“Choosing” and Time Management

At the SolEd Gathering in Garrison I “choose” to reflect daily for thirty minutes. I’ve found that this has proven harder than I expected. Most nights I find myself remembering I was going to reflect for thirty minutes as I am going to sleep.

In reviewing this pattern I realized that I do not have enough free time and that I over commit myself. I took some time to think through all of my commitments and how they fit in with sleeping, reflecting, etc.

To do this I took a piece of lined paper and listed everything I absolutely have to do- that I cannot avoid. This included sleeping, eating, showering, getting “ready”, going to the bathroom, etc. I then estimated how many hours a week I did these activities. I did the same for activities I ‘would not give up no matter what,’ then with activities that ‘had some importance, but could be forfeited in favor of more important actions.’ I worked backwards and found that on an ideal week I have over 185 hours of commitments… and thinking through this I realize my time with friends, my reflecting time, my sleep, and a few other commitments are the ones taking the fall.

There are 168 hours in a week. Make sure to plan for roughly 56 for sleep, and 28 for leisure (minimum).

Note that not everyone has this experience, two years ago when I did this I found that I had a lot of free time over my commitments and that I had been procrastinating and filling what I really wanted to spend my time on with unimportant things.

I have not gotten this number down to less than 168 for myself yet (Ideally 160 with an 8 hour buffer), but hope to in my next few reflection sessions. A good supplement to this is to keep a journal of how you spend your time for a week and then look at that data for areas of improvement. I've noticed that just the practice of holding yourself accountable for how you spend your time through journaling helps improve productivity and following through on “chosen” activities.