Time Management Without a Schedule
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photo sourceRemember the love-hate relationship I have with schedules? Well, a few months ago I gave it a go. I really did. I wrote up a schedule and I ran it through the paces.
And ya know what? It really didn’t support what the players on my team were doing. It wasn’t good for morale. It really rankled the coach. So, I cut it from the team.
Yes, yes, I did.
But, am I throwing all caution to the wind? Have I thrown in the proverbial towel? Have I given up in the last quarter of the game? No, no, I haven’t. But, I’ve found a way to manage my time without an hour-by-hour schedule.
And it. is. amazing.
Time is Our Currency
Years ago, this song by Chris Rice was on my regular playlist. And even then, I wondered how to budget my time. We’re given 24 hours. How do we spend them? At the time, I was really struggling.
I remember that season of having moved cross country, selling a house, and knowing no one in a new town. I remember having a newborn. I remember having six children under twelve.
But, I really don’t remember much else. It’s all a blur. And, it has been really, really hard to get back on my game.
Yet I know the days are fleeting. My eldest child is going to be 14 in a few months. Surely, he was just a newborn. I don’t want to miss out on these days.
One help has been to put my household notebook in order. Every six months or so I need to give it a makeover, but a household notebook and planning pages help me keep things in order.
Another thing to help me manage life better has been to investigate other methods of time management. I’ve consulted with friends, read helpful posts, and examined books on the topic.
Between things that I’ve learned from my friend Crystal and what I gleaned from the ebook, Tell Your Time by Amy Lynn Andrews, I’ve put together a little system that I is helping me, basically it’s a time budget.
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Budgeting My Time
Following Amy and Crystal’s lead, I made a list of all the regular things I do in a day:
- Sleeping
- Bible Reading/Journaling/Praying
- Reading
- Exercising
- Shower/Dressing
- Laundry
- Schooling
- Coupons/Meal Planning/Shopping
- Writing/Blogging
- Meal Prep/Meals
- Housekeeping
- Margin (Crystal had to remind me on that one)
Then I alloted each of those activities a time limit or allowance. The numbers had to total 24 hours, no more and no less.
And quite honestly, it took me awhile to learn this. I read Amy’s book. I read Crystal’s series on Time Management. It wasn’t until Crystal and I were on the phone talking about it that it finally sunk in. That’s when she reminded me that it all needed to add up to 24 and that there needed to be margin for error/emergencies/whatever. Apparently, I really was trying to accomplish more than 24 hours of stuff everyday.
Yes, I’m a little slow.
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Having an allowance
I tend to be an “all or nothing” kind of person. I want to finish all the laundry. I want to give the kitchen a thorough scrubbing. I want to answer every email.
But, if I did that, nothing else would get done in a day. So, by limiting myself to 30 minutes of laundry each day, I am able to work on the task and feel like I can mark it off my list, even if I haven’t matched every sock. I’m doing the laundry. I’m just not doing all the laundry.
This allowance of time helps keep me efficient and moving from one task to the next.
Not only that, but I feel the freedom to spend time on things I wouldn’t normally think I had time for. For instance, I gave myself 30 minutes for shower and dressing. Each morning I set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes. If I’m showered and dressed, but the timer hasn’t rung yet, then I have time to do “extras” like give myself a facial, paint my toes, or put on lotion — things that I usually neglect.
Since I’ve given myself this “allowance,” I’m feeling more “put together” and practices that I had relegated to the “pre-children years” are happening again.
But, I don’t have a “schedule.”
The one thing that I’m not doing is assigning times of the day to when these things should happen. I’m not even creating a sequence of when these tasks should be done. No schedules, no “routine.” THAT makes me always feel behind.
I realized in all this time management study that if the important things are getting done, then it doesn’t really matter when they happen or in what order.
This has been so freeing to me.
Remembering to DO it
Now the trick to any kind of budget, whether it is time or money, is to actually follow it. And I confess, since I am slow and easily distracted, some days I forget my time budget exists. But, there are increasingly more days when I remember. And I’m trying really hard to remind myself.
I even went so far as to print it all out on a card so that I could remember what I needed to be doing throughout the day. It’s a condensed version of my daily to-do list. And I carry it around with me. It’s small enough to fit in my pocket so I have no excuse for not consulting it.
Yes, I am slow and easily distracted. But, this helps me.
Living without a “schedule” but still being productive and responsible in my home is a great feeling. I haven’t “arrived,” but I feel like I’m on the right path.
This is very interesting. Time Management is one of my biggest struggles. The two main issues right now are nickel and diming myself out of hours of time with the internet. We have two computers on the first floor of our house, one in the kitchen, and I have a smartphone so I am constantly checking this and that. It’s really terrible and I need to manage it better. My second problem is learning to be better about rolling with the punches in terms of my toddler’s sleep schedule. I won’t go into the gory details except to say he often gets up at 4:00 a.m. and has a tendency to fall asleep in the car if I’m not careful about running errands. He won’t change so I need to adjust my attitude and expectations. That’s tough.
Have you read Julie Morganstern’s Time Mangement From the Inside Out? Before I had kids it took me years to learn how to effectively manage my time. I’m a freelance musician so when I work it’s late afternoons, evenings, and weekends. The problem I always had was managing my days so I was still getting practicing and planning work done but also not working every minute of every day. It was tough. Of course, once I figured it out I had a baby which threw a wrench in that system. Oh well.
That is a wonderful idea! Especially if it works for you…I too have tried the scheduled timeslots and it is not for me. I am not structured enough for those time slots so I use my planner and schedule certain activities for each day and write out the months meals. As long as I know I need to wash the floor, vacumn, start the laundry, tidy the kitchen, do my bible ready, do the kids Bible study, take the kids to the park, pull out the roast and get the crockpot going, exercise and focus onreading withthe kids then it gets done. I consult my planner first thing in the morning and work from there. My days are so much more productive so that works for me I need the structure of the specific tasks but not the time frames. Good job thinking “outside” the box and doing what works for you!
Schedules don’t work for me either!! At all. I decided to start praying every day for God to lead me step by step in everything and things are going MUCH better!!!
Similar to this, I’ve been recognizing the things that eat up time and are good in moderation but potential distractions from what matters most and am starting to put in place a budget for those things (ie checking email…well pretty much computer anything!)
I think it will work great!!! Yay for no schedules!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Amy Walker, isn’t that a wonderful feeling?
I had the same thought as Stephanie when I read this post — what do you do with your kids during many of those time allocations? I’m genuinely curious, though I realize that question could be read as snarky. I feel like I can never get on top of all my To-Dos (like laundry or blogging or cleaning or menu planning) because I’m doing stuff with my kids when I’m not working. Are yours all old enough to entertain themselves?
@Kate, my kids are 13, 10, 8, 6, 4, and 2.
I guess I didn’t say that this isn’t my everyday, but what I shoot for like 3-4 days a week. Weekends are family time and at least one day a week the kids and I do park, library, etc.
Our school time is when we are all together during the day, but as I mentioned in an earlier comment, the kids and I do a lot of these things together. There’s always someone with me whether I’m folding clothes, cleaning, cooking, clipping coupons, or even sleeping. I “usually” get alone time while I’m in the shower, but not always. My girls (2 and 4) tend to visit me in the bathroom. I am almost never without my kids except during writing time which I do while they are sleeping.
Hope that makes sense. And thanks for clarifying that you weren’t being “snarky.” 🙂
I recently made up a daily schedule for myself and my kids. I did it because I felt like I wasn’t getting as much accomplished as I needed to and wanting to get a handle on things. It really just didn’t work. I felt like I was running some kind of race and we were constantly jumping from activity to activity. The schedule didn’t last long before it was abandoned. I found your way an interesting alternative and I think I’m going to give it a try. Thanks for your always thoughtful and inspiring posts!
Well, I can’t take credit for it. Amy and Crystal are the ones to clue me in. 😉
This is *amazing* – I’m not sure why this concept has never crossed my mind or path before. I know that my house could benefit from more structure, but there isn’t enough time to “schedule” full, complete tasks – and everything ends up shoddily done. I LOVE this budget idea, so if there isn’t enough time for all of a task today, some progress was made, and there are more “allotted funds” tomorrow. THANK YOU.
[It also somewhat surprises me, bc I always get the feeling that you are more “on top of things” than this particular post lets on to. =) ]
@Kelly, I struggle just like everybody else, trying to figure out what works in whatever season we’re in. That last part seems to be constantly changing, though.
This type of schedule would work for me. I tried to do the minute by minute type schedule before and I was ticking myself off and I’m the one that wrote the schedule. LOL!
I need a bit more freedom to play around with. This sounds great. Thanks for posting it.
Kim
Oh, I see I overlooked the amount of time you have alotted for school, that must include playful learning activities and a margin for lots of together time. Nevermind. I’m seeing now how I can adapt the system to my day with littles.
Thanks for this idea!
@stephanie, yes. Plus, my kids are ranging in age from 2 to 13. So, they have lots of independent and group pursuits, too.
I enjoyed this post, I need a more fluid schedule, too. But, I’m looking at your 24 hour alotments and I’m wondering, when do you get to spend time with the kids? In my life, I could never accomplish all that you have listed here because I’m taking the kids to the park or playdates or playing games with them. Do you add that into your schedule, or are you trying to squeeze that in between everything else you try to do?
@stephanie, well, except for the shower and exercise times, my kids are with me! LOL, yes, even when I sleep, it seems there is someone with me.
Like you mentioned in your other comment, we have a big chunk of our day spent in school, reading, lessons, talking, etc. I take kids shopping with me. We often meal plan together. We chat while I clip coupons, or someone helps with the cutting. They help me fold laundry or talk while I clean something. My reading time is often reading with them.
Plus, this is my at-home, regular thing to shoot for. We have at least two days a week that we do the park, the library, etc. Then this all flies out the window.
Hmm..I found this post VERY interesting! I had tried keeping a daily to do list and scheduling my day totally. Well, I fell off the bandwagon. It just didn’t work for me or my lifestyle. Maybe this is what I need. Think I’ll give it a whirl, couldn’t hurt!