Today I'd like to touch on the topic of time management. I am sure each of us have our fair share of successes and struggles in this area. To make the most use of our time, I believe we need to sit down and have a little heart-to-heart with ourselves and ask a very important question: at the end of the day, how do we feel about the way we spent our time? Take a week to consider this question each night before bed and answer honestly. After all, how can we make a positive change if we neglect to truthfully address the problem?
When I consider this question, I find there are nights I feel satisfied and fulfilled and others where I am disappointed and upset with how my precious hours were spent. Typically I wake feeling energized and ready to tackle the day. My best work is done in the morning, so I do typically tackle the "must-do's" for the day during that time. The rest of the day is a crap shoot. The tiredness sets in and many days my productivity around the house significantly decreases or ceases altogether.
I wouldn't say it is wasted, though. For a few hours the house is quiet (well, four days a week that is). I tend to spend this time writing, reading, planning, and catching up on my shows here and there. Taking time to rest is okay and I enjoy the little break to engage in my own personal hobbies.
The big question is, how can we manage our time better? I think there are three components to this answer: planning, organizing, and decreasing the distractions that tend to suck our time away. Here are a few ideas in each of these areas:
Planning: Create a meal plan each week. Designate a day to sit down, look at the weekly ads, write out your menu and grocery list, and search for coupons. This will save you a ton of time as you will take fewer trips to the store and each night dinner prep will run much more smoothly. Take into consideration nights when you have activities or meetings and plan a meal to work with your schedule.
Organizing: To help with meal planning, keep the recipes your family enjoys, as well as a folder for recipes you'd like to try, in one place. I like to use Pinterest for this purpose. I have meals boards categorized so I can efficiently find what I'm looking for or quickly look through new recipes to try.
Create a reusable "to-do" list and hang it in a place you're sure to see it often. Personalize it to fit your family's needs and tackle a task each day.
Limiting Distractions: Let's face it. If you have kids, you're going to spend plenty of time being distracted. There are fights to break up, lovable items lost, games to play, sick kids to tend to...you get the picture. I'm talking about distractions we can limit: electronic time being the biggest.time.suck.ever. This week I found a website called Stay Focused. I have put it to use already! The first site I blocked on my laptop? Facebook. I've set a limit on how much time I will be allowed to spend on it each day. This doesn't help with accessing it from my phone, but after removing the app last month, my Facebook trolling on my phone has significantly diminished.
Social media has its pros and cons. The biggest con is our ability to get lost in it. It is a time suck plain and simple. I'm going to work really hard to spend my time wisely in this area. I enjoy reading blogs and seeing what's going on in the lives of others, but not to the point where I have wasted days on end when the hours are added up.
Our time is precious. While we can't get it back, we can choose to spend the hours we do have in a way in which we feel satisfied and fulfilled at the end of each day. If you find yourself a bit uncomfortable after honestly assessing the usage of your time, more than likely it's time for a change.
Personally, I know I still have a long way to go, but setting goals and being conscientious of my struggles in this area is a step in the right direction. After all, imperfect progress is better than no progress at all!
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