Lately, I've been thinking about time management.
Obsessing about it more likely.
I've read articles by time management experts advising me to track my day, writing down what I'm doing every fifteen minutes. By doing this, I should be able to ascertain where it is possible increase productivity and decrease waste.
Yet I rebel against the idea. It defeats spontaneity. It assumes wasting time is a bad thing when, in reality, I believe wasting time is a way for us to recharge our batteries, to help creative thoughts flow. I resent the idea every minute of my life should be planned, productive, managed.
And yet...
I need to do just that.
In the opening of About a Boy, Hugh Grant's character talks about units of time. He goes through his day ticking off units, allotting each activity a certain number until it's time to go to bed and sleep.
Lately I've been awake for 18 hours a day. In that time, I'm at work or traveling to or from work, for a total of 12 hours. That leaves me with six hours. In those six hours, I've been trying to cram: getting ready for work, watering the garden, feeding the chickens, making dinner, stories and baths, cleaning the house, laundry, keeping up with my blog, keeping up with my social life, playing with the kids, writing paid articles, and writing a novel.
Four days a week, I use more units than I have.
Three days a week, I'm off. Those are the days I promise myself I'll catch up.
Except, I can't seem to do it.
So things suffer.
My novel languishes until the Saturday I can sit in front of my computer and pound out a couple thousand words. Feeling uninspired is not an option.
My laundry pile is taller than I am and I'm afraid I lost Elizabeth in it for all of twenty minutes.
My house is clean, but not neat.
My garden is taking over and the chickens are planning a coup.
My blog misses a day or two a week, the paid articles get written, but I'm not going to win a Pulitzer.
My friends and family don't get shorted because I'm a firm believer in relationships with people being more important than anything else.
And the time I waste sitting in front of True Blood or John Stewart or reading a book? I need that time to recharge.
I also need to go to bed earlier, but that would delete some of my units.
So, here I sit, pondering time management and wondering...
Is there a pattern, a certain way of using my units, that will result in a balanced, productive, semi-relaxed life without giving up the things I love to do?
Or am I dreaming?
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5 hours ago
5 comments:
Find it. Bottle it. Charge for it.
I will be first in line :)
I have the same problem, not a day long enough for all I want/have to do. Let me know if you find a solution :)
As a former single mom, it's nearly impossible. You just have to label those priorities (and it seems you have!) and let the laundry pile up. At the end of the day no one knows but you so let it go. The novel
And paid articles will help eventually get you more money and more time to do what you love and even pay someone to clean the house weekly, so I'd make those a priority to. I've read your blog for years now and think you are handling these beautifully!
Ok, the chickens planning a coup gave me a giggle fit.
But, I read the title of this as "trying a menage a trois" so I'm not to be trusted today, at all.
As far as time goes -- we're all there. I keep on telling myself that I have 5 nights a week to catch-up and get myself to a good place - five nights a week that I can relax, and let my brain catch up, and not feel tired, and get a little writing done, and check in on blog comments, and clean the basement, and mow the lawn . . . but that never, ever happens.
So, I'm not far from where you are, I fear.
For one or two hundred bucks and an afternoon setting it up, you can have drip line in the garden that waters it on a schedule. It can even do it in that ideal 4am time slot just before the sun comes up.
I know it's just one thing, but hey.... it's one less thing.
If you do decide to install it, hit me up for recommendations... learn from my failures and successes with the stuff.
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