Finding Time a Little at a Time

Last spring I took a great online class about Time Management taught by the lovely Cairene at Third Hand Works.

Calling it a “time management” class is only half of it though, because she teaches you about making friends with your time rather than controlling your time. I loved it.

I also learned A LOT as a fledgling, right-brained business owner trying to use her time effectively. Very different from going to work and plugging into an existing system of deadlines, work flow patterns, etc.

What I’ve found interesting however, is how much my awareness of how I use my time since taking the class has grown gradually over time.

I now spend more time just noticing my patterns with time so I can improve our relationship, get closer, and make it all more worthwhile. It’s been eye-opening.

Keep a Time Diary

One of the things I keep circling back to is how I use my time. One neat exercise we did in class was to keep a time diary which is basically like a food diary.

Gah! That kind of food diary “facing up” can make you panic. But rather than it being the beginning of a deprivation plan like a DIET, keeping track of your time can help you figure out not only where you’ve got some wiggle room (to start making things again!), but also when you function best and what your beliefs are about time.

For instance, I’m not strongly a morning person or a night person. I feel like I can create things pretty much whenever. But I actually think my peak time starts around 4:00 in the afternoon. A lot of things have congealed for me over the day, and I often get down to brass tacks about then.

I don’t handle my evening time that well though.

I want to spend time with my husband at the end of the day and he generally likes to decompress from work with a cup of tea and some TV. He and I like to putter near each other, but too much TV bums me out, because I can’t really use it as background noise, especially when I’m working on things I care about involving words (like writing blog posts).

Half the Battle

So that’s a good productivity time for me, but I have to figure out how to balance it with hanging out time with my most loved one. Getting it right doesn’t happen just because you know what the problem is.

But it does mean you’re halfway there because now you know more exactly the “issue” you need to “tweak”.

Evening is also a great time for me to work out (peak time is peak time), but it feels weird to leave the house right when my husband comes home, and it also feels weird to give my best time to working out and then feel too tired afterward to do much else.

I work out to be healthy, not because it’s a big interest of mine. It ends up getting too much of my peak energy when I slot it into that time.

So I’m working on this.

Late morning for working out? Sometimes that feels okay, but then, the warming down, the showering and transitioning (a whole blog post(s) in itself!) often take more time than I’m comfortable with in the middle of my day when I want to be creating artwork, developing classes, making products, etc.

This wraps back around to my beliefs about time–do I feel like I’m playing hooky by going to the gym at that time of day because it interrupts the cultural 9-5 workday format and feels illegitimate? I’m also often doing things for my business at 8pm–why don’t I count that time as work time too?

These struggles are subtle, hard and interesting. Moreover, it’s a process that you must continue to hone and pay attention to, but the payoff is worth it.

What About You?

Do you often feel like there is NO TIME for yourself or for your creating? Are you flummoxed about how you’d carve out any more time (and energy) for yourself and your creative passions?

There IS room for you to weave creativity back into your life again,  you just have to find it.

And if you are making things, there’s room for even MORE.

There’s so much to learn about your relationship with time that all kinds of space will open up once you start to figure it out. You just need to take that first step.

Really, Keep a Time Diary

Try keeping a time diary this week where you track and simply notice how you spend your time, when you feel tired, when you feel clear and good, and what you’re doing during these times.

And then sit with it. Try not to leap to conclusions. It’s true that some issues will just jump off the page and what you can do to improve them will be crystal clear. And that’s exciting.

Other things will be subtle, slippery and require your attention over the long haul. But you’ll be able to get so much from this slow, subtle investigation, that you’ll be amazed.

Either way, you’re not where you were before, despairing about ever finding any real time for yourself and your creativity. Things are different now, you’re on the case. Taking charge of your part of the relationship.

Time is not the boss of you, it’s just the babysitter.

What do you think about keeping a time diary? Are you up for it? Scared to find out? Excited about the possibilities? Leave a comment, I ‘d love to hear from you!

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