2024 May 16 Cultivating Time

Time fascinates me and freaks me out. They say Capricorns are more aware of the finite time we have on Earth than any other signs. We carry Death in our pockets; not in a morbid way, but more in a “let’s make the best of our time here” way. We are part goat and part fish. The steady mountain climber and the fun fish that flips all around. I like astrology because I like a good myth. The shared stories and archetypes are relatable and help us explain our personal complexities.

When I was working as a Special Education Teacher, I did a time study. I added up all of the “off hours” I spent doing paperwork at home. Surprise surprise, it came to more hours than if I had worked full time through the summer. The “summers off” were definitely awesome, but when I knew I was an extremely efficient educator spending my “free time” working, it really bothered me. Then, I added up my time working with kids vs. paperwork. It was less than 25% of my time working with the kids I was supposedly helping. That just made me sad. 

There’s nothing like brain surgery, a good mushroom trip and a worldwide pandemic to make you reconsider how you want to spend your time left on this planet. I made as many changes as I could within education to maximize my time teaching kids, maximize my free time, and minimize things that were meaningless to the big picture. Special Education is paperwork, so I tried teaching Spanish and Computer Science. Spanish was fun to teach so I switched to that full time. It allowed more direct contact with kids, and it did give me more free time. However, I still spent Sundays completely shut down by anxiety. And keeping up with 234 kids will mess up any time study. 

Now I’ll have a different schedule doing Horticulture at the zoo. 40 hours in 4 days, 3 days off, 6 months a year and NO homework. We’ll see. 40 hours a week is still pretty grueling. 

I read Atomic Habits by James Clear earlier this year on my ride out to LCCC. The main idea is that tiny daily/weekly changes in habits add up to big gains (or losses) in time. This idea clicked into my obsessions with my use of time, and I’m either a mythical creature of habit or I have borderline OCD. Maybe both. I have the same huevos rancheros breakfast every day. I make lists and accomplish them. I wash my hair every three days. I look forward to plans and get depressed if my plans fall through.

Whenever I say I read a book, it’s usually by listening to an audiobook from the library.

Since reading the book, I have created more little habits to move me closer to my life goals. This blog is part of that. I write every day. I learn some Japanese every day. I go outside every day. I only take the stairs at work. 

Doing things habitually also has changed my identity. Instead of “Special Education Teacher” or “Paperwork Master”, I have become a writer, an outdoorswoman, a language learner (and hopefully someday a “Japanese speaker”). 

Here are the habits I want to cultivate as I move forward: creating music to become a musician, creating art to become an artist, cooking organic, homegrown meals to become a chef, improving my sustainable practices to become s permaculturist, working with fungi to become a mycologist and working with plants to become a horticulturalist.

What does this look like? It looks like me picking up the guitar and playing for 5 minutes every day. It’s me spending a weekend morning on the iPad drawing native plants. It’s cleaning out the winter sowing bins to start a new set of mushrooms and a vermiculture compost system. These daily, weekly and seasonal habits will become me. These habits are fulfilling to me. 

This is a printable from Etsy (Store: WorkSheetOut) that sums up James Clear’s book