So I was thinking today (as I walked down the beach watching the sunset :) ), I feel like during the week I have maybe 2-3 hours of "free" time by the time all is said and done with work. I started pondering that a little bit, thinking "well I work 8 hours a day" and I sort of wondered where the other two thirds of the day went. So I decided to figure out a way to suck a little more useful time out of my day.
My thoughts went like this. So 8 hours of work (which I find too much, but we'll deal with that later), maybe an hour for lunch, and then an hour combined taking the bus to and from work. So 10 hours. That leaves 14 more hours. Where does it go?
Well, typically I get home from work around 6:15 or 6:30, I mess around unwinding for maybe half and hour, spend maybe another half hour or 45 minutes making dinner. Which gets me to 7:45. Then this is where it comes into play that I have only 2-3 hours for chores and relaxing and exercise if I want to get to be at a decent hour. And then usually I end up screwing around online and all of a sudden it's almost midnight, which then puts me sleeping until 7:30 if I want to get my allotted sleep. Hmm. Well this is a problem. It's just not acceptable to me to have only 2 or 3 hours for myself out of a 24 hour day. And not to mention this doesn't include working out and any physical activity. And basically no matter how early or late I get home from work, my mornings are wasted with the exception of showering and eating.
So here is my plan to basically double the amount of "me" time in a day:
Say to make things easy I accept that 10 hours is given up for work. It's crap I agree, but for right now it's reality. Ok, let's split the remaining into 7 for sleep, 7 for me. Here's the plan. Set my sleeping time from 10:30 to 5:30. This is way too early for me to wake as of now, but this is around the time my cat starts stirring me so it's probably a decent time to think about waking. Also, this is less than my typical sleep, but we'll work with it for now. Maybe I can allocate one day a week to sleep in and catch up on that.
So assuming I get to sleep at 10:30 and up at 5:30, that gives me 3 hours in the morning, and 4 in the evening. Already, this is much better. In the morning I can plan to do my exercise, hit the gym, go for a run, a bike ride, whatever. Say that's an hour or an hour and a half, I still have extra time. Maybe do some cleaning around the house, make breakfast, etc.
Now I get home from work at 6:30, I've already exercised, my house is clean, the dishes are done. Awesome. I've just given myself 4 hours in the evening, and no guilt about trying to cram stuff in.
Obviously this is not rocket science, I have not done anything magical, I simply have tweaked my schedule and changed my mindset. Now I just need to put it into action. I plan on starting tonight. Updates to come. I've also decided if the mornings become wasted, I can just push it back, and sleep 11:30 to 6:30, and increase my night hours to five, thus minimizing my wasted time.
Labels: conscious living, lifestyle, productivity
