How do you spend your time, dear reader? I know I am not always the best steward when it comes to managing my time. However, I have made strides in the area of time management since reading 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam. While we all have the same 168 hours a week, we spend those hours differently. Keeping a time log of how you spend your 168 hours is a worthwhile endeavor when trying to accomplish goals. January is the perfect month to keep a time log and track exactly how you are spending your 168 hours.
Therefore, I joined Laura Vanderkam’s annual “Time Tracking Challenge” which will start on Monday 10 January. She will send out an email on Sunday with details about the challenge. After I log how I spent my 168 hours for the week, I will analyze my time log to see exactly how much time I have left (after work, sleep, and family commitments have been deducted) to work on my aims for 2022. I actually enjoy tracking my time and will track it periodically throughout the year, especially when I feel overwhelmed or feel like I am not making any progress with my goals for the year.
In addition to tracking my time next week, I am also participating in Gretchen Rubin’s free New Year’s Resolution Challenge which she announced on her podcast this week. The challenge starts on Sunday, 09 January, and for 7 days, Gretchen will text you 7 tips “for making (and keeping) effective resolutions.” I have done SMS challenges with Gretchen before, and I enjoy them.
I am off to a great start with accomplishing the items on my 22 for 2022 list. Time-tracking is the first item on my list. My time log will help me accomplish the second item on my list, which is to tweak my morning routine. I am excited about the upcoming week and embracing CHANGE. Happiness!
“It’s how we spend our time here and now, that really matters. If you are fed up with the way you have come to interact with time, change it.” ~ Marcia Wieder
Note: Photo at the top is by Giallo on Pexels.com.
I spent a great deal of time in the kitchen this morning which is highly unusual for me since I despise cooking. I whipped up some French Toast for Andrew and me for breakfast. This is the first time that I have made French Toast using Brioche bread. The particular Brioche bread that I bought had cinnamon in it, so I did not need to add much cinnamon. I also added some vanilla extract this time. We both thought it tasted delicious. I also had some rather ripe bananas, so I decided to bake some banana bread. I know what you are thinking, dear reader…lots of carbs. Yep, and lots of comfort. Thankfully, I will not be cooking dinner this evening. My hubby plans to grill steaks for the three of us.
This upcoming week is my spring break. It will last until April 13th with on-line school resuming on April 14th. Normally, my spring break begins on Good Friday and extends the week after Easter. However, when the Governor announced our first stay-at-home mandate that was going to end on April 13th, our school along with other schools in the Diocese of Baton Rouge decided to move spring break up a week. Now, we are mandated to stay at home until April 30th, but our spring break did not move back to its originally scheduled time. In the grand scheme of things, it is not a huge issue. However, my hubby took vacation the week we originally planned to be off. And, SLU is off, too. I guess the silver lining is that even though I will be working from home the week Andrew and Barry are off, we will still be home together.
which is extremely beneficial when you want to see how you are REALLY spending your time. We all (myself included) like to say we are busy; however, that is a story we like to tell even to ourselves. I found her “three versions of the self” interesting. She describes each version: “The anticipating self is wondering about, planning, and worrying about the future. The experiencing self is in the here and now. The remembering self thinks back to the past” (Vanderkam, 70). The anticipating self sets our intentions or goals while the remembering self reflects on the fruits of our labor. Our experiencing self follows through or falls through with plans, intentions, or goals depending on the circumstances or feelings in the present moment. My experiencing self gets in my way of taking action on a regular basis. It is pals with FEAR and PROCRASTINATION which has robbed me from realizing a few goals or pursuing a couple of dreams. This is my year to COMMIT, so in order to take more action and waste less time, I need to commit to listening less to my experiencing self, plan the task/event, and execute.
Subsequently, I dragged my booty out of bed the next morning, took a selfie of myself making the commitment, and walked for an hour. After walking, I documented my starting weight at 158 pounds. I dug in a kitchen cabinet and pulled out my “pounds to go” and “pounds lost” containers. Diligently, I counted out 18 marbles, dropped them all in the “pounds to go” container, and sat both containers on my kitchen counter. This means that by 31 December 2018, I will need to weigh at least 140 pounds. There is no more “I don’t have time” because taking care of my health is important, and it is time for me to make my health a priority.
I struggle with time management and hope 2018 will be the year I can tame the beast. Therefore, I decided to sign up for Laura Vanderkam’s 
The Kat Files 