Quick blog today.
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about time management and worrying about “getting things done”. When telling people that I would be looking after Zeffen alone, I heard a lot of phrases like: “you won’t get done what you think you will” or “don’t expect to get anything done” etc.
To the most part, people are right. Looking after babies is a full time job and there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything. I do feel like there’s 101 things to do, and before you know it, it’s bedtime!
However, these 3 things have helped me to gain some control of the situation. Hopefully they’ll help you too.
- Chill out and accept there isn’t time to do everything. So you didn’t bake that cake, or learn that thing, or get to that class. So what! Don’t stress about it and you’ll be happier when you do achieve things (as opposed to expecting they would be done anyway). And especially, don’t be harsh on yourself if you’ve “wasted” that half hour sleep time looking at Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/YouTube etc. That ain’t wasting time- that’s enjoying your time, so enjoy it!
- Instead of saying “I don’t have time to do X today”, say “I haven’t made time to do X today”. Put yourself in control of your time. Then maybe tomorrow, with that mindset, you’ll make the time (when baba is asleep, or instead of doing something else).
- Make mini, achievable goals. See આજે હું પાંચ રંગો શીખું છું where I talk about using a Goal Tracking app. Breaking down a larger thing into bite-size chunks means you can get there slowly and allow yourself to make the time (see #2). I can’t make time to do something for an hour, but I can squeeze in 10 or 20 minutes!
Finally, although babies are hard work – they do love sleeping too!
Daddy Coder 