Time Management

In an ongoing effort to better myself, I signed up to take a time management course through my employer. Okay, so that’s not the truth. Last May, my company told everyone in our office that we were required to take at least two on-line courses before April 1st of 2005 and on March 31st, I decided that a time management course would be quick and easy. Of course, if I’d thought about it, I’d have realized that someone who waited until the day before they had to have their courses completed to even select a course, much less start it, probably had serious issues with time management. But, by the time that dawned on me, it was too late, so I just jumped head first into the murky waters of time management.

The class I selected was called “Create Your Time and Memory Management Program”. In the course description, it guaranteed to give you tools to improve your time management skills both at work and at home. I thought, “This is just what I need.” I had visions of some kind of 12-step program that would help me get control over my hectic life. Most days, I start out behind. Probably because the snooze button on my alarm clock and I have a very close relationship. It doesn’t help that my closet looks like I’ve shoved everything that won’t fit anywhere else in the house into it (which is, in fact, what happened). So, by the time I leave for work in the mornings, I usually resemble a whirling dervish spinning out of the house with my Diet Dr. Pepper, my purse overflowing with everything that won’t fit in my closet, and on good days, my car keys (most days I get to the car and have to go back in the house to get the keys). If I’m lucky, I get to work close to on time with most of what I need for the day. My days at work are pretty structured – I don’t deal with a lot of paperwork or telephone calls – I spend the vast majority of my workday writing or testing computer code. Still, I could use some time management improvement here. I could probably spend less time at work thinking about being at home with Gracie, or worrying that I’m not spending enough quality time with her, or daydreaming about some Fairy Godmother walking into my office and telling me that I’ve won the Fairy Godmother lottery and I no longer have to work at my job or clean house or pay bills – I can spend my days playing with my baby and doing whatever I want when she’s sleeping. (See how I get off on tangents – I’m definitely a prime candidate for this class). When I get home in the afternoons, I do plan to do a lot of things. Most of the time, though, it never happens. I get distracted by the phone, the TV, Gracie, Steve, my dog, the mail… I’m thinking that I could be the poster child for this time management course. If this course can reform me, then it will work for anyone!

I go through the two-hour class. I take notes and pass the section tests with flying colors (granted I did have to take the first section test five times before I realized I was reading the questions backwards). The course made a lot of sense and it had a lot of good, practical suggestions. Here are my favorites:

1. Set a timeframe for your activity and then start and stop that activity at the times you’ve set

I decide to put these methods to use immediately. I write out a plan for the evening. I write down everything that I need to do and then make a schedule.

Daphne’s Evening Schedule for Monday, April 4th, 2005

6:00 – 7:00 – free time play with Gracie

7:00 – feed Gracie

7:20 – give Gracie a bath

7:45 – read Gracie a story

8:00 – put Gracie to bed

8:00 – 9:00 – clean kitchen, start laundry

9:00 – 9:15 - spend time talking to Steve

9:30 – go to sleep

A Plan In Action

I leave work at 5:30 and get home promptly at 6:00. So far, so good. I walk in the door, ready for my hour long free-play session with Gracie. Gracie is asleep. A long day at day care has apparently worn her out and she needs a very late afternoon nap. It’s also the first weekday of Daylight Savings Time, so she’s adjusting to that as well. Steve says that she was extremely irritable before she went to sleep. Not to be deterred from my plan, I decide to let Gracie sleep until 6:30. Steve leaves for a study sessions with some fellow students. At 6:30, I go to try and wake Gracie up. She’s not having any part of it. So, I scoop her up and take her to the living room and try to rock her awake. I know, I know most parents rock their children to sleep, but darn it, I had a schedule to keep. So, I rock her and I talk to her and finally she opens those huge amazing blue eyes, looks right at me, scowls, burrows her head in my shoulder, and squints her eyes closed again. I am persistent. I try to read her a songbook. She wakes up long enough to grab the book, throw it on the floor, and fling her hand up over my mouth to silence my attempts at singing her awake. Finally, twenty minutes later, she decides her nap is over. Her irritability, however, is not. I try to put her down on the floor to play and she screams. I pick her up and she pouts. So, I keep rocking her. She points to the mail stack on the table beside the rocker. Oh well, what can it hurt. I give her what I think are several pieces of junk mail. I realize too late that she has the bill for my car payment. I reach for it, but don’t get to it before she tears it up and throws the pieces on the floor. I pick up the crumbs of the bill and set it on my desk to deal with later. Oops! I’ve just broken a cardinal time management rule. I’m not supposed to pick up a piece of paper more than once. I wonder, though, if the second time really counts as picking it up if you’re picking it up to tape it back together.

Finally, the cloud of Gracie’s bad mood seems to blow over and we play together, laughing and giggling for a while. She eats her dinner (managing to ruin my printed schedule in the process) and spends the requisite 15 minutes in the bathtub.

At 8:00 p.m. (a scant 15 minutes behind my estimated schedule), Gracie is ready for her nighttime story. Lately, instead of just reading her a picture book before bed, I read her a picture book, then put her down in her crib, turn the lights down, and read her a chapter from a older children’s book. She seems to enjoy this and most nights, she’s out by the time I finish the chapter. This works better for me – I actually get to read something a little more stimulating than Blue’s Clues or Rainbow Fish and I hope we’re continuing a family tradition that my father started when I was a child. We’re reading Because of Winn Dixie now and she seems to love it and I know I do. Usually this whole process takes about 15 minutes (thus my 15 minute allotment in my schedule). Tonight, of course, is the exception. It takes two chapters for Gracie to settle down. The chapters were really good though, and I don’t mind that I am now 30 minutes behind. Granted, I’ve broken another time management rule – I’ve allowed a task to creep outside of its allotted timeframe. Gracie drifts off to sleep. It’s now 8:45 p.m. I spend the next 15 minutes just watching her as she smiles in her sleep. I head to the kitchen to clean up and do my chores.