In order to get back on track and reFOCUS on my goals for the remainder of the year, I tracked my time for two weeks (week of 02 August and week of 09 August). Both of these weeks started out with 168 hours on Monday at midnight. Since school has reconvened after being on summer break for the last two months, my day job (instructional coach at a PreK2-8th school) and sleep take up the bulk of my time. However, the hours at my day job have been reduced this school year; I am currently working four days per week as opposed to five days when I tracked my time back in January. The reduction in work hours will ultimately allow me to spend more time on creating content and embarking on a new career path.
Week 1: 02 August – 08 August
During this week, I worked 32.5 hours at school and devoted 52.75 hours to sleep. This left me with 82.75 hours to spend in other areas of my life.
That being so, how did I spend those remaining 82.75 hours?
- Morning Routine: 11.25 hours
- Travel (to/from work; to/from other places): 4.75 hours
- Family/Fur Babies/Friends: 9.75 hours
- Chores: 7.25 hours
- Exercise: 5 hours
- Errands: 4.5 hours
- Read: 3 hours
- Meals: 5 hours
- Content Creation (blog; collaboration with Kelsi-YouTube): 20.75 hours
- Evening Routine: 3 hours
Therefore, 74.25 hours were spent with family/friends, exercising, creating content, fulfilling commitments/life responsibilities, and completing household tasks. My time bank still had 8.5 hours, and those additional hours were spent on other activities, such as playing games (Trivia Crack/Words with Friends), interacting on social media (FB and Instagram), texting, phone calls, checking email, time-tracking, watching television/movies/YouTube videos, or puttering around the house.
Week 2: 09 August – 15 August
During this week, I worked 33.5 hours at school and devoted 51 hours to sleep. This left me with 83.5 hours to spend in other areas of my life.
In that case, how did I spend those remaining 83.5 hours?
- Morning Routine: 11 hours
- Travel (to/from work; to/from other places): 6.75 hours
- Family/Fur Babies/Friends: 8.75 hours
- Chores: 6.5 hours
- Exercise: 4.5 hours
- Errands: 8 hours
- Read: 3 hours
- Meals: 3.5 hours
- Content Creation (blog; collaboration with Kelsi-YouTube): 8.75 hours
- Evening Routine: 2.25 hours
Therefore, 63 hours were spent with family/friends, exercising, creating content, fulfilling commitments/life responsibilities, and completing household tasks. My time bank still had 20.5 hours, and those additional hours were spent on other activities, such as playing games (Trivia Crack/Words with Friends), interacting on social media (FB and Instagram), texting, phone calls, checking email, time-tracking, watching television/movies/YouTube videos, or puttering around the house.
Clearly, no two weeks are exactly the same. And, all the banked hours are not entirely spent on effortless fun. Some of that extra time gets spent on small tasks that just take a minute or two, such as writing a grocery list, a message in a card, or a check for a bill. I may be purchasing an item or researching ingredients for a meal online. I might spend a few minutes clearing off the kitchen table, reshelving books that I recently finished reading, or snapping a picture for my Instagram gratitude project. With that being said, if I take the average of both weeks, I realistically have 14.5 hours that I could be using to complete courses that I have purchased, scrapbook, read more, or strength-train (fitness). It is now up to me to prioritize my time which will ultimately help me achieve my goals. Additionally, I must adhere to that scheduled time that also includes built-in wiggle room.
Why is wiggle room important? You just never know when something unexpected will require your attention, such as getting a call back for a play you auditioned for earlier in the week. Yep, I auditioned at the Columbia Theatre for The House on Haunted Hill this past Monday evening. Surprise! I got a call back for Wednesday evening. I auditioned strictly for the experience since I had a conflict the second weekend of the show. While it would have been terrific to be a part of this production, I did not get cast which is fine because Kelsi and I have oodles planned for September and October. Happiness Boost!
Thankfully, I have only one commitment after work this week, and it is to spend a wonderful evening with my fabulous book club friends to discuss Mexican Gothic. Therefore, for the remainder of today, I will schedule my upcoming week and create a to-do list of the tasks that I need to accomplish before this weekend. As for my running schedule, I’m on Week #4: Walk 10 minutes (warm up). Run 2 minutes. Walk 1 minute (repeat this 3-minute session 5 times). Walk 10 minutes (cool down). My goal for this week is to follow this routine at least three days this week. On the other days, I will walk at least 20 minutes to keep up my walking streak and try to incorporate some strength training and biking. I did not strength train or bike this past week.
Life is unpredictable, dear reader, but that is what makes it so interesting. My hubby, Andrew, and I enjoyed breakfast this morning at Cracker Barrel, and I treasured every minute we were together just being together. I’m excited to start a new week, especially one that is practically a blank slate. Enjoy your Sunday afternoon by spending your time doing something that boosts your happiness and adds value to your life. Happiness!
“When you feed your soul by spending time on things you love, that you are excited about, your enthusiasm becomes contagious.” ~ Rita Davenport
Top photo by Juan Vargas on Pexels.com
The Kat Files 
Wonderful, wonderful post! Cracker Barrel again! So jelly! Wish there was one close by me. I’d be eating that french toast almost every week 😂 I love that family photo at the table. Great picture! Wow – we spent so many hours on content over these last two weeks!!!! Holy cow! Thank you so much for spending so much time with me and letting me put all of our work on my YouTube. I truly value what we have been creating together, and as you like to say, our projects bring me a HUGE “happiness boost” ❤️ So happy you got that callback experience and proud of you. I predict big and fun opportunities for you in the future!!! It’s just around the corner 🎉 Reading your time-tracking posts always makes me want to try to track my time for one week. It would be interesting to see how much time I spend on what. Great post, Kat! Happy Sunday!
One day, we’ll have Cracker Barrel breakfast together. The results of time tracking is ALWAYS amazing to me. I generally time track when I’m feeling overwhelmed and can’t seem to find balance in my life. It also helps me to compare different time periods to see why I get more accomplish at one point of the year and less at another point. Also, when I tell myself the story that I am too busy, I soon realize from my time logs that I just don’t make certain tasks/activities a priority.
I love the content that we create together, so spending time creating it is time well-spent.
Thanks for that picture of the ‘grits’! Hmm, I may give it a tentative taste one day! You are a woman of many talents: you’re an actor too! Amazing! And I’m hugely impressed by your laser focused exploration of your weekly hours. I daren’t try it, as I don’t want to know how much time I waste!
My degree is in Drama & Communications. I steered more in the direction of television and advertising when I graduated. I went back to get my teaching certificate (better schedule with children). I’m a late bloomer when it comes to acting. About 10 years ago, I started taking acting classes here and there mostly for the camera (film/tv). In the fall of 2019, I was in my first play (musical) and fell in love with being on stage. I also love improv. COVID has really put a damper on my acting goals. However, productions in my area are slowly coming back. Hopefully, I’ll get another opportunity to perform on the stage in the near future.
As for time tracking, it is a sobering realization to see where your time is actually spent. I use to always say I was busy, but after I started time tracking, I realized, that was a story that I was telling myself. It is like a food journal. You hate writing down you ate junk food after complaining how fat you feel. Well, you hate writing down that you spent two hours playing Trivia Crack when you could have been working on a lesson in your blogging course. With that being said, we all deserve to spend some time on effortless fun.