Making More Time for Poker

I'm constantly trying to carve out more time for poker.  About a week ago, after my mother-in-law fell asleep, I played on online tournament from 2030 to 2330,* and I finished 4th of 42 for a net cash of $6.20.  (It was a $2.20 tournament and I cashed for $8.40  It was the only tournament that I could find that I knew wouldn't take four hours or more.)

A few days ago I got the bright idea to study coaching videos while my mother-in-law and I were sitting in the sun room together watching the action at the bird feeder. Sometimes we sit in the living room together and she is so engrossed in her puzzles that she barely knows what I'm watching on TV.  But she gets upset when I turn the TV off because "you should be able to watch it."

It follows that if someone talking on TV doesn't bother her, someone talking about putting a player on a range during a coaching video shouldn't bother her, right?  Wrong.  She watched the birds for a while, then became engrossed in her word searches.  But when I turned the coaching video on, several times she asked me something like, "Who's that talking?"  Around 1400 she switched to her favorite topic--supper:

"When are we eating supper?  Is somebody bringing supper?  Should I make supper?" And many variations on that theme.  Supper came up about twice every five minutes.  I record of all my poker time (playing, studying and administrative) by the quarter hour, but I recorded no study time for that afternoon, even though the video was more than an hour long.

I've mentioned before that sometimes I play or study at home while wearing earplugs.  I can't study unless it's quiet.  I will sometimes read a poker book during commericals when I'm watching TV, and I learn a little that way.  But I don't count that as legitimate study time.

My ADD makes it almost impossible for me to get much out of studying when other things are going on around me.  A simple question like "Who's that talking?" can cause me to lose my train of thought.  But when I'm in my office, wearing earplugs, with the door closed, I sometimes get so "locked in" to what I'm studying that I forget I'm sitting in an office.  It's almost like I'm inside the book, video, or online poker forum.

I can't figure out why a voice on TV doesn't bother my mother-in-law, but a voice on the computer does.  I'm a logic-driven person, but as my wife often reminds me, life isn't always logical.

The next time I'm sitting in the living room with her and she's engorossed in her puzzle, I'm going to try something different.  I will turn the TV on with the sound muted, then start my coaching video, and maybe she'll think I'm watching something on TV (which seems to be very important to her) and I will able to study--at least until she gets hungry.  I'll give it a try and report back.

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*I find myself using military time more and more, because poker tournaments can run any time of the day or night, and the same is true when I study.  As I type this, it's 1:29 A.M. (0129).   I might start an online tournanent at 10 P.M. and finish at 2 A.M.  I also play live tournaments that start at 6 or 7 P.M. and often end after midnight.  When I keep track of my results and record my time, it makes sense to me to think of a day as both starting and ending at midnight.