Weird Week

Ugh. It’s been a strange week. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s been bad, necissarily, but definitely strange. I’ve been managing my time very poorly, alternating between being bored and feeling like I have nothing to do, and feeling utterly swamped by my to-do list, both at home and at work. It definitely feels like I’ve just been trying to keep my head above water.

I’ve also been sleeping poorly. I wake up in the morning utterly exhausted, even though I just got 7-8 hours of sleep. Being tired has led to my not exercising this week, which also probably hasn’t helped.

Anyways, between all of this, and my existing goals to try to make time for art, I’ve realized that I really need to focus on my time management skills. To that end, here are my goals for myself. I’m going to try these out for a week or two and see if they make a difference.

1. Get up at 7:30am every weekday.
2. Go for a short walk with Annie every weekday.
3. After the walk, exercise for a half-hour on the elliptical machine.
4. Eat breakfast every day (actually, I’ve been really good about this one, and it’s getting easier. I still don’t have much of an appetite in the morning, but by forcing myself to at least eat something small, like a yogurt, I’m getting back in the habit of eating breakfast.)
5. Instead of checking my email and websites first thing in the morning at work, I’m going to wait until lunchtime. (This has been chewing up a large chunk of time in the morning, and is making it hard to make the switch from reading websites to working. I tried this in the past and it worked well, so I just need to get back in the habit.)
6. Following work, set aside at least a half-hour or an hour every day to do something creative. This can be photography, illustration, web design, or just about anything that gets me thinking creatively again.

I think that a large part of time management is force of habit. It was easy for me to do all these things when I was in school because there was an alloted time for them. Now that I’m managing my own time, I need to assign my own time slots to things and form the habits on my own. Once I do that, I’m hoping the motivation will return.