I know I’m a diva about air travel. I have favourite airports* and also most hated airports**. To be clear, I think more competition, and anything that gets more people travelling and exploring the world is a good thing. These comments refer to European budget airlines.
I’m much happier having one price, and making one decision – all the extras mean multiple decisions.
Super Early “Boarding” Time
The “boarding time” is when you need to get in the queue… and it’s a long time before the actual departure time. Sometimes the queue is even outside, because one of the ways they save money is by not using the walkways. Not pleasant in winter!
Smaller Airports
And then you fly into a tiny airport that’s often not actually that near your destination. So, longer drive to where you are going (and, more expensive if you’re not renting a car but taking a cab or public transport – if there is any), long queue at passport control for the 1-2 agents, and poor facilities – so expect a queue for the bathroom, too.
In All…
The thing I’m mainly short of is time – and flying budget airlines are full of extra costs in terms of time, as well as in money. When air travel is a nice experience, short queues, maybe a little light shopping, and a nice cup of tea in the lounge, it’s like my vacation starts there. In an endless queue with a bunch of other grumpy people carrying as much as they can to avoid the baggage fees… it’s something to endure in the hope that the experience at the destination is worth it.
* Vancouver (to clear US customs, also I love the Fluevog exhibit), Tokyo (great sushi and the best chocolate in the world), Dubai (such great people watching – every kind of national dress).
** Toronto (for clearing US customs), Beijing (horrible queues for Immigration, poor signage, long waits for trains), Bangalore (worst lounge, nowhere to sit, just 2 bathrooms, separate queues for men and women – and of course all the children are in the women’s queue, so it took forever).
Every so often I do something that is such a waste of time it makes me pause.
Reading a non-fiction book I’m not into, it drags and I don’t retain much of it.
Horse-riding with my friend at the weekend, we booked the trail option and it was over an hour of… walking, didn’t even make it to a trot, really (mine did for all of 10 blissful seconds). And the beautiful sunny day had turned so we were freezing.
Last week, I gave a talk to five people. Something of a come-down from around 150 less than a week before. Nothing against the five people who were there, who were lovely, and engaged. But I can’t think that taking three hours out of my day to reach five people is a good use of my time. Also, only in academia do they “invite” you to give a talk and then charge you the price of a new handbag for it.
And so at the end of my month of public speaking, I’m thinking about why I do it. It’s not the end, it’s the means for me. I want to be able to give a good demo, speak up in meetings, and acquit myself creditably when invited to something as good for female university students as ONCWIC was.
Doing some public speaking helps with these things, but I’ve passed the limit of what is a good use of time. And so I’m thinking about setting parameters – I already won’t do talks about what it’s like to be an engineer if there are not going to be any women there. What else should I rule out? No more academic talks? Minimum 50 people?
I don’t want to seem ungrateful for the opportunities that present, but I can’t take all of them. If I’m going to take some but not all, how do I select the some?
For a long time, I’ve been doing this thing where I GO GO GO like a crazy person and then crash. And I always come up with a plan, like “take on less”, or “be more organized” or some other strategy. And these are helpful, absolutely, but at best they seem to result in a different kind of crisis.
Lately, I’ve been feeling a little burnt out. There are a number of reasons for that, but here’s the big one: I’ve not had more than 4 days off work in a row since I started in January – and that was a long weekend. And normally I’ve spent at least some of those long weekends doing non-work-work. Writing talks, papers, whatever. And I’m exhausted. I want to lie down and sleep for a week, frankly. I’ve booked a week of vacation off for early-September, we’ll be going to Nova Scotia and Price Edward Island with my parents, and I can’t wait.
But, I’m going to come back and it’ll be GO GO GO again. We have an event for female university students coming up, plus there’s Awesome Foundation, Girl Geek Dinner, and training for… something I agreed to do a while ago and don’t exactly know what it is. A talk in Seattle. And – more travel. When I was less than delighted by the number of trips I was looking to have to make to MTV, I said, “it would be different if I was going somewhere cool, like New York”. Be careful what you wish for! Because I am, in fact, set to be making a number of trips to… (you guessed it!) New York. On the one hand, much better than MTV – shorter flight, no time-difference, a city, and I love MOMA. On the other, I find that travel tends to eat a lot of my unstructured time.
The point of all this is, I’ve been stressed and unhappy, and thinking about what it is that I need in order to feel… frankly, less like a crazy person. Something I recently said to my manager: “I always meet my obligations. One day I’ll have a nervous breakdown because I’m insisting on doing all the things I’ve said I’ll do, which the people who asked me have probably forgotten about. And that’s how I’m going to die”.
How about – no nervous breakdown. So I made this list of what I need outside of work to stay sane, which I’ve broken this down into: “most days” and “most weeks”.
Most Days
Exercise.
Read something that is not digital (Kindle doesn’t count as digital to me).
8 hours sleep.
Leave work before 7.
Most Weeks
Pajama day.
Read a novel.
Read some part of a non-fiction book.
Hang out with friends.
Have date with boyfriend (Go out! Somewhere nice!)
Read enough stuff online to feel more aware of the world and the awesome stuff in it (measured by: 15 links worth sharing on Twitter).
Feel interesting enough/inspired to write 2-3 blog posts (for me, it’s a bigger problem when I don’t want to write, than when I don’t have time to write).
An evening of Cate-time.
Make progress on a non-work project (e.g. presentation, paper, coding), have an an event (e.g. AF, GGD), or some non-work learning (e.g. App Inventor).
Here’s an interesting post on dealing with burn-out.
A few weeks ago, I got frustrated with a pattern I’d observed. I would, in non “crazy” week work out 5-6 times. Then the following week something would happen – I’d have to take a trip, be out every night, get sick… something. And work out maybe once.
This oscillation and unpredictability – sometimes working out a lot, sometimes hardly at all – was not working for me. It was messing with my energy levels, my eating habits, my sleep cycle, and my happiness.
Eventually, I hit a wall. And I realized that I either had to start living in such a way that I made the things that I think are my priorities a priority, or I had to admit that my priorities were different. And I realized that that meant sometimes ignoring, sometimes just not doing as good a job at the things people try and make my priority (typically via my inbox, one of the many reasons I loathe and avoid it). I also realized that it would be easier if I were to return more to my preferred schedule of early mornings and early nights, rather than the later schedule that my boyfriend and teammates (and, really, most nerdy guys) seem to live on. But, I also realized that with a clear space of time free from travel, this was an opportunity to make this change.
I didn’t write about this, and I didn’t really tell anyone until I’d successfully done this for a month. I just set myself a simple goal, reminiscent of my “one positive thing” approach.
The goal: work out five times a week.
I set no restrictions on length, time, or diet. It was pretty much what you can fit in, when you can fit it in, and eat whatever will enable you to do this.
One week I had Girl Geek Dinner, Awesome Foundation, and a trip to the border to do my visa. I got up early and did 30 minutes on the cross trainer at the gym in the office before work, and I went to spin class after a day in the car even though I had a splitting headache. Total workouts that week? Six. After about six weeks of this, it’s still a conscious setting of priorities, but the big change has been that exercise is no longer a chore, it’s something I want to do.
I’m happier. I have more energy. I’m sleeping better. It’s been nearly two years since I dislocated my kneecap, nearly 18 months since I messed up my shoulder, and I finally have a workout that I enjoy, that is not causing me “bad” pain. I am loving spinning. Last week I actually did “the double” – 6am, and 5:30pm. I felt amazing – although the next day hurt!
Yes – some things have slipped – not as many as I thought, though. The truth is, none of them are as important to me as this. For me, it’s been a question of accepting that there are some things I will not do, because they are not as important. And if it is important, I will arrange my life so that I can get up early for spin class, or just some time on the cross trainer. Next week will be challenging, because I’m travelling – but my priorities don’t really change, even if my location is temporarily different.
I think that actions are so much more important than words. My question: the priorities that you would like to think you have, are they reflected in how you live? What – simple – goal or rule could you set yourself to align your actions with your thoughts?
For the cool-down at spin class, the instructor put on some Andrew Lloyd Weber, I think something from Phantom of the Opera. Yes, it was pretty random. But, for me, something of a blast from the past. It was a song I used to sing, back when I had singing lessons. And then as I wondered out of spin class I thought about what an awesome workout spin is, and if maybe I would enjoy having riding lessons – the one kind of lesson that I wanted, but didn’t get when I was a kid. I had music lessons (piano, trumpet, singing), took gymnastics, dance, swimming, and tennis. Evenings after school were busy.
I toyed with the idea of starting singing lessons again now, thinking it would be something different, and it was something that I used to enjoy. Riding lessons would be cool – my boyfriend goes go-carting at the weekends and I think it’s good to have an outside hobby here in the summer. The problem is the usual one – hours in the day, and that I’m already struggling with what and how to balance the passion I pursue outside of work – community stuff? Exercise, since I should be able to kickbox again soon? Writing? Lego video games (OK that one is not a serious contender). I’m getting really into spinning again, and wondering (as I did before when I was really into spinning) whether getting a spin instructor qualification could be the kind of crazy-audacious goal that I could pursue. The other thing I struggle how to balance is social/non-social activities. We have hot breakfast at work now, which is awesome, but it means that I don’t have Cate-time over breakfast a couple of days a week, and I’m feeling the lack of that.
In the interview for the profile (the one I’m trying to be quiet about for now), I was talking about the advice I want to give to high school girls. In this, as in the OSBR article, I am fixated on choices – keeping choices open. I don’t think the problem is that women don’t choose to be entrepreneurs, or engineers, or scientists – I think the problem is that the choice is not a free one. I worry about how gender-stereotyping in respect to math takes choices from girls, because they come to think they are bad at it, when they are not. Research shows that female math teachers who are anxious about math pass that anxiety on to their female students, but not their male students. That anxiety surely reduces the choices that girls feel they have. Research also shows that women pay a penalty in likability for success, whereas men are more likeable, the more successful they are.
And so I talked about choices, and making sure you have as many as possible. However, there’s a flip side to having choices, and that is the responsibility to make them. I worry that in my non-work time, I’m trying to do too many things and the result is that I’m doing none of them well. I’m reluctant to add new things to the mix whilst that is the case. How much worse would it be to spend all my time like that? At work, I’m ruthless in cutting things that won’t help me be awesome at being a better engineer – email once a day, minimal meetings. In my “free” (ha!) time, it’s hard to be ruthless like that because I don’t know what my focus is.
Over breakfast with a fellow doer of things, and inspiration, we talked about the conflict between those that talk, and those that do. It’s easy to talk about a lot of things, it’s hard to do even a few things – let alone many. Some people think the idea, or the name, is important; I don’t get that. I have a lot of ideas of how to spend my time, many things which I would be happy to do. My friend is the same. The decision of what not to do is important, because wanting to do everything so often seems to mean actually doing nothing. The question is – what will you double down on? What will you commit to? What will you cut?
So – I’m going to hold off finding a singing teacher, or signing up for riding lessons. Maybe I’ll start by buying the equipment I need in order to increase the number of spinning classes I can attend (bike shorts!) and see how that goes before I make any big plans. That I have choices to make, means I’m lucky, so I’m mindful to take advantage of this good fortune, by choosing, committing to, and doing.
How about you? What are you doubling down on? And what, as a result, are you putting on ice (for now).
When stressed, I’m prone to bemoaning the lack of hours in the day. I think if I could just get an extra, say, two hours a day, that would be one more activity I could get in.
When happy (and for me, happy usually means productive) I reason, “We all get the same 24 hours in the day, and we all get to choose how we spend it”.
I said this to someone, and she recommended a book – 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (Amazon). Which I downloaded to my Kindle and didn’t read until… recently. I’ve been on a bit of a kick reading books that I hope will make me happier/less strung out of late.
I found it an interesting and helpful book, but it has the same problem as The Happiness Project (Amazon) – what does a New York writer with two kids and a wealthy husband have to say that will apply to everyone? The kid stuff was irrelevant to me, and some others were just annoying, like the edict that getting ready should take no more than 20 minutes. Not all of us have naturally great-looking and manageable hair! But there was a lot in it that was helpful.
For example, I’m prone to thinking that people work more than me and sleep less, but in fact people tend to over-estimate the amount of time they spend on chores, or at work (they think about the days they worked 9-9, and forget about the morning they took off for the dentist and leaving early on Friday) and underestimate the amount of time they spend sleeping, and relaxing.
She also advocates focusing in core competencies (“broadly, those who get the most out of life try to figure out and focus on core competancies…”), as someone who gave up cooking as it was “inefficient” this is obviously something I identify with! Getting a cleaner, acknowledging the relationship between time and money – paying someone to clean my apartment gives me a chunk of my weekend back, for example. There’s lots of helpful things to consider if you’re feeling time-poor and cash-reasonable. The standard for entertaining as well, is interestingly used to demonstrate how things have changed now it’s normal for women to work outside the home.
The conclusion, though, is that we need to structure our relaxation time in order to get the most out of it. I tend to become stressed about time because I feel that I don’t have enough unstructured time, so this isn’t that helpful to me. I can see if you work from home then going out and doing things with people might be how you want to spend your leisure time, but working with people I want to spend a good amount of my down time alone!
Inspired by the book, I actually kept a detailed spreadsheet of how I spent my time in 15 minute increments. The first week I tracked my time somewhat obsessively, the second I was a little more relaxed about the tracking but still more aware of how I spent my time. I used Google Docs for this – it was handy to be able to update from any computer/my iPad or even my iPhone, if you want to try this, you can find my spreadsheet here (it’s not editable, but you can make a copy).
I know I can’t have more than 24 hours in the day, but what I want is a feeling of time-abundance; to feel less rushed, and less pressured. The spreadsheet was helpful because it made me more aware of how I was spending my time and look at the big blocks of time that I actually found to do things I wanted – like read novels, go to the gym, or hang out with my boyfriend. Half an hour in the morning having breakfast at my favorite coffeeshop before work with my book gives me a space that makes me less stressed and happier – that’s half an hour well spent. And taking time in the afternoon to go for spin class and then going back to work wasn’t as derailing to my happiness as I thought it would be. It was also nice to see how little time I spend on email (people expecting a response may not feel the same way), 2 hours on work email and filing an expense report, 45 minutes of which was whilst watching the video of TGIF (usually I do a little bit of code stuff here too). Both weeks I managed an email-free day, which is nice. I don’t know if this was related, but the first week I was motivated to get the writing I wanted to do done on Saturday, and had a completely guilt free day off on Sunday, which was amazing. The next week that wasn’t possible, as I had to spend Saturday in the office.
I don’t know if I’m going to keep tracking. It’s helpful because it’s making me more mindful about how I spend my time, but I’m not doing anything with the data. But I definitely recommend trying a week of detailed time-tracking to see how you’re spending your time, and if you in general want to be more mindful about what you’re choosing to spend your time on, then I recommend the book.
Meanwhile, what little things do you do to create feelings of “time abundance”?
In May I focused on feeling better about myself. I bought new makeup, two new pairs of jeans, got my hair cut and colored, and started making more effort to dress up for work. Sometimes I wear heals, sometimes I wear my new Ugg sneakers (they are fluffy inside, it’s awesome). I still keep it casual a day or two a week, but what’s important is that I’m not just wearing the same thing all the time – this is what months of living in and out of suitcases and winter did.
I couldn’t decide what to do this month. I was thinking I wanted to focus on eating more mindfully, and contemplated the Tim Ferriss slow carb diet. But I kept thinking – I am too strung out right now to live without carbs. I’ve been thinking that my stress level would decrease and then I would be up for it. It’s not a huge change from how I eat normally, I don’t think. And then I thought – that’s not going to happen, so I should just do it for a month and my stress level will have to decrease to accomodate this breadless-lifestyle.
On further reflection, I’ve decided against it. Wanting to be more mindful about food was enough – actually being more mindful followed. I may try the slow carb thing, but not right now.
My focus for June – make time for small things. I worry that I spend so much time on big things that the small things just get postponed indefinitely. Small things, like breakfast in my favorite cafe with a novel for half an hour before work. Or committing to finish work before a certain time so I can go to cross-fit. Like an early night, or a lie in. A walk in the park. An evening reading a novel, or watching Desperate Housewives (it has been so long since I did this, I no longer have a computer in my living room to watch tv shows or movies on). Or reading some non-fiction regularly, rather in bursts (on planes). Getting a pedicure.
It’s not just doing small things for me – last week I bought my teammates cupcakes. The week before I gave someone a novel that I’d long promised them but not got around to posting. I should do more things like that.
Work is crunchy this month. The other day I somehow ended up working until 9pm – not a habit I want to develop. There’s big deadlines looming and I feel like I’m sacrificing my happiness to the higher goals I pursue. I don’t want to live like that, so this month is about taking a moment to pause, and do something small that makes me, or someone else, a little happier. Ironically, for all it’s easy to cut out small things because we’re so busy, I think taking time for small, unimportant things, makes time feel more abundant and so reduces stress.
I might start by (finally) reading the Book of Awesome (Amazon). I’m also taking suggestions. Meanwhile – what are you focusing on in June?
The other day, one of my friends tweeted about taking on too much and feeling overwhelmed. A mutual friend tweeted that he should speak to me.
I guess I’m becoming known for that taking on too much, getting overwhelmed, crashing thing I repeat ad nauseum. Hmm. I have noticed a pattern where friends start noticing that I’m taking on too much and I’m like, “naah, this is how I live!” or “yeah this week is hectic but things are fine”. And shortly after I get sick and I think, “hmm, X was right”. Vow to be more effective in future, to say no, to prioritize better.
Maybe I’m doing those things. I’m definitely trying. But each successful strategy just makes me take on more stuff, so that I’m always at capacity, and pretty often feeling overwhelmed. For example, I delegated, prioritized and then as I was feeling more chilled out about things, after the 3rd or 4th email I thought it would be a good idea to climb the CN tower. Two months away seemed ages and I figured it would be a good challenge. Of course it falls in a “hectic” week where I’m also travelling to Ottawa and a few days post-climb I’m throwing an InsufficientCateTimeException. Guzzling painkillers and being my own heater as I don’t have time to be sick right now. I say it’s just a bad week for it – but let’s face it, every week is bad. I could schedule something with a month’s notice, maybe.
Doing less is not an appealing option, though. The reality is, I love my life and I love having lots going on. I’d just like there to be more hours in the day. Then I could fit everything in, and have time to watch Desperate Housewives. For me, it’s about maintaining that balance between hectic but motivated by how much is going on – and overwhelmed. I hit overwhelmed at about 20% above impossible. Anything below 80% of impossible for too long and life becomes boring.
I think the answer is an evening a week of what I call Cate Time. Cate time involves working out alone, novels, movies, tv shows, copious amounts of tea and edamame, and not speaking to anyone (I’m always amused when people think I’m really extroverted, I’m so ambivert – it’s just almost no-one sees me when I’m on an introverted phase). I need it to function socially, and to be creative. In my feedback for this quarter one of my colleagues suggested that I start blocking off “make time” in my calendar. I used to do that. It didn’t work for me, as what I need to see in my calendar is blank space – whitespace. I need it to function, and so I make sure it’s there during working hours, or I change my working hours to find it. I just haven’t been doing that in the evenings lately.
Perhaps fortunately, a snow storm scuppered my plan for Sunday and I got a personal snow day. There was no edamame, and no gym (sore throat). But there was a lot of tea, several books, and a good amount of whitespace. Things seem surmountable, again.
Ideas
Stop borrowing from my Cate Time. It’s important. If I’m busy four nights during the week, I’m busy all week.
Crazy idea – allocate a week a month where I don’t agree to do anything that is not being a software engineer. I.e. no lunches, no events. I’ll add an event that says “DNS – Cate is anti-social this week”.
My uncle died last week. We knew it was coming, and this is the family thing I’ve been referring to of late. It was, as it always seems to be in these situations when someone leaves this world, their family, too soon, cancer.
My family is not a close one, and I did not know this man. Apparently I met him once when I was little, I played with him and called him “Frog” (I asked my dad why, and he said he didn’t know – I had a habit of calling people strange things). I have a gift from when I was 12 or 13, and that is all.
My dad has lost his brother. Three little girls have lost their father. All I have lost is a possibility – as assumption that has been broken. Someone at the peripheral, who when I thought about it I assumed I would meet – as an adult – eventually is gone, and that will never happen.
You always think you have more time. Until you don’t.
With my imminent departure from Ottawa, I have been thinking about endings a lot. The last post meme, had me thinking about that too. I’ve been carrying the situation above with me – close enough to hit me hard, but far enough away to be able to contemplate loss in the abstract.
And what I keep coming back to, is relationships. Not software – although beautiful software is a gift we can give. Relationships. The relationships that we assume we’ll have tomorrow, we need to build today. Someone said at Grace Hopper that you couldn’t put friends and family on hold and build them after you’ve built your career – you have to invest in them as you go along.
And so I’m deliberately carving out more time in my life for the people I love, and those who I want to know better.
And, as you may have guessed from what I wrote above, I’m thinking about time – or lack thereof. My frenzied rushing about is worse than ever, because time seems in short supply. My list of goals, and plans for impact, are more ambitious. My intolerance for things that are fundamentally pointless, lower.
So, if this were my last post I would talk about making the most of the time you have, and taking time to build the relationships you want.
But I don’t know what to say about my uncle. At times like this, my atheism weighs on me like a rock – Christians and other religious people have these things that they say, these concepts they throw out like they will comfort. See you again. Rest in Peace. I’ll pray for you.
As an atheist, all I have, is that I will look at that gift and it will remind me that I must make the most of the time I have, and build the relationships I want tomorrow, today.
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