A Healer’s Geste

computer-free week

For a month or two now I’ve been wondering if I spend too much time on the computer, “just checking” emails or blogs or looking something up on Google “real quick.” Although I’d put a timer next to the computer for a few weeks, I used it once and only turned it off when it beeped at me. I had turned over in my mind the idea of simply not turning the computer on for a few days, but I just couldn’t do it. I keep my calendar online now (Google calendar) and email is how Matt and I communicate during the day. Then, last week, the fate was forced upon me. Saturday the computer simply didn’t turn on. The power button had occassionally acted funny for a few weeks, but then Saturday it just didn’t work at all. At least, that’s how it appeared to my lay eyes. Matt has told the full account.

The gist of it for me was that while waiting for parts to arrive and for Matt to fix it, I had no computer access for a full week. I am very glad I cleaned out my bloglines account the previous week, because this morning I only had about 6 or 7 blog entries to read. I downloaded 225 emails — only 10 of which I read. I kept my subscription to freecycles, and there were at least 100 from that. Seven of the emails I read were related to American Heritage Girls, one was the Veritas newsletter, one was the Large Family Logistics newsletter, and one was a reply from a panel company I have been in contact with in regards to our future house.

So, catching up on a week’s worth of computer time took me less than half an hour. I was very pleasantly surprised.

I had assumed, in my previous musings, that without the computer I would have much more time and therefore get much more accomplished. That wasn’t really true, though. Monday not only did I not have the computer, I had also finished my book from the library and had no reading either. I did not get more done than I normally did and I have no idea what else I did other than housework and child-watching. Albeit, it was a Monday, which always means there’s more catch-up tidying to do after the weekend and we had had a stomach bug that weekend so there was even more catch-up tidying and catch-up laundry to do, but at the end of the day I just barely got the house tidy (not clean), the dishes going, and the laundry run through — but only one of four loads folded and put away — before starting dinner.

So, after I week I figured out acknowledged what I had been trying to suppress: I have been more tired and more irritable in this first trimester and that has slowed me down. It kept me from doing more than the basics, and I told myself to feel good that I had kept up with the basics. Even as the tiredness subsided, I had the habits of laziness reinforced and I didn’t see why I should do more than the basics. I have a loose schedule and plenty of time. I’m home most days, with only one gone-for-hours busy day for the first time (except summers) since having kids. I work better under slight time pressure and the accountability of deadlines (my brain freezes under tight time pressure — it’s a delicate balance). Fake and self-imposed deadlines don’t work because they aren’t real. Instead of trying to fake myself into a time crunch, I need to stick to my list of housework and goals and just work through it, whether I need to (because of guests or other outer constraint) or not, whether I’d rather read or do some other project or not. No rest, no reading, no computer, no projects until the housework is done. I need to pull out my lists again and utilize the accountability they offer — there is something inately satisfying about a fully-checked-off list, to me the pleasure of seeing “clean bathroom” checked off is greater than actually having a clean toilet.

So I need to pray for real diligence in my work (including training the boys, which is more constant and draining than cleaning toilets) and not seek the imposed crunch of a packed schedule.