a.k.a “Time-management”
“Where did the time go?”
“Forwards, darling. Always forward.”
Time marches in one direction and, except for sojourns of
the mind, don’t believe the physicists who tell you it’s the fourth dimension
and as such it is a line you can move your dot on in either direction. Those same
scientists also say the earth is round and, hey, it looks pretty flat to me.
My jesting way of saying our experience is that time runs
like sand through our sieving hands.
Some years ago, I was blessed with finding a personal key to
managing time. It came just in time, (pun intended) when my life became impossible
to manage as a classic “sandwich generation” mom and daughter. But I had the
tools, and by golly, I managed to take care of all my responsibilities and also write original fiction.
The key, for me, was to set a daily schedule of the minimal
I must get done, and make it utterly doable. If anything, make it “under-ambitious,”
so tackling the day’s tasks was not daunting. This is a system set for a
marathon, not a sprint. I not only got the “must-do” done, I was less stressed
about my time.
And here’s the secret kicker: always leave some time for
nothing. That is nothing planned, where I can do nothing, do something I want
to do, or attend to the inevitable emergencies that pop up. Nothing Time is sacred, and it is part
of time management success.
With the rare exceptions of chaotic days (I take that
possibility for granted), this system works for me to this day. Time moves
forward, and I’m gliding on it.
I hope you find what works for you, so you don’t look back
and say you didn’t get to do something you always wanted to do because you didn’t
have the time.
