Hummingbirds, wall-staring, word of hand (not of mouth).

 Hello. It is I. But not AI. I'm writing this by hand, not by mouth (meaning, I'm not dictating it and having AI transcribe it. Faster, but also often does weird things in the transcription process)

Something about handmade goods. I bet they will get more popular in niche ways as AI gets more  ubiquitous.

In any case, another really short one. I'm kind of incredibly busy. I've been working really hard, and really focused. I've gotten a LOT done over this weekend, but there is still a LOT more to go. I'm at the point where I'm cutting out things from my day and routine that I really don't want to. And truncating other things that I'd like to be spending more time on. It is helping. But I'm still just hanging on by my fingernails, it feels like.

Maybe this is ironic? Or just common sense? But being this urgently overful of stuff that really needs to, or that I really want to, get done, is making me more efficient and focused with my time and energy. If I could bottle and duplicate this level of focus and triage, when I'm not this urgently busy, I'd be a lot more productive in general. There is unfortunately a level of stress associated with this level of urgency and too much to do, that is not the kind of feeling you want to live with, day in and day out. But perhaps if I pendulated it (I like that word. 'pendulation'. It's a good therapy word.) and went back and forth between bursts of focused work, and deep rest, it would be good.

OK, I'm back to work now, but only for another... 45 minutes or so. Then I'm going to try to go to bed, nice and early...ish.

Honestly, it feels ok. I think I was inspired by some youtube videos encouraging people to 'take boring breaks'. Meaning, don't scroll, or watch stuff, but just let your mind have some space, sit and enjoy nature (or stare at a wall, apparently) and then you will eventually WANT to get back to work. I don't know if that's the active ingredient in why I'm working better, it might have nothing to do with that and just be about last minute panic focusing me, but I think it's either working, or placebo working, to make the process of focused intense work more pleasant and effective. In either case, I'll take it.

I saw a hummingbird at my sit spot, twice this week! Today, I got to see it sitting still on a tree branch for a bit, and even chirping it's cute little bird song! I always consider a hummingbird spotting magical, so I feel very blessed.

OK, that's all I'm gonna write for this week. Keeping up with things, but keeping them simple and quick. That's the name of the game, currently.

Time, Vastness, Value.

 Hello! Another short one. Expect them all to be this way, for the next few months leading up to graduation. I hope graduation. We'll see how I'm doing with hours. Currently, I'm behind.

Had some fun playing games with friends the other night. Been working all day today. Emails. I need to spend less time on emails. I'm noticing a pattern: I spend too much time writing stuff. This is another one of those strengths/weakness' depending on the context. If my job is writing a lot, and thoughtfully: strength. If my job is writing quick short things: weakness. I really need to design my life as best I can to capitalize on my strengths and not focus so much on my weaknesses.

In any case, My life is now paperwork. As if it wasn't already. Now I've got my capstone class as well, which is just a bunch more writing. Lots of writing. I don't mind that. I just don't want to do it on a deadline that also requires a bunch more writing that can't all fit into that timeline. I will get through it somehow, as always.

Taking breaks, to just sit outside and let my awareness expand, listen to the crickets and watch the wind in the trees, helps a lot. Nature is so much more real and vast and beautiful than this glowing screen I spend so much time in front of. It's kind of odd, to think about how much time I spend writing imaginary words on a glowing screen. What is it that will last or be meaningful, at the end of my life? The time spend relishing nature, for sure. The time spent on logistical email correspondence... not so much. The time spent on writing deep thoughts... maybe. The time and energy spent acting in accordance with my deepest values: definitely.

Thunder, Dosas, Fullness

 I am working hard at all the things. You know, I actually enjoy working on things, getting them done. The issue is just when there are more things than there is time to do them... which I guess is always? 

Anyhoo, I'm not sure I can do it all in the alloted time. I'm wondering if I will need to get an extension on my internship, do an extra semester of it, to make sure I get all my hours in. Kind of like I decided to go down from three to two classes a semester, and it made life way better. If so, better to know sooner rather than later, so I'm not killing myself will all the super full days and long evenings of writing progress notes. Note sure yet.

So much going on. Getting interest in a second therapy group I might be running, doing inake/screener sessions with the people who are interested, about to start the psychoeducational group that is definitly happening. About to start working with a couple, and so wanting to study up on the Gottman method. Doing a paperwork audit and treatment plan updates. Oh, and I've got a dentist appointment. That's all just today and tomorrow.

As I said, too much. Even if I'm working hard at it. I could be working even harder, but at some point of working all the time, you start burning out, and I'm trying to avoid that very carefully.

Lots of cucumbers from the garden! A cooking lesson from an amazing Indian cook! Cat cuddles! Wife cuddles! Life is full and good, and I am behind on paperwork. I guess that's the one-sentence summary. A beautiful full moon, and partial eclipse recently. And an owl sighting, last night. A few end of season fireflies, lots of cricket song (and other bugs as well, I assume, I love the summer symphony of bugs.) And some nice stormy weather, with trees blowing about like a storm was coming, and some thunder today, but very little rain.

With love, and wishes for your happiness

I Out

Vacation! Over.

 Well, it was nice and I didn't spend time doing things I normally do, like update my blog or check work emails (much) or such. Spent time at the beach, spent time playing with extended family. Ate some good food, did some puzzles, went to bed late. Tomorrow is back to work, and I'm currently in transit. It was nice. I can tell because I'm not ready for it to end. That might also be a bit of reluctance to go back to the long hours and hard work and worrying about getting all my hours in. You can see just how much time I'm spending on notes, above and beyond what I should be spending, by the ratio of hours I've got (I'm tracking it, because I need to make sure I get enough hours by the end of the year).

Direct hours this semester: 90

Amount I should have gotten: 120

Indirect hours last semester: 223

Amount I should have gotten: 180

As you can see, I'm waaay over my direct hours, and significantly under my indirect. I estimate I need about 10 hours per week minimum, every week from now on, to graduate, which means usually a full case lode of 5 clients per day, since about a third of them can end up canceling. In fact, of the 10 or so clients I've just added (remember intake paperwork is the worst) Two have left, one hasn't showed up lately and so is probably leaving, another hasn't showed up at all and so is probably not even starting, and another one of my longer term clients has basically met all their goals, and so we're terminating treatment. I need to figure out the churn, of how many clients I need to be continually adding in, to make sure I stay at the numbers I need.

It will be a relief to be off the clock after December and not have to worry about hitting an arbitrary number by an arbitrary date.

I got some cool beach rocks, a squishy stress ball, and some good memories. I was able to have some nice conversations with my relatives. I had fun.

The end!

I out.

Vacation! Almost.

I am on vacation. Technically. Doesn't quite feel like it yet. Just spent 4+ hours catching up on paperwork because my supervisor wants me to practice getting it done in 48 hours as is apparently expected for medicare/medicaid progress notes. (I think this might be a bit more stringent than many people, but it's nice I'm learning best practices. Even if I can't quite achieve them yet because my notes take too long)

Also spent any time I could while traveling yesterday, doing notes.

Spend a little time I couldn't, reading up on Gottman's training, since I might be seeing a couple soon. Or maybe I won't. There is a high attrition rate with clients. Quite a few leave after the first session or two. Once could blame that on the client, but I do wonder what I could do to reduce those early terminations. I think it's lazy to blame that on the client and not look at what I could potentially be doing differently. Even if some of the time, the answer is nothing. Some of the time, the answer will be something.

I do love being able to study exactly what I think is most useful for me as a therapist, rather than what CACREP says are the baseline standards that I need to have looked at to be certified as a therapist. Not to say having that baseline knowledge is bad, I do think its a good basic fluency step, but it's neither sufficient, or, I think, properly proportioned. Looking at the research, there are specific areas of focus that are going to make a bigger difference to my clients, and they lean more towards the practical and the applied, it seems, and to universal principals, rather than specific systems. Though I likely do need a bit more of a theory to hold and help my conceptualizations and frame my approach in a way that makes sense to people and has a good structure and sequence to start from. But at least for me that's definitely going to be an integrated approach.

OK, time to go. I am doing some fun vacation things, such as: sleeping in, eating good food, and soon: an escape room! Yay! Probably! (it will definitely be fun. but we are only probably going to do it.)

I -Out

A busy week.

Today is a busy week.

I am busy doing it.

So, no time for a long blog post. Next week I will be on vacation, so, more time for blog posts. Though, also catch-up on stuff, and I'm always off my schedule on vacations, so I forget the things that I normally have a regular cadence with.

In any case, that's all for now. Be seeing some of you soon ^_^

Crunchy

 So much going on. Just...so much. going from like 5 clients a week to like 12-14. including the 3 hour + paperwork for intakes. and the 45 minutes of notes for each client... I have today, to try and figure out how to do notes faster, and catch up on paperwork backlog, before I go into next week and get buried further behind.

I still love working with clients.

I don't hate paperwork (don't' love it, but pretty neutral on it in general) but if I can't seriously change how I do it, I'm going to burn out and start getting behind. Also, my wife's IVF appointment is happening this week, so it's been numerous trips up to Iowa City (about 3 hours round trip, plus an hour or so at the appointment) and a full day procedure this week. All good things, considering what they are hopefully building towards, but doing paperwork while in the back seat of the car is a lot harder than it sounds, when just trying to type or see what I'm writing is hard with the vibrations and the awkward position, and that's only when I'm not having to drive or navigate. It is most assuredly crunch time, and I feel like the one being crunched rather than crunching. Trying to keep my head above water AND figure out a whole new way of approaching things and adjusting my systems, so it doesn't get way worse as my workload more than triples temporarily, and doubles permanently. And be there to support my partner through these last few intense weeks.

It's a lot. We'll get through it fine, but there is no way I can see to avoid the crunch in the immediate future, so I'm just bracing for it and trying to prepare as best I can.

Hope you are well out there on the other side of the screen,

-isaac