Thursday, February 16, 2012

Time Management & a New Strategy.


I've griped before about my annoyance with people who always make excuses for themselves. Of these excuses I am most irritated by the excuse of 'not enough time'. Now I recognize the need for boundaries where our time is concerned and for staying on track with our priorities. But making the time excuse ignores the fact that we CHOSE our priorities in life.

If I had a nickle for every person who said they wished they had 'time' to read as much as I do, I'd build myself a library off the back of my townhome. No really, I would. And it might look like this:


Assuming that you haven't found someway to have more or less than 24 hours in your day, you have exactly as many opportunities to read books as I do. In college I gave up cable for 2 years in an attempt to refocus my time. Watching hours of TV per week is a habit I've never picked back up. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure here I should share that my TV hour per week goes up noticeably during football season - since I usually watch at least 2-3 games per week (the colts, SNF, and MNF).

Working out is another area people love to make excuses for, right? 'I'm just not a morning person' is a good one. Several days a week I workout at 6am, because after work I have to go to do more work til about 10 pm. I confess that working out at 6am and then working a 12 hour day is BRUTAL and not for the faint of heart. But it is doable. So the moral of this post is really, don't make excuses about your time - sit down, determine your priorities, and go at them hard.

I love having a clean house. I love that if a friend calls me last minute and wants to lay by my pool or stop by to watch a movie, my house is always company appropriate. But I'm trying a new idea I got, also from pinterest, for doing a little cleaning every day. This is my first week trying it. On Saturday I vacuumed my room and bathroom and mopped the bathroom floor. Sunday I changed the sheets and did the laundry. Monday I cleaned the bathroom. Tuesday I dusted. Wednesday I paid bills. Tonight is cleaning the inside of the microwave and cleaning out the fridge.

I'll have to report back a little farther in, but so far I'm loving it! There was a list on pinterest (check my OCD board if you're interested) on how to do this. I made my own way, per my usual. But I love the concept and so far, the results!

How do you manage your time to get in all the important things?

Love,
B


4 comments:

Lauren said...

I so agree about making time for reading & working out, it's sooo hard for me sometimes especially working out because I do work so much during the week but when I make time I feel so much better :-) I need to start making a schedule for cleaning, that;s one area I'm not very organized in and we end up cleaning the entire house in one day for a party lol.

Joey Hodges said...

Great post! I recently adopted the "clean a little each day" thing too. And so far, I'm loving it. I wish more people would realize that it all comes down to priorities and what you make time for.

Asha said...

I love this post and the quote is so wonderful because all of those greats made the most of their 24 hours in order to achieve their goals. My quote for making the most of my time is, "if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail".

p.s. - I'm on a pinterest daily cleaning list too and I ♥ it!
Keep up the good work girl :)

Neely said...

I get annoyed when people say they dont have time to work out...If I do everyone does.