Today we had off school, and my plan was to get lots and lots of things done. Generally what happens when we have a day off is that I plan to get a lot done but I actually don’t. The reason for this is not entirely clear. On those days, if you ask me what I’ve done in the past few hours, my response would be, “Ummm…I don’t remember doing anything that should have taken up the past three hours.” Time has a way of disappearing.
Today I decided to try budgeting my time. Here’s how it works:
- Write a list of tasks you want to accomplish that day. Include everything, even eating and showering.
- Estimate how much time you will spend on each task. Be honest. If that ten-minute shower always turns into 20 minutes, then write down 20 minutes.
- Add up your times. If your total is more than the time you spend awake, obviously you’ll have to either cut back some times or cross some things off the list. One of the biggest problems with to-do lists is that we always try to cram too many things into one day.
- Make sure you leave a few hours of flex time. First of all, you need some time to take breaks and relax (another problem I have). Second, you will always have unexpected interruptions. Things come up. Don’t schedule every minute of the day.
- Start accomplishing things!
- If your task takes more time than you budgeted, you have a few options. You can go ahead and finish the task you’re on and just spend less time on something else, or you can stop where you are and schedule the rest for another day. If it’s really important, you can cut into your flex time, but be careful. Do yourself a favor and make sure you leave time for those breaks.
- If your task takes less time than you budgeted, hooray for you!
- Make sure you leave some time at the end of the day to wind down, relax, and review your day so you’re ready to get a good night’s sleep. This is an essential yet oft-forgotten step.
If you’re not good at watching the clock, you can set a timer so you know when time is up. Another variation is to schedule things for certain times of the day. Instead of saying, “I’ll spend two hours on this,” you can say, “At 10:30 I’ll go on to the next task.”
Today the time budgeting tactic was generally successful for the first half of the day. It made me more aware of how I was spending my time and whether or not I was going about my tasks in the most efficient way. Some things took less time than I expected, some took more. I’m sure I’ll get better at estimating with practice. Of course, there are always things that are out of the realm of your control. The extra 15 minutes we spent taking the air conditioner out of the window can be attributed to the fact that the previous owners had screwed the frame of the AC into the window frame in such a way that required taking the AC apart. Who knew?
I said it was successful for the first half of the day because the afternoon plans were derailed by an unplanned nap. I haven’t quite figured out how to keep from getting drowsy in the afternoons, short of caffeine, which I’m trying to cut back on. I’m working on that one.
This was only day one of the experiment, and I’m sure there are many more lessons and insights to come. I’ll keep you updated. If you try the time budgeting thing for yourself, let us know how it goes!
