Time = life; therefore, waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life. Alan Lakein
Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. M. Scott Peck
Time flies. It's up to you to be the navigator. Robert Orben
You will never “find” time for anything. If you want time, you must make it. Charles Bruxton
Time is the scarcest resource of the manager; If it is not managed, nothing else can be managed. Peter F. Drucker
The happiest people spend much time in a state of flow - the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. M ihaly Csikszentmihaly
Perhaps it is our spirit and attitude toward life and its conditions that are giving us trouble, instead of a shortage of time. Laura Ingalls Wilder
You know that saying “A place for everything and everything in its place”? That’s what I’m working towards in relation to my time. A time to work, a time to play, a time to teach, a time to learn, a time to give, a time to receive. And not to let too much of one crowd out another. I am charting a basic time chart to go with my balance chart and it’s not as difficult as I thought it might be. Some things are just not calculable, and that’s understandable. Other things are though and it’s been really good for showing me where my time is being wasted. I’ve identified my personal nemesis. Curious?
It’s plain old distraction. Not living in a state of flow as outlined in that second to last quote above. Not being completely involved in one activity, but trying to be partially involved in numerous activities. It is not time effective. It means that school ends up taking 5 to six hours rather than 3-4, it means that jobs get left half done and some jobs never get done. It means that I’m not giving the moment my best.
I know I’ve written about this before. Sometimes it takes a long time for things to sink into this thick skull of mine. I’m a continual work in progress, and like others have said, seeking balance is a lifetime pursuit that requires a lot of discipline.
More thoughts on discipline, coming soon.
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16 COMMENTS FROM THE PRAIRIE POSSE:
i love the quotes you listed. i wish that i had twice as many hours in my day!! i am continually consious of time. unfortunatley sometimes it causes me to act rushed which i know i shouldn't do. its a challenge for me to be time oriented yet purposeful rather than worried and hurried.
My man and I where just talking about time last night over tea. We where talking about the obvious... it is such a strange phenomena cuz as soon as it is gone it felt gone so fast! We where giggling about how in about ten years our oldest will be finishing grade twelve and freaking our selves out that if she is like us she could be married right after that!!
I love being an actively aware being;)
Outdoor Mom: its a challenge for me to be time oriented yet purposeful rather than worried and hurried.
YES. Oh yes. This is my challenge as well! That whole state of flow and also the concept of being in perpetual motion typified by "activity without accomplishment". More of that to come!
Becky, we were giggling... and freaking ourselves out...
I hear ya. I don't do much giggling about that... more of the freaking out =) It's 8 years here... wow they fly.
I just prayed for more time. Time is time, it isn't money to me. It is what it is time.
Your piece was timely! My prayers answer.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Lovely! And I can't wait to hear your thoughts on discipline. I have been thinking a lot about both of these subjects and want to blog about them, but my thoughts aren't quite organized yet. I have been wasting so much time in the name of "good" pursuits, when I could be pursuing better ones. I am not even enjoying the things I AM doing, even the supposedly relaxing ones. I need to find that state of flow.
Arg! I so struggle with this too and kicked myself last time you wrote about it. How do you-literally-track your time? Chart? Notebook? I need to work on this too. I think I am being so "efficient", but I am completely ineffective (read: NOT efficient!). I am greatly encouraged by your thoughts on staying in the present moment.
And ps, yes, that was my living room; want to come over???!!! ;)
You know I have thought a lot lately about time too! Especially when it seems I have not enough time and you know it has had me thinking about long years ago and the amish and how they seem to have "time". Then I thought to myself no they don't have anymore time than me they are just more peaceful I guess. I don't know I am in a constant rush it seems and NEVER getting anything done! I am working on being more disciplined in balance and time and just my home order in general.
You are so right everything does have to have a place and a place for everything as well. To me that means from the toys to my devotion time with Jesus, it is amazing how easy it is to not have enough time and let things wreak chaos and it seems so hard to get everything in order they way it should be and for what works best for each season of our lives.
I like these post p chick makes me aware of the same things!
Joy
Hi,
It appears to me that anyone who has FIVE children and HOMEschools them is doing a jam-up job with the time management thing.
I like the way you're a back to the basics kind of girl.
Me too.
Love your blog!
Thanks for visiting mine.
I understand that you have to get a handle on time and not let it slip away. Butttt...sometimes we need to just let time crawl instead of run (o: Be sure to put that in your schedule (o:
The quotes are wonderful because they are so true and so wise.
Distraction is a biggy for me too. I think I will just take a minute to - oh say - check blogs before I do my quiet time or start the laundry.
Two hours later.....
Yes, I think time management a very worthwhile thing.
Sweet one, thanks for splashing around with me in my pond. I too am a work in progress, learning to devote my time to His best priorities.
Hugs from Costa Rica,
Sarah Dawn
So agree - I tend to try to multitask, and wind up leaving things half done, hurrying because now I am late, "not giving the moment my best" - well said. Outdoor.mom expresses my feelings/actions. Whoops, I'm trying to multitask right now...
Sav: >>How do you-literally-track your time? Chart? Notebook? I need to work on this too.<<
Here's what I am doing. I start with the essentials and write down how much time they take, things like meals, school, general housework, laundry, dishes, yardwork, etc. I plunk them into morning, afternoon or evening slots and then assign them a general time. I then look at the "rest" of the stuff I want to fit into a day and assign those general times and work them in and around what is already pretty routine.
So for instance if in my morning column I have the following items;
Breakfast
Devotions
Breakfast clean up
laundry
general tidy
school
I know that breakfast and devotions take us half an hour
school takes us 3-4 hours (not including read alouds and readers)and a quick general tidy of the main floor takes us half an hour. That is 5 hours that takes us from 8 am till 1 pm at which point we have lunch and then we move into our afternoon section.
Our afternoon section consists of
post lunch clean up
quiet time (reading)
more detailed house cleaning (daily, weekly and zone chores), yard work,
continue laundry,
free time
supper prep
I know that lunch clean up takes about 15 mins, quiet time is 45 min's, Housework about an hour, yard/garden work, free time and supper prep all take an hour each. That is another 5 hours that takes us to the supper hour.
>>I am greatly encouraged by your thoughts on staying in the present moment.<<
I think this is key (for me). I have not been living this out and I am driving myself crazy with my head being in so many different places at once and not feeling like I am doing a great job in any of them... just like I'm sneaking through the days by the skin of my teeth.
>>And ps, yes, that was my living room; want to come over???!!!<<
Yes as a matter of fact, I DO! =)
i've been doing some thinking about time lately, too. I recently started trying the Flylady method of cleaning, and the biggest wow-factor for me was when I would set my timer for 15 minutes to devote 15 minutes to this or that task. Tasks that, in my mind, take for-EV-er to do. And they really always have!
But when the timer is on for say, the kitchen, I am focusing on just the kitchen. Anything that needs to go out of the kitchen gets stacked on the table to be taken elsewhere when everything else is done or when the timer runs out... and the timer NEVER runs out before I am done! So, what was going on? Like you said... DISTRACTION! I'd leave the kitchen with papers to put away, and get distracted. Or the fact that my house is open-concept would sometimes lead me to do tidying in the livingroom instead of finishing the kitchen first. Everything felt like it was taking forever because I was doing six things at once and that makes all of those things take at least twice as long b/c you lose focus.
DISTRACTION IS THE ENEMY.
lol.
Love that quote by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Such good posts on time. I love your blog too!! Do you have a button that I could grab somewhere??
~Brenda
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