Organizing time…

Posted in CSA, Reading on June 17th, 2009

Focus! Organizing Your Time And Leading Your Life by David RendallTime is finite. There’s 24 hours per day or 1440 minutes or 86400 seconds. Of course we’re supposed to sleep at least 8 of those hours. So basically each day we have 16 hours or 960 minutes or 57600 seconds to do stuff. That stuff includes making meals, cleaning the house, taking care of hygiene issues, work hours, and leisure time.

Now it sort of sounds like that’s plenty of time to get things done. But of those 16 hours 8 are spent working (plus the commute time for most people). Of course, I work at home so I tend to work more like 10 hours a day. Since I’m here in the house, a trip to the bathroom or to get a cup of coffee means I can toss in a load of wash or put it in the dryer when I pass, and then back to work. So some multi-tasking gets done.

Somehow, I always feel there isn’t enough time for all the things I want to do. Sometimes it’s just my subconscious making me feel like I’m not working that messes up my schedule. For example, I often feel that the time I spend sitting and reading is not working and I should get back to work. But reading books, to then write reviews of them, is working. It’s just that old New England work ethic that makes it feel that if it’s also enjoyable and fun, it can’t be work. Often, I have to keep reminding myself that reading IS work and it’s okay to just sit and read. But when I’m sitting by the window listening to the birds and enjoying a cuppa and taking notes on a book, it’s just too much fun — can that really be work? Well, when the reviews aren’t written because I didn’t finish the books — that’s definitely not fun. But how do you convince yourself that an enjoyable activity is also work?

Then I want to do some knitting. I’ve got lots of started projects and I’m trying to finish some of them off because I want to start new ones. So, I’ve been committing one hour or so a day to knitting on a project to finish it. Again I feel like I’m wasting time…I’m not. I know I’m not — but, it somehow feels like I am. So, since a lot of my time is spent online reading emails, answering questions, and adding stuff to the databases, I’ve taken to keeping my knitting handy so that if the response time is slow, I knit in order to keep myself from hitting random keys trying to make the thing move faster….. I know it doesn’t do anything but lock up the entire keyboard, but I’m the impatient sort. So I’m starting to keep knitting handy (I used to play games but that eats up time beyond what the delay takes so I’m off that now).

Some people just seem to get so much done in the same amount of time. I wonder how they do it. Some people think I do an amazing amount of stuff in the time available to me. Unfortunately, I feel like I waste an awful lot of my allotted time.

Is time management really just a perception problem? I don’t know, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. How do people allocate their time to make sure the have a good mix of work, play, and sleep? Time for family. Time for fun. Time for themselves. Time for work. Time’s finite but we all use it differently. We all perceive it in a different manner. Time fleeting. Time dragging. Time passing us by. But is there a way to use it up wisely and to the best advantage without waste or regret?

Any tips on organizing your time that you want to share?