Welcome to Day #15 of the 31 Days to Professional Homemaking series. To learn more about this series and to see the list of topics, click HERE. Please know that I am not an expert in marriage, motherhood, or homemaking. I'm just a woman {who happens to be a wife, mother, and homemaker}, trying to figure it all out, by the grace of God. This series is just as much for me as it is for anyone reading.
Before we get started, I'd like to offer you the following button, in case you want to share this series with your readers:
As homemakers, it can feel like there more tasks to be done than time in the day to do those tasks. So, in the spirit of being super practical, as I've promised you I'd be, we're going to talk about creating more time in your day to do those things that you need to get done.
Creating time? But, we're all given the same 24 hours in a day, how in the world can we create more time?
Here's the deal: no one is given more seconds, minutes, or hours than anyone else. That's the bad news, if you will. The good news is that you have more time in your day than you think you do. And that, my friends, is what today is all about: hunting down more time.
Where do we begin? Well, the first step is to...
CREATE A TIME LOG
This step isn't going to be finished today because the idea is to track how you're spending your time over the course of a week or two. Grab yourself a notebook {a smaller size would make it more portable} and for at least 7 days, write down everything that you do {write down as much as you can, anyway}. This step is important because you have to know how you're time is being spent now in order to find extra time later.
What this exercise will do is identify trends in your days. You feel like there's not enough time for everything, yet you look at your time log and realize that you're pressing the snooze button five times in a row, when you could go ahead and get out of bed {Not that I would know anything about that... *ahem*}. Or, you notice that you spend way more time watching TV than you thought you did, when you could utilize at least part of that time working on something else. Maybe you notice that you are spending way more time than necessary to clean your house, when there are ways to streamline the process so it won't take as long.
Find out where those 24 hours a day are going. Then, sit down and...
CREATE A TIME BUDGET
STEP #1 - START WITH MINUTES IN A DAY
Take a piece of paper and write this number at the top of the page:
1440
That's how many minutes you have in your daily "bank". Then, you'll need to...
SUBTRACT SLEEPING TIME
Write down, in minutes, the amount of time you need for sleep.
Let's be honest, in some seasons of life, there's just no way that you're going to get a full 8 hours of sleep. So, if you need at least 6 hours to function, that translates to 360 minutes. If you need 7 hours, that's 420 minutes.
Personally, my body would prefer closer to 9 or 10 hours of sleep {what can I say, I like my sleep...}, but that just isn't going to happen. So, I'm striving for the recommended 8 hours, which is 480 minutes.
{1440 minutes in the day} - {480 minutes of sleep needed} = 960 minutes left {that's 16 hours}.
Now that you know how many hours of sleep you need, it's time to...
DETERMINE TIME FOR TASKS
Next, it's time to determine what all needs to be done in a day and how much time you need to do it. Now, I realize that, for many of us, every day is different. So, if you're days are more different than alike {maybe you have certain activities on certain days of the week}, you may want to create a separate "time budget" for each day. Otherwise, you might just want to create one that you loosely follow, because the whole point is just to get an idea of how you can become a better steward of the time that you have.
For this step, you'll want to consult your time log. If you have a morning routine, a daytime routine, and an evening routine that you either practice already or would like to put into practice, make note of them. It would also be wise to consult your job description and your homemaking manifesto.
For example, here are some tasks that I have along with their "budgeted" times:
Getting Little Man ready for the day {getting dressed, brushing teeth, brushing hair} = 15 minutes
Washing dishes by hand {our dishwasher is broke...} = 30 minutes
Cleaning the bathroom = 20 minutes
The thing about a time budget is that it functions much like a cash envelope system. You can pull from other categories {a.k.a. tasks}, but you cannot borrow from tomorrow. Also, keep in mind that assigning times to tasks right now is just meant to help you plan your day, instead of letting your day happen. This means that you are free to adjust your "budgeted" time amounts. I encourage you to tweak it from time to time, getting a feel for how long it really takes you to do certain things.
By learning how much time it really takes to go through the mail, I can combat the procrastination monster when he wants to pick a fight by telling him to "bug off, because it only takes 5 minutes...".
FIND EXTRA TIME AND ACCOUNT FOR IT
Once you have assigned times to all the have-to tasks, you may realize that you have more time than you thought you did. You might find that you actually have an entire hour each day that is unaccounted for or you could create an extra hour by getting up thirty minutes earlier and cutting out thirty minutes of TV time. Because, truth is, you can make time for the more important things.
But, once you find - or create - that extra time, be sure to assign it to something. Otherwise, it will quickly find something else to go to.
Today's Challenge:
Each day, I'll give you a challenge: one small thing you can do to apply each day's topic to your life and your home.
1. Start your time log. If today is already half-over, then start first thing tomorrow and faithfully complete it for one week, at least. Doing it for any less than that may not give you enough of a "big picture" view of your time to work with.
2. Then, create a time budget. Like everything else we've done, I want to stress the fact that this isn't something that is meant to be carved in stone. It's simply meant to be a tool to help you become more intentional about where you devote your minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment.