The rhythm of my (alternating) weeks

I’ve been trying out my alternating week schedule for about two months now. Instead of always going to the dojo, or running, or driving carpool on the same days, I have two different schedules that I alternate between. This allows me to take advantage of my early release Wednesdays (which I will be losing next year) to run some weeks, and allows me to take advantage of the one day a week when my son and I can train the same time the other weeks. It also allows me to trade off carpooling with one family that helps take our boys to the dojo and two other families that help take our daughters to boxing. So far I’m really liking it, even though it can be complicated and it definitely requires more advanced planning (not to mention coordinating with other people).

I never really recapped what I learned from my time tracking in early January. I was already pretty well aware of how I use my time, so I never added up the exact number of hours I spent, say, messing around on my phone (probably the thing I am least likely to gauge accurately), but I did think a lot each night about how I felt on the days when I had a lot to do after school, as compared to the days when I didn’t have to ferry anyone around or train at the dojo. What I realized was that I didn’t feel much better on the days that I had some time to sit around at home. In fact, I only really felt good about that kind of time when I had something else going on most other days of the week. I think I really only need one afternoon a week to decompress, as long as everything else feels relatively manageable (like I don’t feel totally behind at work or at home).

And this is a good thing because I generally only get one of those kinds of days a week. And I’m learning how to maximize my use of that time to decompress, so that all the driving and carpooling and martial arts training feels manageable (carpooling) or even pleasant (training).

When you’re alternating your weeks, you quickly realize that a month only has four of them. I have staff meetings on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays, and I’ve been scheduling my allergy shot on the 2nd Tuesday (so that a carpool dropout on Monday or Thursday doesn’t require I reschedule it), which means I only get one Tuesday a month with an open afternoon. I was switching driving my son to the dojo and doing the boxing carpool on Thursdays, but a new, longer high belt class started on Fridays, so now I only have to do the boxing carpool every other Thursday and I get the other two “off” and it’s nice to have those margins (especially when a hole opens in the boxing carpool). Fridays used to be my one day to get stuff done at work, but now I only get about half an hour before I to leave to pick up my son for the high belt class at the dojo. I also committed to assisting on the mat on Fridays until mid-May, when they have their red belt test. Fridays used to be a pretty chill day for me, but now they are not. I’m still getting used to that change.

I will say that when I have something most afternoons, and then one day I don’t have anything (say on a Monday when both kids are being ferried by OTHER people to their activities), it feels pretty amazing to have 1-1.5 hours to myself. Sometimes I’m not really sure what to do with that “found” time.

And things keep changing. I actually got a text an hour ago that one of the girls is stopping boxing at the end of the month, so who knows if we can keep that up in May. My daughter is interested in wrestling at her school, so maybe she can just transition to that instead. I certainly can’t take her to boxing twice a week all by myself.

Once my son takes his red belt test we’ll feel better taking more days off at the dojo. I think by then we will both need a break. And the last four weeks of school (mid-May to mid-June) always have lots of unique events like Open House and “promotion” activities at my school. So far my alternating schedule has had the flexibility to absorb random one-offs (like the dojo being randomly closed today), but these final months of the school year will definitely stress test it.

{My in-laws are also in Texas for two weeks in May, and then flying their daughter and her kids back to SF for two weeks, so they will be out of pocket for pretty much the entire month, which changes my schedule some too.}

A final thought – right now our weekends are a little packed for my liking. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but at this point in my life, I want a few solid hours at home at least one afternoon during the weekend. I certainly don’t want to stay home all day, but having a morning AND afternoon (or evening) activity both days is too much for me. I’ve talked to my husband about it, and he is also pretty exhausted after the super packed weekends, so we’re trying to scale down a bit. I think that will help us get through the next two busy months.

How do you schedule your weeks? Does every week look pretty much the same? Different? Do your weeks change during different parts of the year?