Good morning, it’s cold out. Please come in and join me for a socially distanced chat and a cup of coffee or a hot beverage of your choosing.
The white stuff (snow) has at last made an appearance in my part of the woods. It came down hard yesterday and dumped several inches of the powdery stuff Utah is known for. What took you so long, Mother Nature? Did it take a groundhog to tell you winter is still here and will hang around for another 6 weeks or so for you to realize you forgot to do your job?
If we were having coffee, I would tell you this week has gone by surprisingly quick.
Of the 168 hours in a week, I spent this week…
- Working just shy of 52 hours
- Commuting about 2 hours to and from work on the single day when I need to go into the office
- Getting around 56 hours of good night sleep with several attempts of sleepwalking
- Squeezing in around 8 hours of writing/blogging
- Allowing myself around 14 hours (2 hours/day) watching TV and exercising
- Arranging the rest of the hours completing chores, eating meals, playing scrabbles on my phone, or reading
If we were having coffee, I would tell you even though I worked almost 12 hours overtime again this week, I am not feeling the satisfaction of getting my work done. I feel quite the opposite. I feel like I haven’t gotten anything done and it’s already the weekend again.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you it’s been a long while since I had felt this overwhelmed at work. I think it’s been a year since I’ve felt this way.
At this time last year, I was feeling the same way – no matter how many hours I put in, I can never seem to get any work done at work. Last year, it was the constant disruptions – mail, email, phone calls – all while I was trying to reconcile messy credit card transactions. This week, it was mostly the emails. Oh my gosh, the emails. I can’t even began to tell you how much I’m hating emails right now. Even the word irritates me.
Unlike now that I’m working from home, I couldn’t put in as much overtime since I was taking public transportation to and from work and there are only a limited number of buses and trains.
It’ll pass, I think, I hope, one more week of this.
If we were having coffee, I would tell you I’m becoming a wiz at phone scrabble. I wonder if I’m this good if I were to play real life scrabble. You want to know the worst part of playing phone scrabble? Playing with a random guy who wants to chitchat rather than play the game. I encountered a guy this week who did exactly that. After two days, he requested I add him to my social media account so he can “get to know me better and see who he’s playing.”
What a creep! Does it matter though, who he’s playing? For all I know, it’s a game and I came to decompress, not socialize.
Ugh, I hate it when this happens. I changed the picture to my Fitbit account for this very reason. Maybe I need to change my picture for all my accounts.
If we were having coffee, I would thank you for joining me in this edition of #weekendcoffeeshare and hope we’ll both return next week.
This is Another Story 
I love the data that you shared! It is interesting to see things broken down in that way.
Thank you for the conversation and the coffee! It is always a joy to have these weekend chats.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m glad you like it. I find myself often wonder, where has the time gone? Well, that’s where it’s gone. 😄
Thank you for dropping by. Have a great weekend and a great week ahead.
LikeLike
HI,, thanks for this post. I like the way you quantified your activities,, I don’t usually do that, though sometimes I should. it sounds like you are dealing well with a lot of stress and I agree, the Scrabble Player does sound creepy. But congratulations on playing well. Michele
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you. I don’t usually do that either but sometimes numbers help paint a more complete picture and I guess I can stop saying, “where has the time gone?” because there it is.
My stress level is well above my head at the moment especially because I have to file my family’s taxes this weekend (I’ve done two today) but I have hopes that it’ll pass. Thank you for dropping by. Have a great weekend and a great week ahead.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We had to wait for the snow until today. Unfortunately, it took so long to reach us. But now we are happy as more snow is forcasted for next week.
What beautiful cups of coffee! Interesting your statistics. We are hooked on reading and all rooms in our house are filled with books. So we read about 4 hours every day and write about for 3 hours. We don’t watch TV as we don’t have a TV. Every second day we have a zoom meeting with our editors and agents mostly. We blog about 1 to 2 hours weekly. But the rest of the time we enjoy being lazy.
Isn’t it interesting to read how other people spend their days?
Have a happy weekend.
Stay healthy and happy
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
We can always use more snow especially now more than ever and it’s been pretty much dry this winter. I usually only watch TV when I walk on the treadmill and rarely just for the sake of being a couch potato. Blogging, for me, doesn’t always take an hour but as a perfectionist, I like to go back and edit until I’m satisfied. It is indeed interesting to read about what others do in a day or a week. It sometimes gives me insight to how I can manage my time better.
Thank you for dropping by. Have a great weekend and a great week ahead.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, the magic of blogging is communication. That means that designing the post is only one side but to visit others is the other side of the coin. We four are all privatising and can choose if we want to work or not. Our father has been a beselling writer and professor and our mother is quite a famous photographer and we, Siri 🙂 and 🙂 Selma, are the happy Bookfayries inspiring them.
All the best
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I absolutely agree. The communication aspect is what makes blogging fun and it’s definitely my favorite part about this whole journey.
Wow, you are one talented bunch.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I managed the website for a large company for a while, and also had to rebuild it. And the e-mails – OH the e-mails. They stressed the life out of me. In periods I still panic when I’m busy with something and receive lots of e-mails, although I don’t even work for that company anymore. And the disruptions at work.. I can totally relate. When I worked as a nurse I didn’t seem to get anything done until the evening shift nurse took over!! And my husband says he works better on bank holidays because then his clients don’t work.. isn’t it a mad world!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I agree with your husband’s logic. I get the most done during the November and December holidays because a lot of the customers are not working during those times. It’s the best period to work since the disruptions are few and wide.
I didn’t used to get a bombardment of emails. It started after my company fired the last debt collections person as all of a sudden, debt collections have somehow became my responsibility even though I have no experience with it. It is indeed a mad world.
Thank you for dropping by and hope you have a great week ahead.
LikeLike
Great to stop by here again, Yinglan and see that you are still actively blogging. Sorry to hear that challenges you have at work. Jobs can be like that sometimes. Just take one task at a time, and don’t think too far ahead! The guy who wanted to friend you via Scrabble may have been a bit lonely but he should have picked up on the signals that you were not interested in anything more than playing Scrabble.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yeah, that guy told me he was lonely even though he has 2 kids of his own and I told him I’m focusing on my career and happiness at the moment. I guess some people have trouble picking up the signal.
My job can be rewarding but it’s times like these I need to slow down, conquer one task at a time, and focus on the present. Thank you for dropping by and hope you have a great week ahead.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmm. Two kids and still lonely. He is starting to sound a bit more suss…
Hope you have a great week ahead as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is interesting to see how many hours we spend doing different things every week. I know that I spend around 20 hours/week walking. I actually downloaded an app that is going to track my activity today, I have been curious for a while how many steps I actually walk a normal week. I don’t have my phone on me all the time at work, but always outside, so it should give some notion about how much I actually walk. Great coffee share. I hope your work gets less stressful. Fun with the snow!
LikeLiked by 2 people
20 hours walking per week, wow. You will have to let me know how many steps you get because that sounds like a lot of walking. I always make my 10,000 steps each day but I can usually do that in under 2 hours. Adding that would be about 14 hours a week. Thank you for dropping by and have a great week ahead.
LikeLike
What a week YingLan. . . Sorry to hear this. I think many of us see our workloads come and go with their own weird cycle like the tide, except harder to predict. I hope your load begins to reseed soon and give you a chance to rest without a huge inbox crushing you.
Hang in there my friend. You’ve got this.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Gary, what a week is exactly right. I was actually feeling proud on Friday when I finally got the 50+ unread emails down to 10 but my CFO managed to fill it back up again in less than 30 minutes and I ended up shutting down Outlook because the emails were so overwhelming. I might had jinxed it with my proud-ness. Work start again tomorrow and hopefully, I can get some of it done. Thank you for dropping by and have a great week ahead.
LikeLike
Wow, I feel like everyone has been working on overdrive this week. The word “e-mail” does aggravate me. When I was in my last job I felt like I spent a lot of my day reading and responding to email, I did not feel I was doing the actual work I was suppose to do.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A person can only read and reply so many emails before he or she wants to scream and to think about spending the day reading and responding email makes me itch all over. I hope this week is better than the last and hope your week is going great. Thank you for dropping by.
LikeLike
Big week indeed. I think I might need to quantify my life in retirement…it sure is nothing like the one when I was teaching and then a school principal. Some guys (creeps I mean, the ones who say they want to message you) are not nice and it’s sad but also glad you ditched him!!
Denyse #weekendcoffeeshare
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ve encountered several of those guys last year and it just made me swear off men for the rest of my life. These guys are so needy and people say women are needy. Those people are wrong. I’m so glad there’s a button to resign game so I don’t have to chat with this guy anymore. Thank you for dropping by and hope you have a great week.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your commute sounds horrendous. I guess working from home becoming the norm is a good thing for some people.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It used to be but now, I’m starting to like my commute as long as it meant I can get out of the house. Working from home is great and all but staying home too long makes me have cabin fever.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I know some retired people who feel the same way! I think we have all had enough of this. I want my freedom to make choices.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A little late to comment here but I hear you on that feeling of unproductivity despite working several hours. I’m kinda feeling that myself and consequently, also feeling quite drained. Oh, the online creeps! I remember last year playing Words with friends – most people were fine but there was one dude who wanted to chat more and I was like, ‘Yeah, no. Not happening.’
LikeLiked by 3 people
The productivity level has been a little better in the last few days. Hopefully, it will stay that way until I’m all caught up with my work.
Ugh, the online creeps. They are everywhere.
Thank you for dropping by. 🙂
LikeLike
I really enjoyed this coffee talk. Backgammon on my smart phone is my guilty pleasure!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for dropping by. I heard about Backgammon, don’t know how to play it though.
LikeLike
Wow, you are a time management Queen! I really need to take a look at where I spend my time.. 8 hours a week allowing myself to write would be glorious!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha, not really. I think I spend the most time procrastinating on the things that need to be done. My 8 hours of writing are often a few minutes here and there to allow myself to jot some ideas, sometimes, those ideas will lead somewhere and I’ll allow longer while other times, I’ll just take a break to let the ideas germinate in my mind.
Thank you for dropping by and have a great week ahead. 🙂
LikeLike
I hope you have a better week soon!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s getting there. 🙂
LikeLike