Tuesday, February 18, 2014

My Schedule: What Can Give

My ScheduleBack on December 30, you know a whole month and a half ago or so, I set some goals for 2014. I didn't call them resolutions because I'm terrible at keeping my New Year's resolutions, but that's beside the point. The goals are focused on lots of different aspects of my life and 2 of them, numbers 11 and 12 are focused on my schedule and time commitments, they are:
  • Find areas to scale back involvement so I have more free time at home.
  • Spend more time with family, friends and my pets!
One of my favorite bloggers, Nony from A Slob Comes Clean has talked about scheduling conflicts and how they relate to clutter.

Recently, Nony posted this: The One in One Out Rule and Schedules on her blog. She said, "time does not expand to fit all the ideas that pop into my head. No matter how fabulous those ideas are."

She also applies the one in one out rule to schedules: "There are only so many hours in a day. When I add something new, time doesn’t automatically expand to fit it... It’s like a day is a container. It is the natural limit to how much I can do. Once I’ve filled up my days there is no more. Trying to shove another really great thing into my day doesn’t mean my day will be greater, it means my day will overflow into a big mess."

That's the part that got to me. I have to decide my priorities, because I can't fit everything in to my day or even my week. I have been stressed out, burnt out and worn out for a long time now (like way before the blog started) and I'm tired of it.

Melanie from Dear Debt gave her perspective on scheduling issues from a PF/Debt blogger point of view with this post: Being Busy Isn't the Same as Being Productive.

She talks about how her schedule was filled with things that weren't contributing to bettering her life. "After a while, I realized I was always busy, but I wasn’t really productive. I had nothing to show for how ‘busy’ I actually was, except for a few good stories."

She decided to change her priorities: "Recently, I have challenged myself to take more time to relax, do nothing and not feel guilty... Sometimes I get tired and frustrated—I just want a day off."

So, here's what I have going on:
  • Full-time job
  • Cleaning the office I work in
  • Weekend job
  • Home based cosmetic business
  • Blogging - about 20 hours a week or so
  • Working out, after work 3 days a week
  • Volunteer on 3 separate boards in my community
  • Work at my family farm
  • Chores, housework, etc at home
With all of that, even excluding the last 2, I only have about 1 evening/week where I get home before 8pm. I don't think that's fair to me or to my pets.

So what gives?

Melanie's opinion on that includes asking these questions:

Does it make me money?
Does it make me happy?
Does it challenge me?

She said "If I get offers that don’t meet one of those requirements, I don’t do it-which is hard for me, because I am codependent. I want to yes to everything and make everyone happy."

The first 4 are for my financial health and they will help me accomplish my goals faster plus the extra jobs provide some cushion to my budget. There's not a lot of expenses that I see that can be further cut right now. Blogging is my way to track my progress, motivates me and acts like my diary of sorts. Working out is a great stress reliever and is for my health. The volunteer work is for things I am passionate about and could possibly be helpful with future career possibilities (that's another post all-together). The last two are things that have to be done.

I thought that while writing this post I would come to a conclusion on at least 1 thing I could cut back on to have more time to myself, but alas I haven't decided yet.

What is your opinion on the best area for me to cut back my time commitments? Do you have scheduling issues of your own?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home