Back in March 2010 I wrote up a post that detailed where I spend my time over the span of a week.
It was pretty rough; I didn't account for a lot of the minutia in my life like walking the dogs or grocery shopping or blogging. Still, I wanted to see where I was spending my time from a high level and get a clearer idea how much time I spent writing, reading, and doing some of the other things I like to do like exercising (cycling, running, weights; sometimes more of one, sometimes less).
I'm revisiting this now because something is about to change in my life that is going to greatly affect my time in a good way. No, I'm not quitting my day job. But I am getting a new one. One that allows me to work at home 99.8% of the time. In other words, I should be able to reclaim the 10 hours/week I currently spend commuting. I say "should" because I'm fairly certain there's going to be an intense ramping up period with this job (from the moment I received the offer I've been boning up on the base technologies I think I need to have a firm grasp of from Day 1). However, once I get settled in and have adequately dazzled my new boss and co-workers, I'll slow it down a bit and work a more normal 40-45 hour work week. That's when things get interesting from a writing perspective.
The numbers in that older post aren't entirely accurate anymore. Below is a more current breakdown based on today.
| Day Job | 40 | 24% |
| Commuting | 10 | 6% |
| Exercise | 10 | 6% |
| Writing | 14 | 8% |
| Reading | 8 | 5% |
| Fun Time | 21.5 | 13% |
| Outside work | 12 | 7% |
| Consulting | 0 | 0% |
| Sleep | 52.5 | 31% |
| TOTAL | 168 | 100% |
Here's where I expect my hours to fall once the initial "breaking in" period is over:
| Day Job | 45 | 27% |
| Commuting | 0 | 0% |
| Exercise | 10 | 6% |
| Writing | 25 | 15% |
| Reading | 9 | 5% |
| Fun Time | 14.5 | 9% |
| Outside work | 12 | 7% |
| Consulting | 0 | 0% |
| Sleep | 52.5 | 31% |
| TOTAL | 168 | 100% |
This is pretty rough. I don't, for example, count the time spent driving to and from bike trails since I'll be heading out occasionally to meet the wife for some single-track fun. Also, I lumped things like grocery shopping into 'Fun Time', because isn't grocery shopping and running other errands fun?
Consulting work has already gone to '0'. I quit doing that a while back.
Commuting time will go to '0' with only the occasional trip into the office. How 'occasional' remains to be seen, but I know the person I'll be working for from a previous position so I know when he says, "I don't care where you work", I know he means it. Also, the work-at-home arrangement is a company policy, not something I set up because I know the person. I consider it rock-solid.
I expect writing time to increase by around 11 hours to 25 hours/week. That doesn't seem like a lot, but considering I work a 'regular' job I think that's pretty darn good. 25 hours/week in terms of hours anyway is a legitimate part-time job. Too bad the pay is so crappy. :-(
All in all, I'm extremely excited about this new position. It's going to eliminate my the wasted time and frustration of a daily commute, the work is going to be intense but interesting, and, best of all, I'll have more time to spend writing.
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