Now that Little Miss Sunshine is happily settled into morning kindergarten, I have about two hours every weekday all to myself. That’s ten whole hours. PURE GOLD.
I’m totally over feeling aimless about it and now I have booked those poor, poor ten hours with about 90 different tasks, including:
- reorganizing every cabinet in the house
- single-handedly finishing the basement (if I can overcome my fear of saws)
- sorting all the toys in the house, finding all missing pieces, and garage sale-ing the stuff we don’t use
- cleaning all the stuff that never usually gets cleaned, like the top of the kitchen cabinets (EW EW EW)
- creating a book of my blog posts for my own keepsake
- improving my photography skills by maybe taking some classes or generally getting out of the house because there are only so many photos you can take of the kids’ toys
- completely revamping my physical health, via yoga/swimming/running/tap dancing/joining a gym
- plan a family vacation for the spring
- give the garden some badly needed TLC
- making an advent calendar for this coming Christmas season
- start working on any one of the three business ideas that I have as this is my long term plan for continuing to avoid the actual working world for many, many years to come
And yet so far, all I have managed to get done is grocery shopping, blog reading, and making new twitter backgrounds for my turtle_head and bolottawa accounts. At this rate, by the end of the school year I’ll have worn a hole in the couch and the house will be dirtier than ever.
How is it possible that ten hours can fly by so fast?
I’ve decided I need to schedule my days. One day is already devoted to grocery shopping, which is so heavenly without any kids along that I just can’t give that up. One day is laundry and chores. That leaves three mornings a week, three two-hour segments, to give to about 88 other projects.
Totally doable, right?
TurtleHead 
I’m right there with you, although I have even more time, and I have one incredibly annoying assignment every week also. Right now my Dad is here every day painting and flooring the kids’ rooms, so I’m so busy trying to LOOK busy when I’m actually in the house that I’m exhausted by the time he leaves. Also, I’m annoyed at myself for not doing the blog book in August when Magpie Musing had fixed it so we would get a discount. Then again, in August I WAS super-busy without even having to think about it.
My tupperware cupboard? Is a thing of beauty. Actually, I think I’ll go stare at it right now. It makes me feel all Zen.
From experience, this might be harder than you expect. I’ve long had a huge list of things I’d like to get done (it’s very organized and structured, in fact it’s an app), and I occasionally take a personal day from work to make some progress on it, but there’s never enough time to do everything. I strongly, strongly recommend you prioritize ruthlessly and make an achievable list of goals at the beginning of each day, or maybe each week (but day is probably better).
Also, read David Allen’s Getting Things Done.
I say all of this because I identify pretty strongly with this post; it sounds like something I would write if I were in the same situation. (For example I totally get the desire to organize the kids’ toys and find all the missing pieces, that’s on my list. It’s a fool’s errand, though, and I want to let it go but I can’t and I suspect you are the same.)
I’ll also share one of my personal mantras: half of the problem with time management is just buckling down and choosing something to do and then just doing it. You’d be surprised how much can get done if you simply eliminate all the waffling about what you should be doing.
Oh, and a tip I learned from 59 Seconds – procrastination can often be overcome with inertia. Once you get started on something there’s a lot more incentive to move it along and finish it. So tell yourself to spend just a few minutes on something, and that often gets the ball rolling.
Good luck!
I agree completely about just choosing something. It’s the same problem with making dinner – half the time is spent just deciding what to have. I need to pick one project and just get going. So far I have assigned a few tasks to my calendar and I find it’s helping, although staying away from the Internet is a MUST if I am to actually accomplish anything.
CapnPlanet is my new hero. Yes to everything s/he said. I do a list each day of the ‘3 Most Important Tasks’ and if I get those done, it’s all good. On work days they’re work things, and home days they’re home things. Otherwise I just end up online reading blogs from people I don’t know. Like now 😉
I really like this idea – updating your to do list every day with just three things. I’m going to try it!
Yes, yes, everyone has such helpful comments. I have 3 mornings a week and I RUN from drop off to get things done in a certain order: laundry, phone calls, writing, answering emails, then any cleaning. But I have one day for errands, too. Honestly, though, you could also use that time to give yourself a break. Mommas work HARD and never give ourselves enough credit.
Amen to your last comment. I find it so easy to fill every available moment with (perceived) productivity, and sometimes I explicitly schedule downtime to just watch TV or hang out with my better half.
I know what you mean. I should have so much TIME – both kids are in school – but they come home for lunch, I’m chairing the parent association, I’m doing a zillion other volunteer projects, etc., etc. So I haven’t even gotten around to the “cleaning out the craft supplies” that I meant to do two years ago.
Totally doable.
“And yet so far, all I have managed to get done is grocery shopping, blog reading, and making new twitter backgrounds for my turtle_head and bolottawa accounts”…thank goodness for that! I was afraid you were actually getting all those things done. Then I would have to go hide in shame.
You know, I’m just happy I’ve managed to move my kids’ long-sleeved shirts to the front of the drawer and put the short-sleeved ones at the back. Of course, ever since I did that it’s been 28 degrees with a humidex reading so even that’s looking like a pretty useless accomplishment…
I just said to a friend last week (with a daughter in SK) that the time your child is in schools is “too much time to do nothing. Not enough time to do anything”.. She thought she might get that printed on a bumper sticker.
WORD. You could totally sell t-shirts – that is 100% truth.
I thought I’d get a lot accomplished this fall while Jeff is off on parental leave with me for 9 weeks, and Maya is at school in the mornings. Four weeks in to his leave and we HAVE gotten a long list of things done, but they’re pretty much all home maintenance type things that Jeff has done while I’ve provided the childcare to keep Chloe out from underfoot (or in the afternoons, Maya out from underfoot while Chloe naps). It’s great we’ve had energy audits, new furnace, windows painted, mulch spread, etc. But nothing on my own list of projects has gotten done. Although the house is slightly (but only slightly) tidier. Hopefully October will get to be the month for me, so I can work on baby books, closet cleaning, toy sorting, etc.
And with that said, Chloe and I are going to go fold laundry for the 20 minutes left until we have to leave to pick up Maya.
Absolutely doable 🙂
I have ended up with 2 and a half hours each weekday to myself. I don’t feel guilty but I do feel selfish. But I have earned that time these last 3 years and I am going to enjoy it.
My recommendation: Take your 10 hours from one week and watch Game of Thrones, Season One.
Really? I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about it but still…I just feel like I’d be comparing it to LOTR all the time and coming up short. Is it really that good?
It’s no LOTR, but I love, love, love Sean Bean and so I admit I am watching it with goggles which smear a small amount of Vaseline on the lenses whenever SB appears. That being said, one other reason I’m intrigued by it is that it frequently doesn’t go where you expect it go. That’s very refreshing.
I think because it’s HBO it’s got a fair amount of nudity and violence, both of which seemed kind of excessive at times. But in spite of that, it’s still very watchable, but just not when there’s any possibility of the kids watching it.
Hope you’re enjoying your 10 hours a week so far!
I have total two-hour envy!!
But I know I wouldn’t use my time effectively if I had it, and I would just fritter it away.
Try to enjoy and don’t try to do it all!