Managing Time
Time management can be an interesting thing.
Each day has twenty four hours. I like to spend at least 7-8 of those hours sleeping. That leaves 16-17 hours of time each day to do stuff. Kind of. 15 minutes of each day is spent in family scripture reading and family prayer. About half an hour each day is spent in personal prayer and scripture study. About an hour and a half each week day is spent exercising. (This includes the time spent walking my kids to and from school.) About half an hour a day with personal showering/ dressing/ grooming activities. I spend about two and a half hours each day either preparing or eating or cleaning up from meals and at least 15 minutes a day just straightening up and picking up clutter. All that is only about 5 1/2 hours. That leaves 10 1/2 hours or so each day to do whatever, right?
Well, then there is the house cleaning - the vacuuming, mopping, dusting, organizing. I probably spend two or three hours a week doing housework. (I could spend more, but it isn't my favorite thing so I tend to do as little as I can get away with as fast as possible.) Then there is the laundry. Just running the laundry into the washer and dryer doesn't take long - probably only about 15-20 minutes for the entire week. Folding it, however, takes at least an hour to an hour and a half. Grocery shopping probably averages about an hour each week. I can easily spend an hour each week doing finances. Each week I take the kids to the library so they can check out books. That takes about an hour. Family Home Evening lasts about an hour on Monday evenings. There is institute class I attend for a couple hours on Tuesday mornings. Church on Sundays is usually four hours from when we leave home to when we return again. I am a Webelos Den leader. Between planning and committee meetings and den meetings and travel, I probably spend about 11 hours a month on scouting related stuff. Every month I spend about two or three hours preparing to teach a Relief Society lesson. I also play piano in Relief Society, so I probably spend an hour each week playing piano. I visit teach four sisters, and my visiting teachers visit me. If each visit averages an hour, that is five hours each month spent in visiting teaching, plus another fifteen minutes or so of scheduling appointments.
Is that everything? Well, not quite. I am a mother. I have a husband and kids that need my attention.
While this varies depending on needs and ages and homework assignments, at least an hour of my undivided attention goes to my children each day. This is time spent waking them up in the morning, finding clothes and shoes, helping with homework or chores, listening, bandaging, playing games, putting to bed, etc. That isn't to say this is all the time I spend with my kids, just that other times I'm multi-tasking - exercising, making dinner, folding laundry, etc. Also, this is only during the school year, when they spend seven to eight hours a day at school. During the summer, I spend much more time with them. I also try to spend some time with Steven each day. Once a month we try to go to the temple (4 hours) and often on Sundays we will go for a walk together (one hour). Some days it is only 15 minutes that we can give each other our undivided attention as we're winding down for the night. So by my calculations, averaging out all the weekly and monthly things, I end up with about six hours a day for other stuff... That should be plenty!
But there are also all the hobbies, the interests, the other stuff that I want to do. For example, this past week I took apart an old store-bought blouse that had been ripped, and used it as a pattern to create a new blouse. I made a new pair of earrings from beads and wire. I read four or five Agatha Christie novels, and watched seven or eight Doctor Who episodes (usually while folding laundry or doing something else that kept my hands busy.) I made a belt buckle and crocheted a belt. I wrote four blogs (and each blog can easily take an hour or more to write!), indexed over 200 names, and, with Steven's help, made and canned six quarts of applesauce. I sewed patches on Josh's scout uniform, went birthday shopping for Hannah's birthday and delivered a load of stuff to Goodwill. I researched how to harvest sunflower seeds and made a final decision on a driver's ed program.
People sometimes ask me if I ever get bored since all my kids are in school, and for a couple years I didn't have a car during the day. My answer to them was always "No! I have so many hobbies and interests that I don't have time to do everything that I want to do!"
A few months ago I got an idea for a story I wanted to write, and I started on it. But trying to find the time when I can work on it has been a challenge, because I need to work on it at a time when there are no other distractions, no people looking over my shoulder. Also, I need a good chunk when I can work with it, revise and rewrite, and not have to worry about rushing away in a little while to go do something else. I need to be able to work on it until I get to a stopping place. And I have to be in the right frame of mind. I've only worked on it twice since school started. It is 24 pages long, in ten chapters so far, and I still feel like I'm at the very beginning. At the rate I'm working on it, it'll be years before I finish, unless I can better manage my time, and maybe set aside some of my other hobbies.
I'm thinking, maybe the time has come to cut back on my blog so I can put more of my writing time into my story. For the last couple years, I've tried hard to write 4-5 blogs each week, and it has helped to get me writing. It has served as a journal of sorts of what's going on in our home, and what I've been thinking of. It has been an enjoyable outlet for me, but I'm beginning to get bored. I won't stop writing here entirely, but I might cut back a bit so I can explore writing in other areas.
Each day has twenty four hours. I like to spend at least 7-8 of those hours sleeping. That leaves 16-17 hours of time each day to do stuff. Kind of. 15 minutes of each day is spent in family scripture reading and family prayer. About half an hour each day is spent in personal prayer and scripture study. About an hour and a half each week day is spent exercising. (This includes the time spent walking my kids to and from school.) About half an hour a day with personal showering/ dressing/ grooming activities. I spend about two and a half hours each day either preparing or eating or cleaning up from meals and at least 15 minutes a day just straightening up and picking up clutter. All that is only about 5 1/2 hours. That leaves 10 1/2 hours or so each day to do whatever, right?
Well, then there is the house cleaning - the vacuuming, mopping, dusting, organizing. I probably spend two or three hours a week doing housework. (I could spend more, but it isn't my favorite thing so I tend to do as little as I can get away with as fast as possible.) Then there is the laundry. Just running the laundry into the washer and dryer doesn't take long - probably only about 15-20 minutes for the entire week. Folding it, however, takes at least an hour to an hour and a half. Grocery shopping probably averages about an hour each week. I can easily spend an hour each week doing finances. Each week I take the kids to the library so they can check out books. That takes about an hour. Family Home Evening lasts about an hour on Monday evenings. There is institute class I attend for a couple hours on Tuesday mornings. Church on Sundays is usually four hours from when we leave home to when we return again. I am a Webelos Den leader. Between planning and committee meetings and den meetings and travel, I probably spend about 11 hours a month on scouting related stuff. Every month I spend about two or three hours preparing to teach a Relief Society lesson. I also play piano in Relief Society, so I probably spend an hour each week playing piano. I visit teach four sisters, and my visiting teachers visit me. If each visit averages an hour, that is five hours each month spent in visiting teaching, plus another fifteen minutes or so of scheduling appointments.
Is that everything? Well, not quite. I am a mother. I have a husband and kids that need my attention.
While this varies depending on needs and ages and homework assignments, at least an hour of my undivided attention goes to my children each day. This is time spent waking them up in the morning, finding clothes and shoes, helping with homework or chores, listening, bandaging, playing games, putting to bed, etc. That isn't to say this is all the time I spend with my kids, just that other times I'm multi-tasking - exercising, making dinner, folding laundry, etc. Also, this is only during the school year, when they spend seven to eight hours a day at school. During the summer, I spend much more time with them. I also try to spend some time with Steven each day. Once a month we try to go to the temple (4 hours) and often on Sundays we will go for a walk together (one hour). Some days it is only 15 minutes that we can give each other our undivided attention as we're winding down for the night. So by my calculations, averaging out all the weekly and monthly things, I end up with about six hours a day for other stuff... That should be plenty!
But there are also all the hobbies, the interests, the other stuff that I want to do. For example, this past week I took apart an old store-bought blouse that had been ripped, and used it as a pattern to create a new blouse. I made a new pair of earrings from beads and wire. I read four or five Agatha Christie novels, and watched seven or eight Doctor Who episodes (usually while folding laundry or doing something else that kept my hands busy.) I made a belt buckle and crocheted a belt. I wrote four blogs (and each blog can easily take an hour or more to write!), indexed over 200 names, and, with Steven's help, made and canned six quarts of applesauce. I sewed patches on Josh's scout uniform, went birthday shopping for Hannah's birthday and delivered a load of stuff to Goodwill. I researched how to harvest sunflower seeds and made a final decision on a driver's ed program.
People sometimes ask me if I ever get bored since all my kids are in school, and for a couple years I didn't have a car during the day. My answer to them was always "No! I have so many hobbies and interests that I don't have time to do everything that I want to do!"
A few months ago I got an idea for a story I wanted to write, and I started on it. But trying to find the time when I can work on it has been a challenge, because I need to work on it at a time when there are no other distractions, no people looking over my shoulder. Also, I need a good chunk when I can work with it, revise and rewrite, and not have to worry about rushing away in a little while to go do something else. I need to be able to work on it until I get to a stopping place. And I have to be in the right frame of mind. I've only worked on it twice since school started. It is 24 pages long, in ten chapters so far, and I still feel like I'm at the very beginning. At the rate I'm working on it, it'll be years before I finish, unless I can better manage my time, and maybe set aside some of my other hobbies.
I'm thinking, maybe the time has come to cut back on my blog so I can put more of my writing time into my story. For the last couple years, I've tried hard to write 4-5 blogs each week, and it has helped to get me writing. It has served as a journal of sorts of what's going on in our home, and what I've been thinking of. It has been an enjoyable outlet for me, but I'm beginning to get bored. I won't stop writing here entirely, but I might cut back a bit so I can explore writing in other areas.
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