Honestly, I struggle a lot with time.
My list of things on the To Do list is always over 500 items long!
From time to time, I’m in a grad school class, and that puts a lot of things on hold.
Not only that, but most of my weekends are spent trying to catch up on things that I didn’t have time for during the week. Homework, chores, being social, etc.
But! Even with all these challenges regarding time, I know that it’s possible to make better use of it and be more productive.
Here are 5 typical reasons why time can be a struggle:
1. Prioritizing problems
Raise your hand if you come across something you want to do, but then make the excuse in saying, “I don’t have time for that!”
How often does that happen?
“I never have enough time” is the wrong thing to say!
What’s the solution? Say instead, “This is NOT a priority for me right now…”
Honestly, you’ll make time for the things you care about. In my engineering career, we kind of joke around how the problems we face on a daily basis are all “hot” or have high priority, but in reality, that’s not true.
Prioritize the things you care about.
If you have several things that are high priority, perhaps order them by time required, cost, long-term impact, or ease of execution.
2. Everything is shiny
I struggle with this one a lot, especially with running this blog, because I tend to acquire or pursue hobbies and other creative pursuits.
Before I actually make any decent progress with one thing, I’m already chasing after another thing. That’s not good! Because I don’t really develop or master one thing. I just end up with half-efforts on many things!
Just the other day, I was about ready to drop some money for a new course that’ll help me learn a new skill that will open up another avenue for me to earn money. Had I actually gone through with it, I would be missing a chunk of change for something I may or may not be able to pursue.
The solution is: set goals, and stick to them!
Setting goals is a lot like having bumpers while bowling. With bumpers, you don’t have to worry about wasting your shot to the gutter, and you can focus on knocking down pins with reasonable success.
Check out my post on setting goals SMARTly!
3. “Are you still watching???”
Binge-watching shows and movies and being a couch potato is a sure-fire way to eat up a lot of time!
I love Netflix, too, and I know that streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime tend to automatically play the next episode of shows you’re watching.
Not gonna lie, it’s easy to say “Yes” to the “Are you still watching?” question and move on to the next episode. Especially for gripping TV shows like end in glorious cliffhangers. every. episode.
Somehow, 3 hours have gone by, and the dog is begging for food and attention. This may or may not actually happen at my house…
So what’s the solution to binge-watching?
Put a limit on how much you watch TVs and movies during the week. Maybe schedule or block out an hour of time in your schedule just dedicated to watching a show.
Whenever Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. asks you if you’re still watching, that’s a good indication to call it quits! Turn off the TV then! And then run away!
Lastly, you don’t really need to binge-watch an entire season of anything. Back in my day, growing up in the 1990’s, you had to wait until NEXT WEEK to watch the next episode!!! Madness!
4. Being a master at multitasking
This sounds counterintuitive, but sometimes multitasking doesn’t make you more productive.
When you’re trying to juggle multiple things at once, you’re probably doing multiple things not very well.
Similarly to point #3, I like to multitask while watching TV. Typically, I cook, fold laundry, or take care of computer-related tasks while I’ve got Netflix on.
Inevitably, if I’m multitasking like that, I don’t fully pay attention to what’s going on in the show or movie that I’m haphazardly paying attention to. I miss details and such!
Solution? Focus on ONE thing at time, and do it well
In general, remove all distractions. Simple in concept, difficult to execute.
5. Too much clutter
With cluttered spaces in your life, it’s difficult to sift through it all in order to find what you need to find. This is true for living, work, and play spaces. Ooh, and digital spaces too.
Are you hanging onto things that ought to be let go? Is your stuff organized in a way that you can quickly search and retrieve it?
A deeper question: is your stuff organized in a standard way so that your search and retrieve missions are consistently successful?
If your answers are “Nope!”, then you might be spending too much time looking for the things you need or want.
The solution obviously is: declutter, tidy up, and come up with a systematic way to organize.
Lately, my social medias have been showcasing people who have recently discovered Marie Kondo’s show on Netflix, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. She’s a world-famous master declutterer and tidying up-er. She has several books out as well.
Basically, she goes full Japanese on tidying up and decluttering. I recommend watching her show and reading her books for inspiration and know-how! I’ve done a bit of both, and her work has helped me re-organize and declutter different aspects of my house.
Increasing time helps you, the pilgrim
I know with big trips and travel like pilgrimages can be a block for some because of how much time they require. Reason #1 is the typical excuse here, “I don’t have time to go on pilgrimages!”
But if you take the opportunity to examine the rest of your life, I’m sure you can reduce distractions and increase the amount of time that you do have in order to give yourself a day or two to go on a quick pilgrimage.
Pilgrimages tend to come in two flavors: big ones that involve a week or two of your time, or small ones that typically take just a weekend or even a day.
Either way, working on being better about the time you spend will help you have more time for pilgrimages!
A question for you–what other things eat up your time?? Let me know in the comments!
Featured Photo by Mike from Pexels
JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.