The prompt - Time management

This weeks prompt from Sara at Mumturnedmom is a topic and it is:

I wish I had more time…

Time is something that I often hear people wishing for which is funny as we all get the same amount of time in each day but some people do seem to be able to achieve so much more then others in those 24 hours. 

Have you ever wondered how some people seem to be able to do so much each and every day and not only that, they are never late, and they never moan about being too busy or there not being enough time to get things done? They seem to breeze through life with not a care in the world and a smile on their face. I use to ask myself questions like this so I decided to make some changes and I looked into time management skills and I learnt a lot of great tips and a new perspective on time. 

I learnt about certain items of technology that suck away your time without you really realising it and for me, those items are laptops and mobile phones. If I put the internet on, I can always find something to do whether that is playing a game, reading about organising, reading blogs, checking e-mails, on line shopping or lusting after things that I can not afford! There are so many things to do on the internet that I could easily sit for three or four hours on line and it would only feel like I had been on there for a few minutes. The same goes to my mobile phone as there are games and apps and texts and e-mails as well as the access to the internet. 

I now limit myself to these things. I would not like to ban myself completely from them as I do enjoy doing things on the internet but I make sure that I do not get carried away. I always set myself a timer now for the amount of time that I am happy to spend at that particular time and then when the timer goes off no matter what I'm doing I come away. 

I plan my days to make sure that I am accomplishing the things that I need to and when I plan my day I always pad out the time that I think it will take me to do things as quite often we actually are not very good at estimating the time it takes us to do things. That way I am never having to rush around as I have allowed for any hiccups and then if I finish early I can either start the next days items to get ahead of myself or I can do something from my list that I have of items that I want to do but there is no time limit for when they need to be done. I also try to plan my day to fit my personality, for example putting tasks that I do not really want to do such as cleaning the loo first so that I can get it out of the way. I also reward myself for doing the horrible task with 20 minutes on the web. I know that early evening is my worst time of day as I am normally feeling tired and hungry and all the kids are feeling the same so I try and make sure that I do not have anything too difficult or time consuming at that time of day.

I also think about my time more now as before I never really realised how valuable my time was. Now I think very carefully before agreeing to do anything that I do not really want to do or taking on extra work. If I have the time then of course I am happy to do such things but I will not take on things when I already know that my week is packed full unless it is something that I really want to do such as helping out a sick friend. Learning to say no politely and not forever feeling guilty about it afterwards really is the one of the main keys to managing your time more effectively. 

Being more organised in life, with my planner and timer in hand and my new outlook on time mean that I am very rarely left wondering why there is not enough time in the day.