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| So much to do... so little time (Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay) |
So, there are 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in a week. That seems like an awful lot of time. The other obvious thing is that we all have the same amount of hours. No one has invented a time machine yet that can allow us to extend the day and create more hours. We always have the option of getting more space, more money, more stuff. But... more time? Nope, that's impossible.
Oh sure, you can hire someone to do the house-cleaning and yard-work and car maintenance. You can trade in some of your money to claw back a bit of time. But you still run up against that 168 hours a week. There isn't an infinite supply of hours.
Even that 168 is obviously not all that there is to it... Here's where I spend some of my hours in a week. I'm going to split weekdays from weekends because they look very different.
Weekdays - 5 days x 24 hrs = 120 hours available
- 45 hours - 8 hrs of sleep/day and 30 min either side of that for wind-down and getting up
- 5 hours - breakfast - that includes cooking my oatmeal, eating it and washing up
- 5 hours - daily walk with my partner
- 7.5 hours - prep and eat the main meal - sometimes that might go quicker
- 2.5 hours - evening meal - usually more like a snack
- 2.5 hours - journaling for about 30 min/day
- 10 hours - contract work
- 2.5 hours - grocery shopping and errands
- 2.5 hours - appointments of various types
And that leaves me with... 37.5 hours or, 7.5 hours/day of "available" hours on a weekday. And of those, 2.5 of those hours are from 6 pm to 8:30 pm which I consider to be generally "not computer time", otherwise I get too much blue light and can't sleep! So, really... I am left with 5 hours during the course of the day, give or take. So, that's 25 hours over the weekday...
Now, let's look at the weekends
Weekends - 2 days x 24 hours = 48 hours available
- 18 hours - 8 hrs of sleep/day and 30 min either side of that for wind-down and getting up
- 2 hours - breakfast - that includes cooking my oatmeal, eating it and washing up
- 2 hours - daily walk with my partner
- 3 hours - prep and eat the main meal - sometimes that might go quicker
- 1 hour - evening meal - usually more like a snack
- 1 hour - journaling for about 30 min/day
- 6 hours - yard maintenance
- 3 hours - a hike
- 2 hours - house maintenance
- 2 hours - manage household finances
- 1 hour - genealogical research
That leaves me with... 7 hours over 2 days or 3.5 hours a day. Although... right now, for example, there is a LOT of canning taking place, so that sucks up any excess time. Soooo... let's get back to the weekdays, because that's where the struggle is happening right now.
Everything I Want to Do
Right then... so 25 hours seems like a fair bit of time. But it's amazing how it just slips through my fingers without any warning at all. Here are some of the things I want to do in those 25 flex hours in any given week...
- 7.5 hours - write my various blogs - I currently have 3 of them on the go
- 10 hours - write and research my 4th blog (historical research)
- 12.5 hours - work on a book about one of the MI5 guys
- 10 hours - set up direct booking systems for our Airbnb (rental contract, email journey series, auto-payment processor, etc)
- 2.5 hours - manage our Airbnb and the one I co-host - includes tweaking daily and writing weekly IG & FB posts
- 2.5 hours - handle calls and emails
Let's see... I can already see a problem. But let's do the math - that adds up to... 45 hours. Stuffed into 25 hours. Hmmm... me thinks I have a problem with a 20 hour short-fall. I obviously can't do this. There just aren't enough hours in the week.
***taps fingers on table while frowning seriously***
I am eyeing those 2.5 hours every evening - between 6 pm and 8:30 pm... that's 7.5 hours right there. But all of my weekday activities require a computer. Yes, I could probably steal some hours there, but I would pay a big sleep price sooo... alas... that is not going to work. And besides... those are my puzzling hours when I listen to podcasts! Can't cut into the puzzle time... nooooo...
Now, the Airbnb direct booking system won't go on forever. My goal is to have it done within a couple of weeks, so that would free up 10 hours a week... but that still leaves me with a 10 hour shortfall.
The Blogs
Yes, I do have a lot of blogs... I have this one, my DNA blog and my playful bear blog. That's a lot of blogs. Plus... I set myself some fairly hard and fast schedules.
- Small Steps - I had it 3 times a week and have cut it to 2 times a week - I do have a one to two month buffer of pre-posted blogs but... if the buffer runs out, I am up against a wall and it is impossible to keep that pace up week after week, especially since I started the... DNA blog.
- DNA blog - right now, that's once a week... but who says it needs to be that often? Maybe I could go down to once every two weeks?
- Bear blog - I was trying to do that 3 times a week too, and it slipped to twice a week and now it's maybe once a week... if I can squeeze in the time. It's the one that slips off the conveyor belt most often now.
- Historical blog - I had slipped off of this one for over a year and recently started posting weekly again - but perhaps that could be pushed out to every two weeks...
These publishing schedules are all my creation. If I went to once a week with Small Steps... I'd be pre-posted into January, which would create a LOT of breathing room. Maybe I could do the DNA blog every two weeks?
Ultimately, it comes down to this. I need to choose where to spend my time. I can't do it all. It's impossible. And I hate impossible boundaries but... in this case... I really do have to get real and make a choice. I really do want to do this other book and I need to carve out time for that.
Revised - Everything I Want to Do
Alright... 25 hours is the goal... go!
- 1.5 hours - write blogs (DNA blog right now written once a week but pre-posted every 2 weeks to build up a buffer) (reduced from 7.5 hours)
- 2.5 hours - write and research my 4th blog (historical research) - published every 2nd, 3rd or (gasp) 4th week (reduced from 10 hours)
- 5 hours - work on the book about one of the MI5 guys (reduced from 10 hours)
- 10 hours - set up direct booking systems for our Airbnb (rental contract, email journey series, auto-payment processor, etc)
- 2.5 hours - manage our Airbnb and the one I co-host - includes tweaking daily and writing weekly IG & FB posts
- 2.5 hours - handle calls and emails
Ah, this is killing me!! This is 24 hours so I have a flex hour to allocate somewhere. But it is hard to make these choices! I know that once the Airbnb direct booking system is set-up, that will free up some hours but... still...
Could I steal hours from the weekends? Those 7 hours? Maybe... maybe not. I really try to keep things separate and there is already a lot of stuff that gets shoved into the weekends. Plus, I do want to spend some time doing "fun" things... maybe go to a movie with my partner, visit friends, read a book, etc.
Sometimes, there are random bits of time that show up. Maybe meeting didn't go as long as planned, or there weren't any emails or calls to make... and the trick now would be to seize those little 30 minute chunks and turn them into something useful. Through this process, I at least now know where I want to spend them!
Choices are Hard
I am also reminded that small steps are what make the difference. Five hours a week on the new book doesn't seem like a lot but it does add up over the course of a year. Especially if I focus and don't get distracted by other things. I've done a tonne of research for this book, so now it's just pulling things together. I can do this.
For now... this Small Steps blog is going to go to a once a week posting schedule. I am pre-posted well into January, more or less. And hope to keep that schedule going into the future.
So... "for now" this is what I will focus on. I have to keep reminding myself that this isn't forever. This is a temporary deferment and all can be reviewed in 3 months to see where I get to!
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