Apparently My Brain Still Finishes School At 3.30

I thought I needed to sort out my afternoons. Turns out, I might need to update the routine that created them.

I've realised something slightly ridiculous about myself this week.

Apparently, part of my brain is still at school.

Not academically, unfortunately. That would probably be more useful.

It just still seems to be following the timetable.

When I was at school, we'd finish at around 3.15 and I'd be home by half past three. And somewhere in my brain, that seems to have become the point where the day is done. You come home, you eat, you sit down and whatever productive version of you existed before that has officially clocked off.

Which was absolutely fine when school actually finished at 3.15.

My children currently finish at half past twelve and one o'clock.

So now we do the school pick-up, walk home, have lunch, I clear everything away and eventually sit down for five minutes.

And my brain goes:

Lovely. That's us done for the day.

Mate. It's two o'clock.

I've really noticed it since the children went back to school because I'm trying to work out what our new routine looks like. Mornings have fallen into place quite easily. Afternoons, apparently, need a bit more work.

Most days this week I've sat down after lunch and really struggled to get going again. I've managed it, but mainly through pure determination and telling myself that no, I cannot reasonably declare the day finished at lunchtime.

So naturally I started wondering what was wrong with my afternoons.

Maybe sitting down was the problem. Maybe I needed to plan something specific for after lunch. Maybe I needed to stop treating school pick-up like the end of the day.

But then I started thinking about what I'd actually done by the time my arse hit the chair.

I get up about an hour before the children because I like having that bit of time to myself before the day starts. Then it's breakfast, getting everyone ready and out of the door. The children are at the same school but preschool and elementary are in two different locations about a kilometre apart, so by the time I've done both drop-offs and walked back, I've usually been gone for about an hour.

If I need anything from the supermarket or have an errand to run, I'll normally do that on the way home because I'm already out.

Then the clock starts.

I've got roughly three hours on my own and apparently I treat them like I've been given three hours before the building explodes.

Exercise.

Washing.

Cleaning.

Work.

Website.

Social media.

Dinner, if we've got somewhere to be after school.

GO.

I can fit a frankly ridiculous amount into those three hours.

Then I walk back for school pick-up, walk home again, sort lunch, sit down and wonder why I feel like I've already done a day's work.

And that's when I started to think that perhaps I've been asking the wrong question.

Maybe the problem isn't how do I make myself work again in the afternoon?

Maybe it's why the fuck am I trying to finish my entire day before lunch?

And I think I know the answer.

My children used to be smaller.

There was a time when three uninterrupted hours really did feel like winning the lottery.

Trying to work while they were home wasn't really working. I'd open the laptop and approximately eleven seconds later:

Mummyyyy...

Someone needed a drink. Someone wanted a snack. Someone couldn't find something that was directly in front of them. Someone had hit someone. Someone needed me to watch something that apparently could not be performed unless I was looking directly at them.

So I got used to protecting the hours when they weren't there.

If I wanted to exercise without stopping seventeen times, I did it then. If I needed to concentrate, I did it then. If there was something I wanted to get finished properly, I did it then.

And that made complete sense.

Except they're not that little anymore.

They still need me, obviously. I'm under no illusion that I've entered some peaceful era of motherhood where they disappear upstairs at 1pm and re-emerge quietly at dinner.

But they play together now. They can entertain themselves. They don't need me involved in every single thing they're doing. There are jobs I can do while they're home that would have been almost impossible a few years ago.

And yet I'm still organising my day as though those three hours are my only chance.

Their routine changed.

Mine didn't.

And I think that's the bit that's caught me off guard.

Because I've spent the last few years paying much more attention to how I feel and what affects my energy. I've tracked my cycle, noticed patterns, learnt when I've got more to give and when I genuinely need to back off. More recently I've started thinking about all the other things that affect that too — sleep, workload, stress, seasons, what's going on at home.

But maybe there's another part of understanding your rhythm that I haven't really thought about.

Sometimes the rhythm itself needs updating.

Not because it was wrong.

Because your life changed.

There are probably loads of routines and habits we create because they solve a problem at a particular point in our lives. Then the problem changes, but we keep doing the same thing because that's just... what we do.

And I think that's what's happened here.

I've been trying to solve my afternoon slump without questioning the morning routine that might be helping to create it.

So I'm going to try something different.

I'm not going to stop using those three hours. I bloody love those three hours.

But maybe I don't have to treat them like Supermarket Sweep.

Some things can wait until the children are home. I can put washing away while they're playing. Dinner doesn't always need to be cooked before school pick-up. Some work can leak into the afternoon without it meaning I've failed to manage my morning properly.

Maybe if I stop trying to cram an entire day into three hours, I'll get to lunchtime without feeling like I've already completed one.

Or maybe I'll open my laptop at 3pm, hear “Mummyyyy...” seventeen times and immediately remember exactly why I started doing everything before lunch in the first place.

We'll see.

But this has made me wonder what else I'm still doing because it worked for an older version of my life.

What routines have I never questioned because technically there's nothing wrong with them?

What habits solved a problem I don't actually have anymore?

And what am I still doing simply because it made sense five years ago?

That's slightly inconvenient.

I was only trying to sort out my afternoons.

Leanne

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