Now that I’m working full time, I’m scared that I won’t ever get to any of my projects. Before, I had all day long to leisurely attempt any project I felt like, try out a new recipe every day, and still spend the entire evening relaxing with Jake. With only a few short hours each day of downtime, how will I accomplish anything??
After pondering this the other day during my drive home (half an hour is a long time to think), I was able to view things in a different light. Because I’m a numbers gal (I honestly can daydream about numbers all day… numbers to buy a home, numbers to start a business, numbers to build my barn house… ;)), I broke my evenings down to into time periods.
There are approximately 5 hours in my evening (that’s hopeful, right?). If I take away one hour immediately after I get home for preparing and eating dinner, I’m left with 4 hours. Then, if I take away another half an hour right before bed for relaxing and winding down for the night, I have 3.5 hours. That’s plenty of time to do cool stuff!!!
(Yes I go to bed at 10:30, make fun all you want… but this girl needs her sleep!)
After coming to this realization, I was feeling significantly better. Then I thought, I can’t simply spend all my free time doing crafty/pinterest things. I will also need to do household chores and other to-do’s, and make room for social time with Jake, friends, and family. So, if I have a rotating three-night schedule, I can still spend 3.5 hours for 1-2 evenings each week working on making things, shopping, decorating, and other things I don’t want to miss out on.
Now at this point, some of you math-savvy readers are thinking… in no way does 3 divide into a week, even if you include the weekend. I know, it certainly won’t be a perfect rotation by any means. I’m sure there will be weeks where it gets unbalanced, or I don’t even use it at all. But, I think I want to use it more as a guideline to encourage myself that I do have the time to do the things I love.
How do you budget out your time for the things that are important to you? Am I totally crazy for thinking about it like this?? If you have any motivating time management techniques, I would love to hear them 🙂 Thanks for listening to the ramblings of this crazy lady…. ta ta for now!
