12/1/2010--Results for week of 11/21/--11/27

POKER PROFIT AND LOSS
Beginning bankroll, 11/21 $66.32
Ending bankroll, 11/27 $54.57
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-$11.75

I lost some money this week, but those things happen.  I lost a lot of tournaments with the best hands, but I played well, and I'm learning a lot.  The money isn't even my biggest concern right now.


POKER HOURS
Administrative 2.00
Study 7.50
Playing 22.75
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Total hours 32.25

I've been thinking a lot about what I can change next year.  I have found a lot of things I can do better, primarily organizing my records and my time, and I want to implement that next year.  But the more I think about it, especially managing my time, the more frustrated I get.  I can't get control of my hours and scheduling.

My hours have been getting better, but they are not consistent.  The week before this I had 39.5.  For the week being reported, I was down.  As I type this it's Wednesday morning, and at the end of Tuesday I already have 21 hours for this week.

I can't decide whether consistency is important or not, but I'm coming to the conclusion that it's not.  It will always be true to an extent that as someone who works at home and set his own hours, I will always be the one that has to adjust.  I can't say that I can't adjust because "I have to work", because everyone knows better.

I had pretty much settled into the idea of going to church half the time. I want to go to church, but I want to be able to play at night, and eventually, to play the "Sunday Majors", the big online tournaments that start on Sunday afternoon.  So going to church half the time seemed like a reasonable compromise.  A lot of people have to work Sundays, and I've done it in many different jobs.  So, I  told my wife that this was the plan.

The way that I plan to work that out will  mean that two weeks a month, the weeks that I was going to church, I would be on my morning schedule, I would get up early for two weeks,and  I would be locked into that schedule.  I would get up for church on Sunday morning.  And I would get up early the rest of the week.

For now, there are some early tournaments that I would like to target, so I will be mostly on the early schedule.  But as soon as I have the bankroll to move up to $2 and $3 tournaments, there are a lot more good tournament options throughout the day, and I will want to be playing more at night, at least part of the time.

So, my idea is that  for two weeks I would be on the late schedule.  I would not go to church, and I would take advantage of being able to play all night, especially on Saturday, when more people are playing and the online games are better.  And once I start playing live again (which only happens on afternoons and evenings) I will be avalible for live tournaments those two weeks as well.

But now that's changed.  We will be taking our grandchildren to church with us starting in January, and surprise!--I have to adjust again.  Evidently I have to be there every time the girls are (and be on the early schedule), and I did NOT know that that was part of the plan.  I can be on my late schedule only the one week a month when my wife works weekends,when the girls will not be going to church with us.

That's a problem.  If I'm only on the late schedule for one week (which would mean getting up sometime around noon), since it takes a few day to adjust, that's not very practical.  And since the best-attended live tournaments start on Saturday night can go past midnight, playing those will be a problem as well.  I do not want to "wing it" here.  I want a plan in place for the way I am going to do things in 2011.

Somehow I have to come up with a plan, and make it stick that, short of a genuine emergency, it's not changing.  I like to have some flexibility--that's a major benefit of being your own boss.  But it's becoming clear that if I'm too flexible, I'm going to get "rolled".  I really need to come up with a solution to this.

So I'll be starting off the new year with no idea how I'm going to work my schedule out.  And for someone with ADD, who cam struggle with both dilligence and with keeping things straight, that is definitely not good. When I don't have a plan, things don't go well.  When I "wing it", very bad things happen.  I absolutely have to have a plan and some structure.

I had even decided to get a different kind of calendar for 2011 (again, this has been discussed) the kind that has a line for all 24 hours of the day.  Then I could really plan out blocks of time, know exactly when I was playing/studying/recordkeeping, and I could tell people that short of a genuine emergency, I was not available at those times.

I keep remembering the 2+2 admonitions to new players, where they are told over and over that poker is a nights-and-weekends business, and that your family must to be able to deal with that or it won't work.  I've told people that!.

The closer it gets to January 1st, when I want to have a lot of things in place and better organized, the more frustrated I get about my losing control of my time and my plans.