Where does the time go?

 I don't know about you, but I have this ongoing feeling like there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything done that needs to get done. This, naturally, contributes to me feeling continually stuck behind the 8-ball. Now, I know that this might be a pandemic effect as well but... I still wondered... where does the time go?

I think back to when I was in my 20s and 30s and... heck... I always seemed to have all the time in the world. Now, I wasn't a home owner... nor did I have a partner... or a cat... and it wasn't a pandemic... but surely those four things can't be completely vacuum cleaners of my time, can they?

Or is it just the old trick... time speeds up as you get older? Do the days go by twice as fast in your 50s than in your 30s? Or is it that I am just slower and less efficient than I was 20 years ago? Do I spend more time day-dreaming? Or is it something else entirely?

A few weeks ago, I blogged about resuming my interrupted 2017 book-reading challenge... I got through July not too badly but August has been a flop. Reading 50 pages a day, and taking notes, and blogging about it with some thoughtfulness, every single day... nope. That was taking almost 3 hours out of my day... because while I can usually read 50 pages easily in one hour... the note-taking doubled my reading time... and then the blogging took a good 30 minutes to 60 minutes... depending...

As my partner pointed out so adroitly... no wonder I was feeling overwhelmed... I don't devote 3 hours a day to any other activity! And that was the thing... the book challenge was becoming THE most important thing in my day and other things were falling by the wayside.

Sooo... I realized something needed to give... and the book reading/blogging has been the first to go. So... yes, that lifted some of the overwhelm but... there is still too much to do in a day... or so it seems to me.

Gleeo Time Tracker - stock image

So, I decided to dust off my time-tracker app and actually see... where does the time go? I entered all the major categories of my life and did some breaking down of different subcategories. Big categories are things like Health (rest, meals, walk/hike, read, journal, TV - I know but it needs to get tracked somewhere!), House & Garden (errands, chores, finances, maintenance, garden), Work (writing, AirBnb, etc).

Sooo... over the last 7 days... the biggest time category is... drumroll please... TV. Yep, with an average of just over 2 hours a day... and some days over 3 hours. Where does the time go? Into the black box. Sigh... I knew that we were watching a lot of TV in the evenings... we've been on a bit of a CSI marathon lately.

So, if I'm looking for somewhere to cut back... I don't have to look very far. Those TV hours could easily become reading hours... or puzzling, or playing games or writing letters or... any of a number of other things. And... as I'm writing this... I think back to my post-university life and... ahem... I went through several years where I hardly watched any TV. Huh... No wonder I had so much time!!

So that is one option... the other thing that comes to me is that time might not be the issue... the real question should be... where does my energy go? Because it's not so much a time-management issue as an energy-management issue. And... much as I might like to think otherwise... TV is NOT restful. At least not for me... it keeps my brain stimulated... can sometimes give me a headache... and if I watch it too close to bedtime, keeps me awake long into the night. Especially if it was a gory CSI episode! So, from both a time and energy perspective... TV is not a great choice. It's time to alter that habit and choose more restful option.

My small step goal for the next week is to reduce TV consumption... to one CSI episode every evening. And to choose other options for the rest of the evening. Rest is important but there are better ways for me to rest than to plop myself in front of the TV... we'll see how the rest of the month goes... wish me luck!