10 Minutes Early - Week 4 "Finale"

Where Does Happiness Come From?
Happiness comes from being early. I've discovered a subtle difference in attitude between those that cram as many things as they can into a day and those who accomplish the most important things in each day. This difference can be almost imperceptible. But it's there just the same.

Not me. I've got way more children and don't look nearly as calm driving. Ha ha ha.

Success Defined.
My goal of being ten minutes early to at least one appointment per day was a success. Not because I was 100% perfect with it. I wasn't. But mainly because we went an entire month with no fighting in the car. And I didn't look like the mom in this photo even once.

The Usual Pre-Car Ride Shuffle:
I'm hurrying around the house to get everything ready to leave. Snacks? Check. Extra diapers? Check. Everyone has shoes on? Check. "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry," I call to my children as I prod them out the door. They just don't move fast enough. "I need a drink! I need to pee! He hit me," echos in response. Frustrated Mom (definitely me) raises her voice. JUST GET IN THE CAR! We're going to be late! What's that smell? Oh crap. Baby just messed her pants!

Fake Cry
There's always at least one kid crying by the time we get out the door. The shrill of fake crying grates on me. Please. Be. Quiet. My ears are ringing. I crank up the radio to drown out the other. Can't think. Must escape. Must get there. Keep driving. Hating life. And when we arrive, I'll put on my mask. It's a warm and happy face. It helps me pretend like I've got everything under control.

Enter in 10 minute early plan. 
This turned out to be more like an intervention. I actually had to prepare to leave 20 minutes earlier than usual since it takes ten minutes to get out the door. There's no yelling. Just calm talking. We're not late. And if we are running behind, it doesn't matter. We've got wiggle room.

Leave Stress At Home.
I am in control of my mood. My kids pick up on the positive vibe. When they buckle up before me, they earn the right to choose our in-car entertainment. (Would you believe a 7 year old sometimes wants to listen to the news? Yeah. Pretty interesting kid.) My vision increases when I'm not focused on the slow car in front of me. I have time to make positive decisions on the road. I see the mistakes of other drivers sooner and am more willing to forgive them.

Model Driving
I've discovered a better way. Perfecting my driving habits now plays a major roll in how my children will drive in the future. They will emulate me. Cool, calm and collected.

Goals
Every driver has room to improve. Ten minutes early has been good for me. And my family. Definitely a keeper.

10 Minutes Early - Week Three

Week Three: Rain, freezing temps, ice, snow, rain, ice, snow. You get the pattern. When we finally did venture out for our one and only car ride, we found that so did the rest of the county. And they all wanted to go where we wanted to be: Costco. To stock up on everything we'd been missing all week.

Essentially, there's nothing to report on for week three. Except that we didn't have any issues with our children buckling up or sitting correctly in their seats. Somehow the sensation of sliding on the slushy roads taught them the importance of seatbelts and safety. That and a YouTube video of some car crashes due to snow and ice.

10 Minutes Early - Week Two

Good news! Being ten minutes early to just one appointment each day has been much more manageable for me and I've been successful with it. If I miss getting to Point A on time then I work harder to get to Point B early. I will admit though that I got to Point C one evening ten minutes early and there were only 4 cars in the parking lot. I didn't go in at first because I thought I might have gotten the meeting place wrong. Turns out it was the right place...just a crazy night for the many who came late.

I'm now halfway through Week Three of my challenge. This month is going by quite fast, but I'm not sure how effective it's been for me to make this smal change in my life permanent. I haven't had any practice this week getting anywhere, let alone being punctual. It's been snowing and roads have been lousy for the past 4 days. We haven't driven anywhere. On the bright side, this photo is the view from my back yard. I love it.

Some of you may want to make a comment about Seattlites being afraid to drive in the snow. Don't. Remember that where you come from the snow is fluffy and powdery. Not wet. Not icy. And most importantly, your a city or state probably wisely invested in snow plows, road de-icer and sand.

There. I said it. We don't invest in snow removal like other places. And no, I don't want to drive next to inexperienced snow drivers who don't have four wheel drive and leave their cars at the bottom of hills they can't get up. These are the drivers that slide into traffic and wreak havoc. No way do I want to drive with them. We're staying home. It's a snow day.

10 Minutes Early - Week One

It's time to re-evaluate my goal to be ten minutes early everywhere I go. I'm hit and miss and though I thought it was SMART, it turns out that it should be smartER.

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relavant
Timely
Evaluate
Re-evaluate

EVALUATION:
I didn't realize what ten minutes actually meant when I made the goal. It means an entire attitude shift. The second day in and I was up and ready 30 minutes earlier than usual. So I decided to get a few things done because I had plenty of time. I ended up getting my daughter to school about the same time I usually get her there...half hour late. It's like my time clock is pulling me back to where I was. The next time I took her to school, it was similar, but not as bad. Ten minutes ahead of our usual schedule (read "only 20 minutes late" here).

I don't want to get too down on myself. I mean I have been ten minutes early to a few things. Okay twice. On day one, we were early to church and day five I was early picking up my daughter from school. Twice in a week is better than the previous week. Or month. Or year. See, I'm making progress!

GOAL REVISION:
There are two things that I think I can do to make my goal easier to attain. First, I think going to bed a little earlier will help me with getting out of bed in the morning. And second, I need to shrink my goal down to size. Being ten minutes early to everything is too big for me. I need to revise it to just once per day. Once I've made the goal each day then I can relax and be late to everything else...until the morrow.

My real goal though was to curb the fighting in my car by reducing the "we're going to be late" tension. I add to this stress when I try to get my kids to hurry and get ready and get in the car. So in this regard, we've been doing fantastic. I haven't been stressed and we haven't had any sibling squabbles while I was driving this week. Yes!

10 Minutes Early - Day One

I got a good chuckle today when reading what Angus and Phil have to say about New Year resolutions.

Angus & Phil by Annie Taylor Lebel

Day one of arriving ten minutes was a success. Arriving ten minutes early and leaving ten minutes earlier are not the same thing. No, they definitely are not. I believe I was trying to leave 20 minutes earlier in order to actually do it.

So, just before we left for church this morning, when I discovered that I hadn't put our dinner in the crock pot, I actually had a few minutes extra to do it. Phew. That saved me from having to alter dinner prep later.

We did indeed arrive ten minutes early to church this morning and were by no means the first family to arrive. Would you believe that there were lots of other people there that early, too? Whoa. We didn't have to sneak in during the invocation or find a large enough pew in the back. Nope. Ten minutes early was stress-free. And a happy car ride with no arguing in the back seat. Love it.

New Year New Goal

Goodbye 2011 and HELLO 2012!

I'd like to make a New Year's Resolution about driving...but I can't seem to think of a good one. I stopped eating in the car for a month this past February, so I won't use that as blog material this year. I already don't drink and drive. Well, I don't drink alcohol ever, so that's not tough to do. I use my blinker and make complete stops. My phone operates in the speaker position when I'm driving. I can't resolve for my children to behave better in the car since I don't control them. When I have so many good driving habits, it's difficult to find and fine tune the little deficiencies.

But perhaps there is something I can do to influence the atmosphere in my vehicle. I can change my stress level which has the potential to positively affect their behavior.

I think fighting is the worst out of them. And they don't do it every time I drive. Only when we're late. So I guess that's a lot of times.

In January, I will get out the door with enough time so that we arrive at our destination ten minutes early. We will experience what life is like when we're not in a rush. When there isn't pressure to get somewhere quick. Leaving early will build in extra time for the last minute emergencies that invariably pop up before we get out the door (read diaper blow outs or searching for missing shoes).

This challenge will be bigger and more grandiose than the last one. Pretty much because it's ten percent longer...aka three days since January is longer than February. Ha ha.

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.

My new resolution: Arrive at destinations 10 minutes early.

Start date: January 1, 2012
End date: January 31, 2012

Steps to accomplish the goal:
1. Keep shoe shelf organized.

2. Figure out how much time it will take to drive somewhere and add 10 minutes.
3. Get out the door early.

The Forever Clause Week 4

Before it slips my mind. I must tell you that today is important! It's the deadline to get your Safe Driving Fine Art Contest submission sent in. I've seen a few of the entries and am looking forward to seeing the rest before they appear on Facebook for peer voting.

Now, back to the Forever Clause...I thought I was doing well this past week. But if I break it down, I see that it wasn't that great. We live on a huge hill. Super steep. It snowed this past week and my husband took the vehicle that I normally drive to work and school since it has 4 wheel drive and I was home with the kids for snow days. So I was actually only driving on 4 days. I found myself excited with yellow lights and downing trail mix while waiting for the red to change. Oh the justification! It's terrible. I was admitting to myself that I didn't even like this goal. I reasoned that I'd throw up if I didn't eat something soon. For the first time EVER, I was disappointed when intersections had green lights. And there were a lot of them. Usually, I seem to always get the red ones.

Yesterday, I embarked on a 15 minute drive home with some trail mix next to me. I drove to the highway, got on, got off and was on another road 7 minutes into my trip before I realized that I was even snacking on that mix. This goal, which has been on the forefront of my mind lately, was totally forgotten. Wow.

There is a big part of me that is grateful that today is the end of this clause. Then I will eat again guilt-free. It won't be like before, though. I like eating meals at home. I like arriving places early because I planned on NOT eating in my car. I just want my snacks back. To keep me alert for long drives...and short ones.

The Forever Clause Week Three

Justifications have set in this week. If I'm waiting for a train, it's okay to have a snack...right? I mean the car isn't moving. In fact it's in park. The problem is that the same thoughts were entertained at stop lights. I can see the downward spiral now.

The biggest benefit from not eating while driving this week has definitely been that I am on time (or even early-gasp!) for my appointments. Usually, I try to put too many things in my schedule with the notion that I can eat on the road. Well since that is no longer an option for me, I'm a little less busy and have cut down on rushing around. I haven't cut out any necessary activities, though. I like that. My time has become a little more valuable to me.

The Forever Clause Week Two

This week was really hard for me. And by really, I mean completely. Every time I got in the car I needed to put something in my mouth. I've been doing well getting ready to leave the house and getting meals prepared an hour before it's time to leave. But I still want to snack in the car. Like a lot. For the most part I was true to my goal and didn't eat anything. I did drink water. And that was helpful. The one time I did eat I was coming from a doctor's appointment to pick up my kids from school. The appointment was supposed to be one hour. It ended up being three and a half. I had to get my kids and I couldn't drive without eating because I was nauseas from waiting a couple of extra hours already.

What I am noticing is that I look at driving as dead or wasted time. I don't need to concentrate to drive. It's not a stressful activity like it is for many new drivers. I gather more information in a shorter amount of time than a new driver. As a consequence, good or bad, I need to fill the void in my mental alertness while driving with something to keep me engaged. Many times I do that through listening to the news and radio talk shows. Sometimes, I listen to books on tape. Often I turn everything off and have silent time and meditate. When my kids are in the car and ask me to go when stopped at a red lights, we talk about rules of the road and why I shouldn't rear-end the car in front of me just so we can "go" or why I can't pass the school bus we happen to be following and stopping for every 6 houses. I also teach my children where my eyes are looking and what kind of potential hazards they are searching for. Teaching my children is the most valuable way I can use my time while driving. However, their attention span is short and I often only get in one mini-lesson before the moment is gone.

Bar none, my favorite ways to engage my mind and make use of driving time are making phone calls I didn't have time to do at home/work and eating. I think that's why this challenge is so hard for me. It cuts to the core and has me wondering whether or not it's worth turning off all distractions in order to drive. Has the driving task become so automatic that my mind would just check out?

The Forever Clause Week One

This past week I have been 100% successful about not eating while driving. I should also tell you that I did not drive more than about 50 miles all week. My toddler is learning to use the toilet and it was better for us to be home. The few times I was driving, it was hard to not munch on something. I found myself getting bored with the driving process. Luckily, my trips were 10 to 15 minutes long and so they weren't long enough for me to get sleepy and mentally check out. It is something that concerns me however and something that I will need to watch. Especially with my 45 minute commute to work this morning. Hopefully, NPR will keep me mentally engaged...but that means I've got to get out of the house quickly since there is only a half hour left of their morning edition show.

The Forever Clause

The idea of what resolutions are just hit me. Beyond goal-setting, they are trying out solutions to problems again. The again part is what sticks out the most to me. Deep down (and sometimes on a more surface level) I know what my issues are. I've been determined to change my habitual behaviors before. I give a little bit of thought to changing X and a couple of days later I've forgotten all about my goal.

Recently, I attended a class that discussed goal setting. An idea that was discussed was that each goal should have a beginning and an ending date. A siren in my head went off. Ding ding ding! Yes, I get it! Most of my goals have this unwritten but well understood forever clause in them. And forever is a long time to change a behavior. It's so long that subconsciously knowing that I want to change X permanently sets me up for failure. Having an end point however gives me something to build upon. If I can do (or not do) something for 3 days or a week then the next time I resolve to do it then I can increase my time up to one month. And then one year. And then it's a habit and no need to set a goal again. It's a part of me.

Last year, I took the challenge to not use my phone while driving for one month. It was painful. And I think that month was the slowest of my life. I was largely successful with only a couple of mess-ups. Now, several months later, I use my phone occasionally while driving but in the speaker setting rather than to my ear. But what has really changed is the overall number of times I feel I actually need to talk to people. In general I've curbed the behavior tremendously.

But somehow I missed the entire point of my goal. It wasn't to stop using my phone. It was to stop distracted driving. And though I can't curb every distraction (a backseat full of kids adds quite a bit), there is still much I can do.

My new resolution: Eat at home.

Start date: February 1, 2011

End date: February 28, 2011

Steps to accomplish the goal:
1. Have meals prepared one hour prior to needing to walk out the door.
2. Start loading in the car (finding everyone's shoes) 15 minutes before leaving.

Now, you may be thinking, "what's this got to do with driving?" Well, if I make time to eat at home then I won't eat in the car. My kids will also eat at home. And I won't need to pass them snacks. (Tossing a sandwich or an apple into the 3rd row usually equates to rumble strip vibrations.) I think there will be a side benefit, too. If we made time to eat at home, then we also made plans to get to wherever we're going on time and won't be in a hurry to get anywhere. And rushing around leads to all sorts of bad driving behaviors.

It's a simple plan. Only two steps. Lots of benefits - driving and otherwise. I hope I'm not in for another longest-month-of-my-life.

Internal Conflict

I did it. All during April I avoided my phone like the plague while I was driving. I'll admit it, though. I messed up twice. Both phone calls were to my brother. Once just a few days after beginning the challenge. We were trying to meet up and the plans kept changing. My kids wouldn't relay the right info. Or any info, really. The second time I just forgot. It was just last week. I quickly ended our 30 second conversation as soon as I realized what I'd done.

I did NOT like going without my phone. It was a constant battle. I really thought that new habits are formed after 21 days. Well, I did that. More than that. And I have not broken this habit.

I watched Oprah's distracted driving show the other night. I'm having an internal conflict. YES, texting while driving puts everyone on the road in danger. But the phone? The phone holds the same distraction level as having a conversation with someone else in the car. So I shouldn't be talking to anyone in the car, too? The effort it takes to not talk in the car distracts me. More than just taking a call.

What really bothers me is that I won't sign Oprah's distracted driving pledge. Yes, I can sign that I won't text. No problem there. But talking on the phone is another matter entirely. That's a huge commitment. Is the attitude that "it can't happen to me" really so strong? In me? Just when I didn't think so, it is.

I'm feeling the urge to set up a driving course and test my ability to talk on the phone and drive.

Distracted

Last week, I found out that April was National Distracted Driving Awareness Month and once again, I have been struggling with what this means to me. I am constantly distracted while driving. It most often happens when my children wait until we're all loaded up to start poking their sibling and I am left as the mediator. Or when my morning routine hasn't gone as smoothly as I planned and I am left grabbing a bite to eat on the go. My favorite distraction is my cell phone. Luckily, I'm not driving a manual transmission. That would just prove to complicate things further.