My Plan for the Coming School Year
July 26th, 2010 | 
Author: I’m not the kind of mom who proclaims she wants or needs “me time.” Hence the massive weight gain I’ve piled onto my life 
So I have been thinking for a long time that once all my kids are in school, and I’m left alone at home, I’d rather get back into the world. Here’s my plan on how I’m going to incorporate work and me time starting on August 18th. I have a feeling my productivity is going to go through the roof!
Okay so I drop my kids off in Ft. Worth at around 8 AM. I live 30 minutes away back in Kennedale, so I thought instead of go all the way back home, I’d go to a Starbucks or library or wherever and work on a cheap laptop/netbook for 2 hours till the zoo opens in Ft. Worth and then go walk it – I get a great workout at the zoo and it’s calming. I could get a season pass. I thought some days I’d walk the zoo and some days go golfing. I’m hoping to do this:
Monday – Zoo
Tuesday – Zoo
Wednesday – Driving Range to hit balls (because it’s half price day @ the zoo and crazy packed)
Thursday – play 9-18 hols of golf (once I feel confident I’m swinging good every time), walk and carry my clubs.
Friday – Zoo
So I can work after the zoo, after I get home, and during those 2 hours beforehand. And I’d work hard because I wouldn’t be distracted with Tivo or other stuff. I’d know I only had 2 hours to pack in.
I hope it helps me – I felt SO great after hitting balls the other day – a lot of clarity in my business mind afterwards just being more active.
Now to find a good cheap laptop or netbook that will allow me to write Word Docs and maybe watch videos (like for my Bring the Fresh reviews, etc). If you have any suggestions, let me know! I don’t want fancy – just something that’ll do the job for those 2 hours I’m on the go.
Tiff
PS – My baby boy turns 18 Monday (today technically). How’d THAT happen?
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You could get a cheap laptop from Wal-mart or something. They have all those sales and stuff before school picks up. My mom got a Toshiba for a little over $300 when they had the tax-day.
It doesn’t have MS Office on it, though. It has MS Works. I think I read something a while back where it said that they are gonna have to take MS Office off the shelfs because of a coding issue and lawsuit in which MS lost.
I’m not totally positive, but I’m pretty sure. Now that your son is 18, I bet you feel old, don’t ya? ha, ha,
I an turning 30 in a few days (30th) and still wondering how my niece is gonna be 10! It seems like she should be like 5 or something!
I think that after you turn 20, it starts going down hill. LOL! Some people call that young, but I am one of those people who looks to the future, and thought “I only have 10 years to the big 30. Now, it’s right around the corner.
The strange thing is, I don’t get the big fuss. I’m black, and as they say, “Black don’t crack!” I’m sure it doesn’t hold true for all, but it does in my family.
My mom is 58, and doesn’t have any wrinkles. Her hair isn’t that gray, either. My grandmother is 78, and doesn’t have wrinkles, either.
When my mom and I went to vote during the past election, the person at the door thought she was my older sister! She thought I was only 18, and my mom was at most in her late 20′s! ha, ha, ha. My grandmother once got mistaken for being too young to get a senior citizen’s discount!
People be crazy! I hope your son has a happy 18th. Oh, I forgot to tell you that you still look like your high school pic!
lol Joey you crack me up! My Mom’s aged well but I have gray hairs out the gazoo – gotta dye that stuff! I look at my high school pics and recent pics and I’m under here somewhere…I plan on getting myself back this year
Tiff,
You may want to check out the “HP Mini.” It’s lightweight, very portable and has decent RAM and storage. I think they’re selling for around $300. I have a couple friends who use them and love them. The only drawbacks I see are: (1) there is no CD drive – you have to either use USB drives or online downloads to load programs, pics, etc. (2) the keyboard is smaller and may take some getting used to.
I’ve also seen nice laptops at Office Depot that are closeouts or clearances for under $400.
Thanks Steve! I’m not sure if I’d need a CD drive. I do need Word. That I know…not sure how I’ll do that. I’ll have to go into a store to shop I think instead of looking online. But then I’ll go online to buy and get a good deal. lol
Sounds great to me. I’m told by ‘experts’ that having your day scheduled out really helps productivity. I tend to think that would be true. When we work from home its kind of easy to slide over to another pdf to read or new product to lust after or blog to read….oops
Instead of doing what we are supposed to do. When I have to go be at an appt for contracted work I am there on the dot. After all that other person is counting on me and holding be accountable.
I need to work that kind of accountability into my work-from-home-IM schedule.
So, I’m going to hold you accountable. I expect to see zoo animal pictures after your walking session! I need a giraffe,hippo and eleflant.
;>
Kater
lol Kater – maybe someone will catch a pic of me from behind and you’ll have your elephant pic. Eek! I might just get mistaken for one
~
I’ll do some vlogs – that’ll be fun
Tiff,
The HP Minis my friends have came loaded with a trial version of Word. All they had to do was enter a valid license key and they were good to go. All you’d need to do is enter the key from your current version of Word. I’m pretty sure the license allows you to install on at least 2 computers. (Newer licenses allow 3!)
Hey Tiffany!
Glad to hear you’re getting back on track after the past few weeks and even looking to improve your life/health/etc
As for the laptop, I have a 10″ Acer Aspire One and I love it. It is great for typing/movies. I bought mine specifically for portability when I’m out of town and it’s awesome (like 2lbs). I upgraded the RAM to 2Gb which took all of 5 minutes to do (you couldn’t mess it up on this model) to make it a bit faster
-C
Why not just use Open Office? It’s free and you can save everything in .doc files just like Word. I actually prefer it over Word and use it all the time for my writing business.
Charity
Clefty thanks
I’ll look into it.
Charity – I haven’t used it. Is it identical?
Becki I haven’t had fresh air continually in a long time.
I definitely think getting out of the house will energize you, especially with the planned exercise each day. Fresh air is very helpful!
I find my walks absolutely clear my mind — stream of consciousness type ‘figuring stuff out.’ A lot of people like to listen to audios but I use the quiet time to just kind of ‘process’ what’s on my mind.
Kind of related to getting out more, more and more of us IM’ers us are moving into helping local businesses with their online lead gen, SEO etc. It’s weird to consider going back out ‘networking’ etc since I’ve been an online hermit for a few years now, but on the other hand I do really enjoy meeting local business owners, they NEED the help, it can be good money, and it gets me out of being a hermit!
About kids & work, my ‘baby’ is a senior this year, the other two are off to college, so life definitely takes a turn as they need us less. It opens up all kinds of cool new possibilities! But then there’s the tuition bills….
Open Office is open source version of microsoft office. They don’t have ALL the bells and whistles of the office line but you can create PDFs, powerpoint presentations, and databases and such. If you are a low-end user of office (like me) you will do fine with it!
It IS a version of office, just free
it’s at openoffice.org I think.
For IM writing, I just use NotePad or NotePad++ (googleable)…
I have an Asus netbook that I love but the keyboard is really small. To me, it’s hard to type and be really productive. I would rather have a small laptop with the larger keyboard. My netbook did come with software that was compatible with Office (Word, Excel, etc)
I love the concept of less stress, more exercise and a walk round a zoo. However I have always thought Golf would be more fun with out the ball and the clubs, just a nice walk in a scenic park.
But have you thought about a wet weather plan?, and my suggestion would be a shopping mall, great safe places to walk around without getting wet.
Anyway remember, life is about the journey and not about the destination, so go with the plan and if it changes, go with it and enjoy the ride.