i've been thinking about how to schedule the phone calls, etc related to work. i think it will take some trial and error to get things more or less on a schedule.
This is what i've come up with for a start:
When i have paperwork overdue, leave home at 8:30 instead of 9 so that i can tackle some of this before i start seeing patients. (Of course tomorrow my first patient is at 9, so it won't have a lot of effect tomorrow. However it will help me get in the habit of leaving a bit earlier anyway.)
The best time to try to get teachers is early in the morning or right when i get home from picking up the kids at school. That's also a good time for businesses, other therapists etc. Sometimes ok for parents depending on work schedules.
So i should have time set aside at 3:30 for about half an hour or so. If i don't have phone calls, then usually there is a letter to write or some insurance forms to fill out. i don't want to do it at 3:00 because i want to work w J on his homework then. (Stubborn wonderful silly guy)
Then i need to have a phone time in the early evening for parents who work, so maybe around 7. Tomorrow i have clerk's meeting, so if i have extra phone calls they'll need to be done before 6 or so.
The other thing i can do is update my list of work related chores each day after my last round of calls. i don't generally call people twice for the same problem. But sometimes if someone is very ill and we are trying to avoid hospitalization i will call them every day to check in and make sure the plan is working out. That's when i've had people start acting shocked to hear me call and as if i was being very intrusive.
i felt very virtuous this morning having figured out that i could go shopping for groceries early and get it out of the way. Going in the morning is good also because i am a lot more alert and can stay on task much more easily. By the end of the day i am sometimes half asleep anyway and it's easy for me to day dream in the store and i become very indecisive.
It was interesting having a little vacation yesterday. At first i didn't want to have a vacation. Then i decided that i could pick and choose for one day. So i only put my food down on the calendar and i didn't write here. But most everything else i did, plug, walk Blue, arousal, mb. It was nice to have a break from being focused on the clock. (Now when did i use the bathroom last?)
The other thing increasingly on my mind is: i'm going to my conference on May 21-26. Actually i leave on the twentieth and will drive. i need to plan how i will manage my food. i know i have a fridge and a microwave in the room, can't remember if there's anything else. In the past, for example, when i helped take care of my father in Baltimore, i modified my diet somewhat, so it wouldn't be so difficult. i did a sort of two day rotation. But this time, maybe i can keep on track a bit more. i'll have to play it by ear a little bit, because things are so unpredictable when travelling. One of the courses i was going to take was cancelled and i'm disappointed. It was on using meditation to access nonverbal "material" for use in psychotherapy. Not that i do much (if any) depth psychotherapy, but somehow any technique i learn seems to help my understanding overall.
And it was an area that was deeply interesting to one of my more inspiring attendings in residency, connections between psychoanalysis and religious experience, that is.
Oh yesterday i got very upset for a while. S needed to go to the mall after Meeting. We went and i got "A Woman's Worth" and "A Return to Love" at the bookstore. P went out on little expeditions and then returned. Meanwhile, J commandered the train table. S told me that there was some type of conflict, but that he thought it was ok. Well J didn't think it was ok. i listened and then went to speak to the other little boy (much littler than J). J was upset because the boy had been very inflexible in how he wanted to play. And the boy (who was probably too young to listen very well anyway), hadn't listened to him. But i think that J was probably actually angry at the boy's father, who approached when i asked the boy if he could say he was sorry to J. The father said "A father never lets his son apologize". i was rather taken aback. Now i didn't necessarily feel the boy had done anything wrong in an intentional way. At any rate the father had taken his son's point of view, which was natural and given his son being younger than mine sensible. So i was a bit unsettled.
But then J, being J, went over to the train table and "accidentally" pinched the boy's finger in one of the toys on the table. Then i was really upset. First with J, and then normally i would have made sure that J apologized. but after the little talk from the father about not apologizing, i wasn't sure if the apology would just offend or not. Not to mention that it might take up to an hour to get J to apologize. A very strong willed sort.
The worst thing was that S got very upset because i was upset. So the whole episode put a damper on the day for me for a while. My mother would have said "That's bats!!" to the idea that anyone should never apologize, or admit they made an error. And i have to agree, that just doesn't make sense to me. We're all human, aren't we? How can we learn if we don't mess up sometimes? i wish J didn't get so bent on revenge when he feels injured. And he is a physical guy, everything is expressed through physicality with him. It just may take him a while longer to find other ways to deal with his anger.
Posted by briannawaters
at 10:35 PM EDT