Are You Even Reading (Books)?

Two weeks ago I was at work and found out that we'd be out for three weeks (and then six weeks and now who knows). Of course a million thoughts were going through my mind, admittedly "I'm going to get to read more!" was one of them. I made a stack of books to get through and confidently posted about everyone everywhere nailing their Goodreads goals for the year.

Whelp.

In the last two weeks I've finished three books, the exact amount I would have if I was working (I think I actually probably would have read four by now if it was business as usual). There are lots of reasons why:

Teaching my son I treat this like another job, planning lessons the night before, prepping, and really trying to make sure he's progressing 

My actual job Distance learning planning for my students, plus catching up with grading, zoom meetings with colleagues and students, etc...

Covid19 Distract-a-mania! The other night, for example, I spent thirty minutes on my phone researching drugs being tested to bring some relief. I'll let you guys know if I find anything encouraging so we can all buy massive stock in that company (spoiler alert: eff Gilead, those shady SOBs)

Exercise I know, this is strange, but in order to stay sane I am getting in about two hours of activity a day, between walking with Sawyer and working out at night.

This has got to change. This was not how I wanted to have time off, but the fact that I'm not on track to read a billion books is disappointing. Despite having my hands full, here are a few ways I plan on doing a better job reading:

- Catch up on my pre-school closure grading asap, so I'm not constantly grading old work throughout the day

- Utilize my Forest App even more. I do a great job of using it while I'm teaching Sawyer and working on work, so now I need to turn it on while I am reading too (yes, I am a good tree-lover; I rarely kill them and am disciplined enough to not let them die... if you don't know what the hell I am talking about, check out my very favorite productivity app)

- Set Sawyer's rest time for fifteen minutes longer and read during that time (the first hour is designated work-only; and I work many more hours than that during the day, for the record... this is just a nice, quiet chunk I can spend on it as well)

- Block out a half an hour most nights right after I am done working out/showering, before I commit to doing something else. 

If I can't put a serious dent in my TBR pile then I don't even know myself anymore.