used to find it annoying when friends would use their children's schedules as an excuse not to go out to dinner or a movie, but now I understand. I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way to raise kids. Every family does what's right for them. But I'm discovering this scheduling thing is kind of cool. For one thing, it means more time in the evenings to spend with our son. It also means I can get a little more work done before I type up a blog touting the virtues of scheduling your children.

Why Is Working Out Always The Last Thing On My To Do List?

This has to stop. The sitting on my a$$ for hours and writing. Not that doing my job is a bad thing. Far from it, but I'm seriously out of shape. Having been a professional dancer, I'm ashamed to say I don't even belong to a gym anymore. Scandalous. I marvel at women who work out DAILY. I think they're amazing. Me? Gyms are a total bore. I tend to prefer yoga and pilates classes, but right now I have classes at several yoga and pilates studios paid for and ready to be taken, and I'm still not doing it. Why? All I need to do is ask hubby to watch baby, throw on some work out clothes and go sweat for an hour. I am the biggest workout procrastinator. Goal for the month of February - establish a 4-5 day a week workout schedule. I'm hoping that by publicly posting this I will shame myself into actually doing it.

I'm Not A Perfect Mom, But At Least I Have a Craft Closet

Yesterday started out well. Son got off to school on time and was in a great mood. We were happy because his newly tailored pants were staying firmly up -- a huge victory since he's a rather slim kid and his pants tend to slide down lower than a homeboy’s. I was productive with my writing. Baby was her squishy, crawling, clapping, happy self. My husband and I were looking forward to a relaxing evening. We have some friends in from out of town who are staying with us. My husband was all set to make a fantastic steak dinner. Wine, steak, sleeping children, catching up with old friends – who could ask for more? We also were looking forward to a visit from another dear, old friend and her husband who were also in from out of town and wanted to pop by for a quick meet and greet with the baby. All that we needed to accomplish beforehand was homework with our son, a fast pick up of the house and a bit of last minute grocery shopping. 

And then it hit. Like a Tsunami. Without warning. Deadly. My husband was pulling out the homework from our son’s backpack when he found a suspicious pink handout titled, Valentine News!!!!, with a note at the top from the teacher written in bright red marker that said, “2^nd note. H says you didn’t get this. SK”

Apparently, there was a Valentine’s Day project due the next day, the 14^th. The class was having a special “Pink & Red” Valentine breakfast (which we did know about and had contributed 26 water bottles toward), followed by the exchanging of Valentine's Day cards (which we did not know about), then after recess the children were going to put their Valentines in their Valentine mailboxes (which was the class’ monthly project and something we most certainly had no knowledge whatsoever about).  Terror struck. Tensions rose. It was already past 3 o’clock.

My husband and I scrutinized the handout trying to ascertain how much work this mailbox project would actually take. We asked our son had he known about the project and if so, why hadn’t he told us? We couldn't get a clear answer out of him. Over the weekend I vaguely remember asking him if his class was exchanging Valentine's Day cards this year. He said, and I quote, "No." I should have known better. This is grade school. Kids exchange Valentines. 

After a flurry of emails with our son’s teacher, the mystery was solved. Turns out, since our son had been out of school all last week due to an illness and he also had missed a day at the beginning of the month, he didn't receive the handout. And because his teacher had been sick herself last week, she didn't realize he hadn't made a mailbox until yesterday. Finally, our son confessed that he had seen the other children’s finished mailboxes piling up in the classroom and knew he was supposed to make one too, but for some unexplained reason he didn't want to tell us. We never did get to the bottom of why that was. It probably had something to do with the fact that he would rather come home after school and play Star Wars than do an obligatory craft project. Or maybe he just didn't want to do it, which is understandable. Neither did we.

My husband and I knew we were f***ed, but we slapped on smiles and gallantly told ourselves (and him in what seemed like an episode of Parenthood) that team Smith could do it all –  help our son do the Valentine’s mailbox project, as well as write out 26 cards that we hadn’t even bought yet, then coach him through his homework, all the while chasing after a crawling baby, then feeding both son and baby, bathing them and putting them to bed. Finally, we would pick up the house and make a perfect dinner for our friends – oh and also, at some point, we would give a quick hug to our dear friend who wanted to meet the baby.
 

While my husband made H a snack, I ran to the family craft closet to gather supplies for the project. Yes, I’m proud to say we have a craft closet. It’s one of my small victories as a mom. If you don’t have one, I suggest you try to make one if you want to save tons of time and aggravation when unexpected craft projects fall out of the sky.  Truth is, you don’t need a closet, or even a lot of space really. All you need is some vessel to hold all your crafty junk: construction paper, yarn, paint, buttons, scraps of ribbon, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, markers, stickers, a glue gun, etc. You probably could even use a brown paper shopping bag and shove it under your bed.

My point is that having craft supplies on hand is a huge help. In this case, it saved the day. I’m happy to report we got the project finished, along with all the other parental responsibilities for the evening. We still had our dinner with friends, although we did have to table the homemade steak, opting for a less stressful meal of Thai take-out instead. 

New Scheduling Strategy

I don't know how other mothers do it, but for me with two kids I find it difficult to maintain a consistent writing schedule. I write for two hours here. Grab another hour when the baby naps. Hit it hard at night. Today I'm trying something new. Baby woke up at 5:22 am. While husband insisted he do morning bottle duty, since he is a rock star and has the routine for getting her to fall right back to sleep down, I decided I would take the opportunity to embark on something I've been wanting to try for weeks -- getting up before 6 am to start writing. No matter what. Just write. No distractions. Nothing. Just hit the ground running and see what happens. I have to admit I feel a bit sluggish, but the Earl Grey tea with honey and soy milk seems to be waking me up. I'm reading Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit, and must say I'm thoroughly inspired. If you don't know who Twyla Tharp is, get the book. Read it. She is a force of nature. The woman has been creating for over thirty-five years. She offers wonderful insights into her own creative process. It's an invaluable resource.
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Years ago when I was a young dancer I had the opportunity to work with Twyla alone in her studio at the venerated 890 Broadway in Manhattan along with another young male dancer. He and I had made it through a lengthy audition process. We were chosen out of 100s of dancers to be her "apprentices." The three of us worked together in the studio for over a year. The only other people who came in were 1 or 2 seasoned company members who would teach morning warm-up and/or repertory and the occasional outsiders (I'm assuming friends, producers, musicians -- I really have no idea who any of them were) who would drop by to watch. Other than that we were alone with Ms. Tharp day in, day out. We two younglings were, what I suppose you might call, her muses, hired for the sole purpose to learn new choreography. I was too young at the time to absorb all that she was throwing at me (mentally, physically, psychically). Just the task of keeping up with her exacting demands and rigorous daily schedule was overwhelming. Now, I see that her highly regimented process was something she had cultivated over the years in order to  to create her seemingly effortless dances. We would meet for morning class at 8 am. Nothing unusual. I was used to taking early classes before I'd head off to rehearsals, auditions or punching in at whatever dreaded day job I was doing at the time. With Twyla, the first thing we did was usually a ballet barre, alternated with yoga or an aerobics class. Whatever it was, the purpose was to get our bodies warm and ready to dance. Next, we moved on to learning a piece of choreography from her company's repertory. This was so that we could become familiar with her unique style. Next, it was non-stop improv sessions that lasted for HOURS, during which she barely spoke. She'd put on some music, turn her back to face us and start dancing. We were expected to learn the combinations she was doing by sight alone. There was no talking. No time for asking questions. Just her dancing and us  struggling to keep up behind. She'd do a phrase. Stop and repeat it. Do the phrase again stop and repeat it. This process would go on for awhile, as she added more and more movement until you were doing an entire combination. At that point, she'd finally turn around and ask us to show her what she'd done. Terrifying. She would watch us with eagle eyes, scrutinizing every little detail, occasionally calling out "Okay, now double it, triple it." Meaning whatever we were doing suddenly had to be done faster. If we were counting the music in 4s, suddenly we were counting in 8s, then 16ths. Moving faster and faster. If you made a mistake, fell out of a turn, lost your place you were expected to jump back in and keep going. I found her process to be one of the most challenging ways to learn that I have ever encountered. At that time my brain was used to both hearing and seeing choreography taught. By removing the verbal component my body became more in tune with each and every little nuance she conveyed. Now, reading about her creative process all these years later, I have a better understanding of what she was doing. We younglings weren't merely parroting choreography back to her, we were her ignition. The spark that might trigger something she could use in a dance.  This attention to the creative process is important. Each one of us has our own style and unique way of doing things to kick ourselves into gear. What's yours?

I said I was going to do this 3 years ago... plus fabulous DIY crib rail guard

Today's the day. I'm finally starting a blog. Me and every other mother out there, right? But who cares who else is doing it. As a working mom with two kids, 1 bio/1 adopted, I feel like I have tons to share about mothering and working/working and mothering -- the ups and downs, the daily discoveries -- some big, some small, some silly, some not. And I'm also interested in hearing about how other women are doing it. So feel free to comment and share your insights, coping strategies, happy times, whatever. I'm in it for the long haul.

To inaugurate my blog I thought I'd share my latest invention created especially for our 9 1/2 month old daughter who has just cut her 6th tooth. She has two uppers, two lowers and now two canines. It's a lot of teeth and more than I remember our son having at the same age. She's also standing, which means when she wakes up she doesn't just sit in her crib crying to be rescued -- she stands up and gnaws on the rail, howling for us to get her. Today I found her with bits of white paint on her cheeks and lips. Horror of horrors. First, I googled crib rail chew guards. I found plenty, but if I ordered online the shipping would take at least two days. Next, I called every kid store in the area. No one had anything in stock. That's when I came up with the brilliant idea to twist some sheets in between the rails. Voilà, the perfect crib rail guard. The great thing is that anyone can make one in no time and even better it's free! Do you have any DIY tips? I'd love to hear them.