The Slippery Slope of Time Management

I wish I could say I have the magic formula for time management, alas I do not. Back in October I realized I was having a time management problem. However, at that time, with the holiday season fast approaching it would have been frustrating to try and institute a new routine. So I thought on it, thought on it some more, and still haven't come up with a great solution.

As genealogists, much of our work is solitary and done at home. There is no boss to look over our shoulder and see how many times we are logging into Facebook, harvesting our farm, cruising Pintrest, or reading blogs and genealogy digest emails. It is up to you to monitor your time and how you use it. For me, this usually means that I have to turn off Facebook and only check my emails at break times during the day.

During ProGen one of our assignments was time management. We were given a link to Randy Pausch's time management video to watch if we were interested. He broke down tasks into a couple of categories. Things that needed to be done now, things that needed to be done now but could wait, things that could be done tomorrow or the next day, and things that needed to be done eventually (I'm paraphrasing here). I can say, as a mother of two young boys, this sort of organization comes naturally as I'm sure it does with most mothers. When we did this segment of ProGen, I felt like my time management was really good and I was able to accomplish a lot. So what changed?

What changed is that my youngest started kindergarten. Suddenly my days have opened up, and I started committing more of my time to school activities for both of my kids. I've since analyzed which activities are important to be involved with and those that aren't necessary. The other change has been my oldest child is having an extremely difficult year in school. This has taken some extra attention that wasn't needed before. There really isn't anything I can change about this. After all, my extra attention in this area is worth it and much needed.

I also decided to try not to pressure myself so much. My ancestors aren't going anywhere. Client work still gets priority over other tasks and gets done. If I don't blog as often, the world will keep going (wink). And if it takes a little extra time to get my portfolio work for BCG certification completed, well so be it. Sometimes life just happens, and you have to roll with it.