Mini-Vacations
Aug. 7th, 2006 11:15 pmA friend of Robin's got very good at playing the guitar, and her
secret, besides private lessons, was practicing one hour a day. You
really can accomplish quite a lot in one hour a day. I wouldn't
choose guitar playing, though (at least not first). I have some job
hunting and exercising and writing and language learning and house
organizing that are higher priorities right now. And apparently
maintaining a daily journal is even more important than those things,
because that's something I actually spend an hour a day on (more or
less).
Thinking about this, I've decided to use some vacation time to do this
kind of thing. I'm no longer scoring teacher exams, so I do have some spare
vacation time other than when I'm actually leaving town.
I've decided to take a 1/2-day vacation each month that I don't get a
holiday (which turns out to be six months, during the next fiscal year
anyway) during which I can get stuff done. This will cost me (4 hours
x 6 months = 24 hours) 3 days of vacation time per year: not much.
I once decided to never use vacation time unless I was leaving town or
using it to make money, but the important part of this decision was
that I didn't want to waste my vacation time. Now that I feel like I
have to prioritize all the time and don't have enough time to do
everything I want to do, it will be easy for me to find things I want
to work on. I know that four hours can go by very quickly, but I
think if I make a plan, I can still accomplish a good chunk of stuff.
secret, besides private lessons, was practicing one hour a day. You
really can accomplish quite a lot in one hour a day. I wouldn't
choose guitar playing, though (at least not first). I have some job
hunting and exercising and writing and language learning and house
organizing that are higher priorities right now. And apparently
maintaining a daily journal is even more important than those things,
because that's something I actually spend an hour a day on (more or
less).
Thinking about this, I've decided to use some vacation time to do this
kind of thing. I'm no longer scoring teacher exams, so I do have some spare
vacation time other than when I'm actually leaving town.
I've decided to take a 1/2-day vacation each month that I don't get a
holiday (which turns out to be six months, during the next fiscal year
anyway) during which I can get stuff done. This will cost me (4 hours
x 6 months = 24 hours) 3 days of vacation time per year: not much.
I once decided to never use vacation time unless I was leaving town or
using it to make money, but the important part of this decision was
that I didn't want to waste my vacation time. Now that I feel like I
have to prioritize all the time and don't have enough time to do
everything I want to do, it will be easy for me to find things I want
to work on. I know that four hours can go by very quickly, but I
think if I make a plan, I can still accomplish a good chunk of stuff.