Dodge Ram built a truck to last and on the undercarriage the truck houses a catalytic converter made of platinum. 3 to 7 grams of fancy, right? The criminals who tried to steal it thought so too. Their job was to hacksaw it off, my husband’s job? Installing four cameras that now yell at you if you so much as walk past the driveway. Our sleepy little town in West Virginia shaken to the core for the last several months. Can’t have nice things. And the genius cut the wrong pipe. One of the plethora of neighborhood dogs must have spooked him. He left.
He left a mess. Instead of a $ 6,000 auto insurance problem, the dumb criminal cut the wrong pipe, and we are stuck with monetary damage a smidge less than the deductible. Considering he needs the truck for the oilfields, off to the dealership he goes. And the wife is tasked with getting up two hours earlier than normal to get him to work. So, after a wild goose chase of ordering the new pipe, four cameras, $100 a month of monitoring thanks to the Ring.com, and two very loud alarms that ring like Christmas bells in my bedroom, we are all set. You may wonder how we cut cost. We fired the guard dogs.
I find myself sitting in the dark, because it was “take your husband to work day,” coexisting with a scheduled power outage. The ONE day I have to get up at the butt crack of dawn, they schedule an outage and shut the juice off meaning the possibility of a dangerous catastrophe, no coffee. With a tad bit of prepping, I manage a pre-dawn shower, hot coffee, and writing by flashlight. My morning routine will be reversed sleep, coffee, HGTV, shower, to awake, coffee, sleep.
How does this affect my clients? I get to blog about time management and preparation. They are cousins. Does my husband prefer the 5 am wake up call? No, but the industry he works in depends on it. He talks about how exciting it is not to be lonely today, as I smile sitting on the couch in my hat and coat fighting sleep. Examining your set patterns, reader, where can improvements be made? Before starting the Virtual Assistant biz, I pushed myself to rise at 6:30 am but the shine bit, never happened. Why push? Expectations of no one in particular drove that decision. And eventually I came up with a new sleep pattern. I sleep until 7 or 7:30 and I am way more productive. My clients are happier when I’m alert, bright eyed and happy. It works. Where can you adjust your sleep? According to this article from the Sleep Foundation, adults need between 7 to 9 hours a night. Are your sleep patterns measuring up?
So now that we figured out the simplicity of healthy sleeping patterns being productive, let’s look at unproductive patterns. Having to spend time erasing those 50 odd advertisements off work emails? Social media policing? TV? Piles of weekend laundry? This all can be fixed. I’m not saying I’ll come over and do your laundry but as a VA, we tackle email clean out, social media advertising and keeping you on track at home and at work.
Just for fun, journal a few days of your life. Write down when you’ve showered, started your computer, settled into your work day. Factor in when you had time for a hot breakfast, physical activity, non-screen time like taking a walk or enjoying a hobby. The first step in changing a pattern, is to clearly track the pattern. Then start envisioning where the adjustments could be made. I promise it will be fun. Let me know how it turns out. Leave a comment below.
As a Libra I reserve the right to guard my time. We thrive on balance. Proper time management equals balance. Balance equals love of life.
