I decided to reshuffle my working week. Since the pandemic started and I switched to working from home I have been spending four mornings a week doing my archive work, instead of the two full days I did in the office. It seemed easier to spread it out over the week and fit better with our spring summer routine. However, when we have freelance work on the go, it sometimes felt as though my supposedly part-time work wasn't being very part time at all! For the new year I have decided to switch back to my old working schedule, spending Monday and Tuesday on archive work and then fitting any freelance work into the rest of the week. If we don't have any freelance jobs on the go, I will have three full weekdays free.
The change of working patterns meant that by 5.30pm yesterday I was done with my archive work for the week, and I took today as a free day. I have some freelance work to do, which I hope I will be able to fit into tomorrow and Friday mornings, leaving the afternoons free. I did quite a bit of reading while sock-knitting. I have already finished my first book of the year - The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel, a novel about a French Jewish girl escaping Paris and working in Vichy France as a forger of false documents to save Jewish children and help resistance fighters. This morning I started Coronation Everest by Jan Morris (or James Morris as she was at the time she wrote it), about her experiences as the official Times newspaper correspondent accompanying the expedition that first successfully climbed in Everest in 1953. Amazon had an offer on many of her books on Kindle last week and I bought several.
Beside reading and knitting, I did a bit of housework, cooked fish with fondant potatoes and greens for dinner, and had a band practice on Zoom. As I went into the dining room to log into Zoom the top hinge of the door came away from the frame. Fortunately the door did not fall off completely, and I was able to fix it afterwards by using some larger screws. Sometimes hoarding old screws in my toolbox comes in useful! (Note this is *my* toolbox - M would be the first to admit that fixing things is not his strength!)
We also went for a four mile walk this afternoon. Despite realising there would be mud - there was, and lots of it - we walked down through the woods to the canal and from there across the water meadows. It was quite bleak and wintry, as well as muddy. The worst patch came just after we crossed the river, but by that time we were committed; we decided retracing our steps over all the previous mud was not an option! We then walked back through town, having managed to get the worst of the mud off our boots by wiping them on the grass. It was really the sort of walk that needed wellies (rubber boots) but we don't have any and our hiking boots cope with most things.
2 comments:
What gorgeous images! Also, I like the idea of two full days of work, and then it's all nicely cleared away for the week. (It's what I would do!)
It would definitely be M's approach too. Time management is not my strong point and what works for me is not always logical! For a while last year I was doing better spreading it through the week and having a more regular routine, but what worked in the summer wasn't working in the winter. So far, so good.
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