Time Management Tuesdays

I am sure you have heard the saying we all have the same 24 hours, it matters what you do with them. If you are like me you then start in on a litany of things that you have to get done in those 24 hours including sleep. I personally find it easier to make excuses than to make progress.

I realized on a recent Sunday (when I had no internet – read about that day here), that I am highly unproductive and I waste a LOT of time. There are reasons I waste time, but the reality is, if I want things to change then I have to become a master of my own time and prioritize according to what is important to me.

I have taken stock and realize that I waste time in the following ways:

Especially in the winter time, I sleep more than I NEED to. How do I know I sleep more than I need to? The answer is simple I am tired when I wake up. I know some people would say that waking up not feeling rested is probably a sign of not enough sleep, but the truth is that oversleeping can leave you just as drained as not getting enough sleep.

There are two reasons that I oversleep. The first is common in the winter, it is cold out and I would rather sleep than deal with the cold. Especially, in my current apartment, when I cannot get the heat above 62 degrees, even when running the furnace ALL DAY LONG.  I don’t mind a lower room temperature. I like sleeping in cooler temperatures; this was actually a subject over which the X and I fought regularly. I would prefer that the heat be 50 degrees at night for sleeping, but he thought that was too cold.  At any rate when the weather gets colder and the natural light becomes sparse it is human nature to want to sleep more. What I need to do instead is to put warm layers on (I have plenty of warm fuzzy socks and gloves) and start picking projects to work on.

The other reason I sleep as much as I do is often because I do not want to deal with the project or issue in front of me. Rather than risk failure (which I am often certain is the outcome) I would rather ignore it, tell myself I am tired and go to sleep. I need to get better at remembering that I only fail if I do not attempt the project. If I try and the outcome is not as planned or expected I can always try again or accept the outcome.

So conquering the sleep excuse I still have roughly 16 hours in my day. I do not like starting on projects at the end of my day. I feel like I am already emotionally, mentally and physically drained. The answer to this objection is to keep my evening activities to those humdrum daily activities that do not take creativity or real energy. I can always make sure to wash the dishes before I go to bed. I can always run the washing machine and hang the laundry before I go to bed. Then if I go to bed at a reasonable hour (say 2200) then I can wake up between 5 and 6 and feel well rested as well as have time to start on small projects.

I need to start breaking projects down into smaller tasks. With the exception of Saturday afternoons and Sundays I rarely have large blocks of time (that I don’t feel drained and exhausted for). The solution to this obstacle is to break projects into smaller tasks. I need to hang curtain rods in 4 different rooms. I can however break that down to hanging 1 set of curtain rods at a time.

Not having the energy to complete tasks at hand is another big obstacle for me. I know that when I eat poorly, I feel tired, bloated and sluggish. This means to be more productive and to make more out of the time I do have, I am going to need to eat better.

The next biggest time waster for me is entertainment. Now I haven’t had cable or satellite for many, many moons (more than 10). I have had Netflix for almost 2 years now and between Netflix and random internet time wasters (ahem Facebook) I lose quite a bit of time. Additionally, I notice that I am more tired when I spend large amounts of time staring at a screen.

The solution is to limit my screen time, AND to make screen time contingent on completing tasks.

This week I am going to come up with my daily task list for the week. This will be the things that regularly need to get done. Getting into the routine with regular tasks (aka chores) is how I am going to master time management this week.