People who spend their time wisely at all times, you're dismissed from this post.
Otherwise, maybe you're like me. (It's ok. Don't be too scared.)
Maybe you'll be sitting at your computer trying to take notes on the heart cycle and all of the new vocabulary words are blurring together into blobs that start with "cardiac" and end with "oh my god I can't deal with this and seriously I think those two words are only different because one has an 'i' and one has an 'e'."
So then you think, "well, clearly I'm not getting my homework done right now. But my baby is asleep and I need to study right now because this is my chance."
Then you look at the etext again and maybe absentmindedly eat a dark chocolate pomegranate piece, hoping that it's just low blood sugar that is causing the confusion.
Nope. Those two words still look the same and "studying" now means looking ahead in the chapter to see if there are any words that you already know. Then you decide maybe you should just go on Facebook or something. Because then at least you'll still be at your computer for when the urge strikes to go back to studying.
Except that's not how it works. You go on Facebook or catch up on a webcomic and the next thing you know, your baby is waking up from his nap.
So this tale is fairly accurate to how I've felt several times while studying for my anatomy and physiology class. I typically read though a concept at least twice before I really start to get it, and that first read through is usually a glance followed by facebook. Except, (and I'm sure that I am the last person in the world to discover this), I found a better way.
When I feel like I'm not studying well, I get up and attend to my housework.
Yeah, I know. Right? Rocket science is happening, right here. Right now.
It's just that it is incredibly hard for me to tell myself that I can get up from my computer when I think I should be studying. I'll sit there and read random articles and browse websites, knowing I'm not going to studying any more. But just sitting there makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. Right up until Silas wakes up and I realize I didn't accomplish anything and there's still a sink full of dishes that now need to be cleaned while a newly rested baby tries to climb up my legs.
So for the past week, when I've reached that point in my studying, I've gotten up and done other things (mostly cleaning). It's silly, but I had to learn to give myself permission to get up from my computer and acknowledge that I won't be studying anymore for at least the next half hour. These breaks are sometimes good enough that I do sit back down and take another page of notes.
Look, I know that probably everyone else already knew how to do this. Or that it might not even be an issue, because before I had Silas, I could have just done other things at other times. But at some point in my life, all of my "free time" became "on-call for a baby" time and well, this new way of thinking about my time while Silas naps has really helped.
It also helps that Silas has been reliably napping for almost two hours each afternoon. Oh, it is glorious.
Now, if only I could convince him to sleep longer at night. But I suspect we'll get there one of these days. Weeks.
...
Months.
No comments:
Post a Comment