I Need to Be Frugal With My Time
I am a time waster. Not terribly so, but I am not at all organized with how I spend my time during the days. We don’t really have a routine, things change day to day, and I would like to get better at organizing my time throughout the day. I get caught up in things and don’t realize how much time I have let slip by.
I have had to get my finances in order by being frugal with my money and putting thought into what I spend that money on. I need to use those same principles in getting my day more organized in terms of what I spend my time doing and how long I allow myself to do each thing. There are mornings that I wake up and sit down at the computer to drink my coffee and read my email and blogs in my Google Reader and don’t get up for an hour. Awful. I need to budget my time better and spread those little relaxing breaks out over the day rather than all at once. I think I’ll get more done if I go in spurts. 30 minutes cleaning the kitchen followed by 10 minutes at the computer reading email and blogs. 30 more minutes on laundry and then play time with the kids, etc…
I have such a short attention span. I get very jumpy and don’t do well applying myself to a task for a very long period of time. I am easily distracted. I’ll go to the fridge to get a snack and end up scrubbing the fridge out, taking out the garbage and swiffering the kitchen floor and never get a snack. Which is all well and good since my house ends up in presentable shape most days, I don’t starve to death and most of what needs doing gets done.
I think it’s the disorganization of my time and lack of schedule that leaves me feeling scattered and stressed. Of course I am scattered. I have no routine. Just like in my home, everything has it’s place and when things are organized I can feel more mellow, I need to apply that principle to my time. Every minute has it’s purpose and I have to organize that much better.
I am going to start with using my timer and laying out a routine for each day. I don’t know how well it will work. I am not a rigid person and I need to set up something that will work for my distractable self. I am hoping a few easy to implement ideas here will help me feel more energized, motivated, productive, and organized.
I’m open to ideas and suggestions for helping me reach this goal.
This is coming from someone who is incredibly efficient with her time, so take my advice with a grain of salt…
I would challenge you to try and be as efficient as possible by sticking to a schedule. Try it for a day and see how it works for you. Personally, I make a list of everything I need to do the next day before going to bed. Because I work at home doing three jobs and writing a blog to boot, I have a lot on my mind always, and there is never a “leaving work” time, really. SO - about an hour before I go to bed I start a list (lists, actually - I’ll get to that in a minute) of things I need to do the next day that I don’t want to just do now (that night). Inevitably, as an hour passes, I think of more things to add to this list.
The difference between doing this list and just keeping an ongoing to-do list is that this is an ACTION list that must get done the next day (because of the crazy invisible deadlines I set for myself, not because any of it is actually pressing). So… onto the lists before we go further:
Emails to Write
Calls to Make
Small Crap to Do
Big Stuff to Do
Things to Think About
I add to each list as I think of things (this is rather GTD of me, though I don’t follow a GTD plan by any means regularly). I keep a separate Someday To-Do list, like someday I’d like to add this thing to the website, or someday I’d like to get in with this distributor, etc..
So - on to how these lists make me efficient, and addressing your problem.
Lists don’t do anything, obvy, it’s what we do with the lists that matters.
When I get up in the morning, I shower and do coffee - 15 minutes. Then, it’s on to work. I pull out my list and set myself a time. When I started doing this I actually used a timer! But now I don’t need one. I’d set the timer for 15 minutes and - OK EMAIL TIME GO! And off I go. Because I only have 15 minutes for all of my email, I have to be brief and to the point. Any email that immediately I know will take more time is left for the end. I read my 40+ emails that I just got and sort them into folders. Then I go through all the folders and delegate the emails to someone else, or respond, or delete. Then I respond to all the emails that I need to and write any new ones on the list. At last I deal with the emails that involve research or more attention. DING! And the 15 minutes is up and I move on to calls (30-45 minutes), then actionable crap I have to do, then bigger stuff. Because everything is on a timer, I don’t allow myself to get distracted.
I also don’t allow myself lunch until I have finished everything on the list. I like to call it “power working.” Get as much done as possible in one chunk to make time for other things. All of this time crunching can be busy busy busy! So I also schedule a couple of hours in the evening where I intentionally wander aimlessly through my mind and my home, doing whatever occurs to me. But that time is SCHEDULED - so essentially still my time is not escaping from me
I suggest that you start timing yourself. It will be irritating and stressful at first, but then you’ll get used to it and find yourself not wandering from thing to thing, finding yourself two hours later off somewhere you never intended to go
As for emails that I receive that are not immediately actionable or pressing? I have different folders in my email box where I filter immediately after getting the emails - I got through the inbox in about 2 minutes, just dragging every email into it’s category (so instead of facing the load of emails at once, I categorize them and go from there).
I also split up the day. I know that I work better with accounting and numbers and email-answering in the morning. I work better on design and coding in the evening. In the afternoon I do my best writing and critical thinking, so I plan my day around those daily cycles I know in myself.
Did this help? Feel free to ask a more specific question! I have a post coming up about all of this and will now use some of this writing in the text. Thanks for asking! It allowed me to try and piece together how I do stuff.
Wow, Shanti! I am impressed and inspired! I will start small tonight and make a list for tomorrow’s to-do and see how it goes. I am excited to use my new timer that I got for Christmas and hardly ever use. These kiddos can be unpredictable but I suspect I can work around that while still staying with some sort of semblance of a plan.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this and I will look forward to your blog post!
I, too, work with lists. I don’t use timers or anything.
Striking off the items in the list gives me a feeling of achievement.
And my failing is when I do have time, I tend to laze it off, rather than doing something that may my next day easier. This is what i am focussing on now.
I too struggle with being frugal with my time. Please keep us updated on your progress!
[...] Remodeling This Life talks about being frugal with her time. [...]
Well stated. I’ll be linking to this one shortly.
[...] Be frugal with your time. – “I have had to get my finances in order by being frugal with my money and putting thought into what I spend that money on. I need to use those same principles in getting my day more organized in terms of what I spend my time doing and how long I allow myself to do each thing.” – via Remodeling This Life [...]