I am spending more than a quarter of my time (29%) sleeping! As a result of this startling discovery, two things must change. First, and perhaps most obvious, I plan to buy a new mattress. My wife has been encouraging me for years to do so, and I have resisted, stubbornly. But now that the data are in, I can no longer argue for further postponement of this most unpleasant of activities. Walking into a mattress store may be worse than a root canal, closing on a house for the first time, and having a child’s birthday at Chuckee Cheese, combined. If I can overcome my fear of looking straight into the eyes of a mattress salesman, without breaking out in hives, I’m going to go for the memory foam. (If it helps me remember where in the house I have placed my reading glasses, of which I now have 3 pair (!), then no sacrifice is too great.)
Second, I need to change my attitude. I have always loathed the idea of sleeping. In my view, it’s an unwelcome obligation that precludes my accomplishing all the things on life’s “To Do” list. That I am not particularly skilled at sleeping has not helped. Being a light sleeper, I frequently wake up in the middle of the night or early morning, at which point my racing mind takes over. It’s usually hours before I fall back to sleep. In contrast, my wife, who completes her nightly voyage to the land of Morpheus before her head ever hits the pillow, considers sleeping a vocation. She has perfected her craft over the years, despite or perhaps in response to the challenges of motherhood. She would, if she could, dedicate far more of her time to this unavoidable endeavor. She even scribbles “Sleeping” into her daily “To Do” list. I must find a compromise between these two extreme positions, and get on with my life. Who knows, I may even start sleeping better as a result.
Work, at a 24% share of my time, comes in a close second to sleep. That means that I spend over half of my life in bed or my office. That’s a frightening thought! Considering both the large share of my waking hours committed to work, and the emerging recognition that I may never be able to retire following this economic downturn, I should probably try to make the work experience a more enjoyable one.
In this spirit, at the beginning of July I purchased and installed a Banker’s lamp on my desk. The soft light offsets the glare from the fluorescent lighting overhead, thereby offering a more satisfying and productive environment. I’ve been reading Michael Chabon’s Gentlemen of the Road over lunch, which I eat outside, next to an urban waterfall, in the company of pigeons. I’m planning to dedicate one hour a day to recycling many of the old documents that have accumulated on my bookshelves. I’m even thinking of putting plants on my window sill, although past efforts to go green have been disastrous. My sill is affectionately known around the office as “The Morgue.” A leisurely walk around the White House every once in awhile also might help.
In third place was the “Other” category. This encompasses a series of activities that individually registered less than 1% of my time, but taken together amounted to 12%. It includes such things as snacking, almost exclusively on hard pretzels; dog walking, although my job is limited to carrying the plastic bags; web surfing, which has increasingly included U-Tubing but not Facebooking; talking to my mother—who persists in calling me at the office on my cell phone just to “check in,” despite my protestations, appeals that she cease and desist, and threats to press harassment charges if she continues to fail to heed my warnings—and watching TV (limited to Seinfeld and Star Trek reruns, the Daily Show, and an occasional Dr Who episode) and Netflix videos.
I need to be far more efficient in how I use this miscellaneous time, however, as I have other ambitions. Golf, for instance, is a new adventure I wish to pursue this summer. My son bought me a nice set of left-handed clubs for my birthday last year, I’ve taken one lesson, and look forward to taking more before heading out to the driving range. I would like to continue with my writing as well. So, something needs to give to accommodate these additional activities. For starters, I was thinking that perhaps on a split-screen TV, I could watch a movie and check the latest scores while walking on the treadmill, with the dog leash and a pretzel in one hand, at the same time I talk to my mother or the cops on speaker in the other.
I spend about 10% of my time eating. This means that I spend 75% of my life sleeping, working, othering, and eating. I had no idea I was so jaw-dropping dull! I’ll just need to eat faster and complete other tasks while eating, because more excitement will require more time.
Housework, including bill paying and other chores at home, leisure reading, and commuting to and from work each day, each consume about 4% of my time. Despite the not insignificant amount of time spent on housework, the results have been less than satisfactory. We are in constant violation of the “No House Left Behind Act,” having never once passed the white glove test. I’m convinced, now that I look at the data, that it is time to outsource this activity, preferably to a service with a catchy name, such as “Minute Maids,” “The Maid Brigade,” “Maid to Please,” “The Merry Maids,” or “Helping Hands.” This will free up 4% of my time to work on my golf game, or better yet, to learn to play the drums, which have been sitting in my basement, unassembled, since 2006, the year my older son’s college baseball career and my travels to every conference game for four years came to an end.
As for the throw-away 4% I spend commuting to work every day, there are few options to reduce time spent on this onerous task. I’ve tried every conceivable “short cut” into D.C. that I know, but I keep running into all the other geniuses who think they are the only ones who ever thought of this route. I just need to devise more creative things to do while in the car. For instance, I am going to try to learn the actual words of all those songs that I love to sing at the top of my awful voice at home, mercifully in the shower. Although this limitation has never stopped me in the past, it’s time to restore intra-household harmony. I am planning to watch what other people do while commuting. Last week at a traffic light I watched a guy shaving. I’m going to take note of only very clever bumper stickers, and be on the lookout for advertising that is just too good to be true. My favorite, for the moment, is: “John C. Flood, meeting all your plumbing needs.” Listening to books on tape would increase my current 4% leisure reading allocation to something around 5% or 6%, which I would welcome.
Errands, cycling and watching MLB games each consumes about 3% of my time. Although there is not much room to reduce the total amount of time spent on errands, I plan to adjust the timing such that errands are reserved for Saturdays, leaving Sundays for total relaxation (which means, of course, that I’ll never buy a mattress on a Sunday!).
Cycling consumes just about the right amount of time for now, but I’ve decided to keep better track of how far I go. During the months of June and July, I pedaled 600 miles, according to my handlebar computer, which is about the distance from my house in Potomac, MD to Augusta, Maine or Chattanooga, Tennessee. Of course, if I were actually traveling to these places, I would head toward Chattanooga, because it’s downhill.
Watching baseball in person, on TV, or on the internet, is a seasonal activity. There is no other sport in any other season that consumes this much of my time. So, I’ll be shopping around for how to spend 3% of my time after the World Series in October. My initial idea is to travel with my wife to Massachusetts to visit our son and daughter-in-law in their new home, and to Austin, Texas to see our other son perform on the stage. Perhaps I should discuss this proposal with everyone implicated before making plans.
Finally, reading the daily paper, in this case the Washington Post, and tending to lawn and garden, consume 2% and 1% of my time, respectively. At a minimum, I’d like to diversify the sources of my information on current events. For instance, I am well into a one-year trial subscription to the Economist. The result has been disappointing, however, as the weeklies continue to pile up on the throne room floor. Tending to lawn and garden is also a seasonal endeavor, but unlike baseball, the Fall brings the leaves that must be raked, the Winter the snow to be shoveled, and the Spring the mulch to spread in the beds and around the trees.
In summary, my portfolio for living large looks as follows. For the 75% of time that I spend on just four activities, I plan to improve the quality of my existing time commitment on two (sleeping and working) and hope to free up some time from othering and eating to embrace some new investments (golf, drumming, and other activities still to be determined). For the remaining 25% of my time, I foresee several needed actions: outsourcing (housework), reallocating time within existing categories (leisure reading), improving quality at the current time commitment (commuting and errands), leaving well enough alone (cycling and tending to lawn and garden), pursuing new activities in other seasons (post-baseball), and diversifying within existing allocations (current events reading).
I better write all this down while I’m thinking about it. Now if I could just put my hands on one pair of those darn reading glasses.
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