Quality time: I’m 40, Single and Living in Jakarta (part 5)

A senior colleague called me up and asked if I can attend a meeting after office hours on Friday.  I told him that I already have plans and he said, “You’re single, what are you doing?”.  Hmh, excuse me?

Which, then reminded me that I wrote something regarding spare time.  Lets calculate, at least, let me calculate my time: we have 24 hours a day.  During the weekdays, 7 hours goes to sleeping, in average.  I start working by 7 am to 5 pm, which is about 10 hours (in the office, to be precise).  That is 17 hours already.  The amount of time I spend on the road because of the traffic: 1.5-2 hours (damn, Jakarta!).  Already used up 18.5 to 19 hours.  So, all in all, I have 5.5 hours the most left for myself.

I guess I’m one of the lucky ones that still have 5.5 hours (although sometimes one hour is still doing some work related stuff at home, yikes).  My friends that lives at the suburbs (Bintaro, Cinere, Bekasi, Depok etc) probably has only 3-4 hours due to traffic.  Or, they start their days early and use public transportation or have a driver so they can catch up with their sleep on the way to the office.  So, in average, still, 3-5 hours spare time, depending on where you live and the traffic.

Three times a week, I spend circa 4 hours gym-related activities (exercise-shower-dinner-including finding parking spot at Pondok Indah Mall 2).  Gym, it is at some point already an obligation for me to go because it is an investment.  Some days are fun, some are not.  It is time for myself, but it is not ‘free time’.  It is a time that I make and dedicate, which is rigid.

So when I arrive home, I only have 1 to 1.5 hours left, usually play with my dogs and read before I go to bed.  Or chat with my partner on the phone.   The rest of the non-gym days, I tend to stretch my hours in the office, but then I will still have around 2-3 hours at home, which I usually use for chilling out with my two doggies, chat with my maid or my neighbor who is also single.  When my friends and I want to gather during the weekdays, or go to the doctor, this is the day.  At the end, I will have a quiet moment for myself for 1-2 hours.

I imagine my friends who has a family.  One of my colleague even still manage to go to the gym on the way back to her home, and arrive home at 10 pm.  She lives in Bintaro.  Super tight time management.

So, basically, during the whole weekdays, I have total of 3 x 1 hours (gym days) and 2 x 3 hours (non gym days), which equals to 9 hours of free hours.  So, in 5 x 24 hours, which is 120 hours, I have only free 9 hours left.  Nine hours at home per 120 hours. 

The pay time is during the weekend.  48 hours, I use 16 hours for sleeping, which means that I have 32 hours waking hours.  All of that goes to MY TIME, which I intend to spend for myself.  Out of 168 hours in a week, I have 32 plus 9 = 41 hours.  This excludes the ‘not fun stuff’ such as carwash, and grocery shopping, and sometimes, social obligation (weddings, family birthday party etc).  This, then, when I calculate, 37 hours free time (after subtracting car wash and grocery shopping).  37 hours out of 168 hours.  Weekends is usually time to see the family, coffee with friends, catching up with the nieces, doctors, self pampering (manicure, pedicure, facial, waxing, massage, scrub, creambath…at least every other weekend!), movies, and quality time with my partner.  Or, take car to the garage, housekeeping stuff, take dog to the vet sort of thing.  But in Jakarta, you can only do one or two things in a day due to traffic (weekend sometimes included), so if I have to take the dog to the vet, that means it’s only that and probably carwash/groceries.  Or if I have to go to the doctor, I might have to shift my social gathering to Sunday afternoon.  37 hours is excluding traffic.  Put traffic in there, I’m left with 35 hours. 

So, 9 hours during 5 days is definetely tight so I pick my events carefully during working days.  Less than 7 hours sleep, it takes days to recover and it is not fun doing that during the weekdays.  Weekend is my payback time, recharging for the next 5 days, so I also carefully choose who I meet and what I do.  And even that, sometimes I still have to do some checking on emails (I have PDA) during the weekend, so it is not clean 35 hours.  I do want to have quality time for myself during my spare time.

So, yes, I might sound selfish, but living in Jakarta with the traffic and the workload that comes with it, one have to manage their time carefully for balance.   And I don’t have much time to waste, by the feel of it.  So, if you think being a single women in Jakarta I have lots of spare time, think again.   

(at this time, My Busy Brain is screaming for vacation)