Time for myself
Keeping up with my self-imposed goal of blogging daily got a little harder in recent weeks. If I’m brutally honest about it, I have to agree with organizing-and-time-management expert Julie Morgenstern‘s recent tweet, When you view time as slippery and elusive, you have problems managing your time. (I’ve relied on Morgenstern in the past, using her terrific SHED method to get at least a bit unstuck. Can’t believe that was last April, though: my house still needs more decluttering, especially if we want to move. But I’m getting ahead of myself…)
Back to how I view time: do I see it as slippery and elusive? And do I have problems managing it?
Yes and no, but mostly yes…
I don’t have a schedule (I’ve tried keeping one, albeit unsuccessfully). After years of home-schooling my kids (and therefore being liberated from a school timetable) and years of all of us working from home, my sense of time is tied to mental lists of what I should accomplish in a day or a week. In that sense it’s not completely elusive. But given how, for those home-schooling years, it was tied to goals that the children needed to set and achieve (versus personal or professional goals of my own), my sense of time is far from optimal if we’re talking about efficiently managing it.
My real problem is managing my time for myself. Even now, after a couple of years with both kids at university on their own, I still rely on my dog to tell me what has to be done every afternoon, regardless of the weather: walkies. I’m struggling with managing time for myself, and – because I was always extremely goal-oriented – I’m churning through stuff in a mad attempt to find my focus.
I always have trouble with managing MY time for MYSELF too! Jarren keeps me hooked on walkies, though now we tend to be lazy and not really go on our little bedtime walks.
I tend to watch carefully what others want me to do and tune myself to their needs. It makes me happy because I get a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, yet sometimes it leaves me overwhelmed with inner screams “hey!! what about me-me-me?” I’m still trying to find some balance.
How do your kids find it being in the university after home-schooling? I didn’t know you were home-schooling them, it’s something quite brave to do, in many ways. And something very interesting! You should tell me more about it!
Comment by Lena — November 1, 2010 #
Ah yes! Shed your stuff and don’t do emails in the morning. When do I have time to do all that?
Comment by melanie — November 2, 2010 #