Have completed my fortnight of training for the new job. It’s been Monday to Friday, 9-5, but no longer. Felt like opening a bottle of champagne purely to celebrate not having to get up in the morning again. I have the utmost sympathy for those who willingly endure the bodies of strangers crushing them (and worse) in a packed Tube carriage at 8am every day, year after year, from college to retirement. There’s ways around it, of course, one of which is to take up cycling (I’m not the cycling type, or I would), another is to get up even earlier – 6 ish- to avoid the crush period. I did the latter on Friday, and thus had over an hour to kill in the City before work started. Very pleasant start to the day, just sitting in an Aldgate cafe reading and thinking about life, but it did mean that by the time I got home in the evening, I was falling asleep at 9pm.

So on top of improving my speed and prowess at reading and writing to order, I’ve now learned to properly re-acquaintance myself with the sheer importance of time and energy, and the divisions one places upon them. I can now properly feel – taste – just how these resources are fixed, limited and dwindling from the moment you wake up. And that when one is the wrong side of 35 (and counting), the energies are that much more harder to sustain. Time is running out, one way or another. Everything matters. Even frivolity.

And I know just how every moment spent doing one thing – or nothing – is a moment missing out on everything else. But as opposed to getting upset about this, I’m learning more how to shrug off the stuff that should be shrugged off. How to find out more quickly what truly matters. How to crack that self-discipline whip. Is my journey on the Internet today really necessary? Could it be quicker, shorter? Could I bring efficiency to idleness – get more nothing done when I doing nothing?

I’m having to tighten my belt on daily Internet time full stop. The new job isn’t one of those where one can go online when the boss isn’t looking (the work computers block much of the Web). But each day I receive dozens of non-spam emails and Facebook invites to London events. I’m flattered to be invited at all, naturally, but obviously I have to pick and choose – and get better at it.

Before the new job, I could spend hours merrily going through them all, umming and erring, wondering which people would be a little sad if I didn’t show at their soirees, which ones wouldn’t mind my absence but would be delighted to see me there, and which ones would be utterly indifferent, they’re just kindly letting me know of something I might like to attend, if I’m free. Now the process has to be sped up and streamlined.

But the great thing is this: the job I’m doing actually trains me how to better manage the stuff I do in my own time. It’s all about having to assess information and make decisions, and do it again, and do it quicker, just like one does in life anyway. My typing speed has perked up, my writing errors have decreased, and I’m getting more done across the board. Previously, a trip to the shops to replenish my shower gel could somehow take up my entire day.

It does mean I’m now one of those people who break into volleys of phrases like ‘Sorry, have to go, have to Get On, you know, work, busy, things to do, not on a School Night, must dash.’ But the guilt of not replying to emails, not going to events I’ve been invited to, has lifted like a veil. People understand Work.

I still make sure I read everything I’m sent. It’s just replying that’s harder. Sometimes I get emails from people in need – whom I don’t know – asking me to pass on contacts, details, names of others I do know. I feel both uneasy about complying, and uneasy about not helping the person who’s taking the time to write in, but have to choose the latter. There’s very good reasons I don’t tend to give too much away in the diary, such as names of real people or companies. It’s not so much avoidance of libel as trying to be gentlemanly.

Plus not quite telling the whole tale is good storytelling (one hopes) and keeps readers turning the page. Or scrolling down. Coming back for more, anyway.

(That’s one reason why those new ‘e-readers’ are never going to replace paper books, I think. ‘A real page-turner’ doesn’t have quite the same resonance as ‘a real content-scroller’ or ‘a real button-clicker’.)