Tired of time managing you? How to make it stop (part 1)

I have spent a lot of time over the years working on time management techniques. A quick google search is going to tell you how people want to, but often don’t know how to manage time. In fact, according to acuity training, 82% of people do not have a time management system. And I think no matter if you have a system or not, for a lot of us, time is managing us.

So, if you’re like me and dedicate yourself to using a planner, let’s all give ourselves a pat on the back. We’re in the 18% who have a “system”. But don’t get too proud just yet. Having a system doesn’t mean you are winning at time management.

And those of you who don’t have a system, don’t feel bad. Maybe we should hear some of your tips for a change!

This is my basic “time management system”. Laying out a calendar with no breathing room. Or genius hack, filling up my calendar with plenty of space to be filled with “in the moment” activities. Notes and spreadsheets to see how I spend every last minute of my day. All. The. things. 

But no matter what I’ve tried, I still can’t catch time. I still don’t have enough of it. The seconds, minutes and hours fly by until the day is over. If you blink, it’s a new week, month and year – but what did you do in all that time? Was there really 525,600 minutes in the last year?

Life is busy. I don’t need to tell you that, I’m sure you already know. But I’ve begun realizing that sometimes, life is busy because I am making busy work.

I get up in the morning, rush around cleaning the house, getting the kids ready for school, getting ready to work, working, getting the kids home and doing their chores, running around making dinner, cleaning up after dinner, working some more, maybe watching a minute of tv, and scrolling social media until nearly time to wake up again. 

And I’m tired. No, I’m exhausted. I’m burnt out.

I’m pretty sure it’s not just me, no one has time

There seems to be a push in our society, culture, whatever to FILL up every available second with something.

If you have kids they have to be “in” something. A sport, a club, a musical thing, and just one thing doesn’t count. They need to be in all the things. If your kid plays soccer, they have to be in club soccer, and be working towards a scholarship.

Your kid is more artistically inclined? Awesome! How many instruments do they play and can they sing too? Oh, they do other art – what classes do they take? Who’s the teacher, what’s the schedule and cost?

If you don’t have kids, you must have a pet, right? A dog?

And you can’t just have a dog the end. The dog needs to be trained, and walked, and socialized. Maybe your dog learns to do some fancy tricks and is part of a cute doggie sports team – I don’t know, but if they are can you please please please comment, because I want to come to a game!

The point is, whether you are single, married, have kids, pets, aging parents, a needy neighbor, or whatever, time is going to be slipping away from you. Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day until we look back and say …

“What have I done for the past 525,600 minutes? Because I swear I just took a 20 minute nap!”

Time lessons from 2020

One thing that was kind of nice about COVID is that we … stopped.

There were no sports. And yeah, we missed it. But we also went for nature walks as a family.

The extra curricular activities stopped. But we also sat around our kitchen table playing games and laughing.

The extracurricular classes stopped. But we also did some cool home projects.

When things opened up again and we started being able to do things, it was great, truly. But that’s when I decided (at least for my kids) that we weren’t going to do All. The. Things. Not anymore.

DISCLAIMER: This isn’t meant to be a parental competition. I do NOT think my way is the right way. Or that someone else is doing it wrong. We ALL have to figure out what works for our families and do that thing.

We changed our mindsets.

My son likes chess, and he’s in chess club for fun. He and I just want him to play and have fun. He doesn’t have to be Bobby Fischer.

My daughter loves art. And she does take classes, but it’s for her enjoyment. If her schedule is too busy, we take a break.

So I kind of feel like I got the kids time emphasizing life over activity. They have time for their friends, for quiet time alone, and just to be. And I love it for them. I see my daughter’s art flourishing. My son loves chess club and playing chess with others.

Managing myself and my time. Two of my least favorite things …

But what about me? My time is still a nightmare. The pat two years I have spent a lot of time working on my time schedule. A spreadsheet with 15 minute increment where I track my time, plan my time, and review how I spent my time.

I could honestly probably go back and see how much time I spent trying to capture time and make it do what I wanted it to do. But to be kind to myself, I’m not going to bother looking.

What’s a burnt out time addict to do?

Have you ever read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis? If not, I highly recommend, 10 out of 10. Here’s an excerpt from the book where the senior demon, Screwtape, is instructing his nephew, Wormwood. It’s pretty long, but I promise it’s worth the read…

"As this condition becomes more fully established, you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business of providing Pleasures as temptations. As the uneasiness and his reluctance to face it cut him off more and more from all real happiness, and as habit renders the pleasures of vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo (for that is what habit fortunately does to a pleasure) you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday’s paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”. The Christians describe the Enemy as one “without whom Nothing is strong”. And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off."

Oof!

I know that’s a lot to read, but if you just read the bolded section, “You can make him waste his time.”

See!? If I am too busy to care for my friends, or my family, or myself, and rarely have time for my relationship with God, then where has all my time gone? I have just wasted my time. And isn’t that exactly what Satan would like us to do? Waste our time so that there’s nothing left? Nothing left for God, your spouse, kids, pets, friends, others or even yourself!

Friends, that is exactly how I was feeling. Like there was nothing left. Running around in circle tracking every spare moment to come up empty handed, empty hearted. Just empty.

I’m done with that. And if you feel like I did, or relate to me at all. I hope you will leave me a comment below. Send me an email lois@withasincereheart.com and we can encourage each other.

Time belongs to the Lord, he created it.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where I will share you my plan for the coming year!