Time Management

I remind myself that time is the one thing we all have equal amounts of, but with three kids and two jobs, it often feels like I’m on the short end of the receiving line.

I just finished working on a large grant for the literacy center where I volunteer. It feels so good to finish a looming project and really be done with it, to be able to check it off the mental list of things needing to be done.

There are enormous lists of projects I want to accomplish, but the hard part is always trying to decide which to focus on next and right when I think I’ll have a few moments to work uninterrupted, something else calls to me (often quite literally it is a small human tugging on one of my body parts).

Then all the daily work “needs” shout louder to be dealt with: take care of the kids and the home, write lesson plans for two colleges, grade papers and other assorted administrative stuff, then there are health and relationship issues to be dealt with.

And all of a sudden it’s Midnight and I’ve got nothing “extra” accomplished for the day. I think I need to set time, even if it is a tiny amount of like 30 minutes a day, to work on new writing projects. If I commit to it, just as I’ve committed to dancing and reflecting on my mental state every day, maybe I can squeeze out a few more valuable minutes out of the day.

Or I could just take a chill-pill and be happy with getting done the basics, but I think that’s not healthy overall for me. If I’m not working on something, writing something, plotting something, I think that’s when I become stagnant and depressed.

Now to figure out where I’m getting those extra thirty minutes from…