My sabbatical: Order of importance

At the beginning of my sabbatical I was freaking out about the fact that maybe I'm not able to take advantage of my time, that after a year I will look back and realise I've wasted my prestigious time!!

To preempt that, I invented 4 categories of stuff. 3 of them are "all you can eat"-style activities, so you can do them as often as you want, whereas there's one to be moderated and only performed during scheduled "office hours". 

These "awful stuff-category" activities can also be performed when everything else sucks and things are going badly anyway. In that case, as you already feel miserable, you might as well do such activities (this strategy was invented by a friend, it sounds strange, but it actually works). 

So the time management has been a bit of a worry all along, to be honest, some days I found myself working away, or being immersed in some boring admin stuff, although I was supposed to have a time of my life and enjoy all my liberties. 

One idea was to organise my week so that I have scheduled time slots for all things in all 4 categories. I actually didn't do that, but it's been at the back of my mind at all times, so in a way it maybe did its job in any case.

So today I reviewed my categories and I think they are still pretty right-on. Check them below, what do you think?

 

AWFULL STUFF,
Avoid doing these chores outside the "office hours" otherwise you risk spoiling your sabbatical!!

• Unemployment stuff, 
• Admin work to sign-up in the community, social security, 
• Any insurance stuff (car, health)
  
• Taxes in 3 different countries, value-added-tax and all such
  
• Deadling with Internet and phone companies
• Utility bills such as water, electricity, gas
• Rental contracts and deposits
• Planning works and maintenance

 BORDERLINE TOPICS

• Organing trips, booking flights, planning sightseing
• Dealing w airbnb guests and organise their stay
• Contracts for work
  

 
TIME SINKS BUT OK

• Reading news
• Checking mails
• Social media
• Possible work assignments ( if they ever come!) 
• Working on projects such as mom's memoires
  

FUN STUFF

• Reviewing papres
• Writing papers
• Writing to friends (remember to start doing it)
• Writing diary, blog entries
• Doing/ curating photos, doing art
  
• Talking and spending time w friends and family
• Horses and yoga, sports 
• Taking care of plants and garden
  

350 days of sabbatical

I realised the other day that it's almost a year ago that I stopped working so I decided to take toll of my days. I just counted that it's been 350 days ago that I last was employed! This also means 350 days of sabbatical - yeahoo!!

So, what have I done in those 350 days? 

The biggest change was to move back to Brussels. I counted that until today, I've spent almost 5 months in Brussels (and it's counting, I'm writing this in Brussels)! One of the goals for my sabbatical was to travel, I'm glad to say I logged in 3 months of travelling as a tourist and visiting friends outside of Brussels and Finland. On top of that, I wanted to spend more time with my family, that's being in Finland, and all in all, it added up to 3.5 months. It's kind of cool to see the split of days like this, I guess I'm pretty happy how things sorted out :)

Missä	days	months
Sevilla muutto	13	0,4
Brysselissä	140	4,7
suomessa	106	3,5
matkalla	91	3,0
	350	11,7

So a bit more fine-grained information, I'll start with my travels, that's probably the coolest stuff. The big picture is: 4 continents and 9 trips. The big ones are Japan, for the first time ever I visited Tokyo and Kyoto (2 weeks with Matt). Then there was one month in the Azores and Portugal, that was just in the beginning of my sabbatical to make sure I cut the ties with Seville ;) In the Azores, I spent 3 weeks with Matt and another week with gals who flew over. Then there is Claudia's 80th birthday in Pullman, WA, USA for (10 days with Matt). We even dipped-into Marcon side of the Mediterranean sea visiting Melilla with Rocio and her family! Smaller trips were twice to Seville (it was sooo lovely to be back!!), twice to Paris (it was soooooo lovely to be back!!), and two short trips to the NL (Doorn) and to Bucharest. So that's 4 continents and 91 days of travels. 

My stay in Brussels has not been a continuous one, there's actually been 10 different stays, many of them some 2 to 3 weeks' spells. Hmm, maybe I was not soo keen on spending time here in Brussels....? 

Well, one explanation could be that I had to spend lot of time for moving and arranging my flat, but also for all kinds of administrative crap. First of all, packing up the flat in Seville took some 2 weeks, after which some more 3 weeks in Brussels in October. As Matt was not in Brussels then, one needs to add some more days that we spent arranging the office space (and his stuff) once he got back in January 2023. I'd say that's almost 1,5 months with dusty boxes discovering stuff left behind 9 years earlier when I moved out to Seville (minkä  taakseen jättää sen edestä löytää... huh-huh...). 

Add to that all the admin work!! It took me forever to re-register in the commune (I first sent them an email mid-August 2022 and on March 20 2023 I was finally notified it's done!!). Registering the car to Belgian plates was a total hassle, too, we got very mixed information about the procedure, besides, it didn't help that I didn't have the e-ID card to do some of the paper work. In addition, I had to take a car insurance (pain in the butt), unregister the car in Spain (a trip to DGT in Seville and in Spanish consulate here), We got a new internet provider, and yes, then there was a mega hassle with Sibelga who cut the gas for no good reason (I was with no hot water for a week!). I also got to know the unemployment office here in Brussels that I have a privilege to visit for my allowances (no comments). Anyway, all that is happily in the past now and I'm sure sun will shine in Brussels any day soon! 

I've also spent 106 days in Finland! That's like 3,5 months! There was a long spell in winter, more than a month mostly in Kuopio, and then again in spring, I spent a few weeks in Kuopio. Lots of time was spent on the book project and digging into archives (read dusty boxes of letters, photos, etc). Matt and I spent 3 weeks this summer in Kuopio and at mökki, and then again almost a month in Kuopio-Helsinki until now.