Evaluating My Time

I recently started reading this blog Healthy Tipping Point.  I found it off my friend Randi's blog list on her blog and I really enjoy reading what she has to say.  She is a mom to a 5 month old (I think that is how old he is) and she lives a healthy lifestyle.  I find her posts pretty inspiring.  She also is a writer and has written three books.  Recently she posted about a book she has read "168 Hours:  You Have More Time Than You Think" by Laura Vanderkam.  I chose to read this book for my book club choice this month.  We are going with a Non-Fiction theme for November.  I started it on Monday night and have made it about 10% through so far.

The basis of the book is that the author believes you have more time than you believe you do and I think the rest of the book explains how to get the most of your week and looking at your life as not 24 hours in a day but 168 hours in a week.  I am really interested in this.

I have found recently that everyone talks about how busy they are and how they don't have time for anything...or at least anything meaningful.  I know there are times I will talk about the weekend and say how busy it was or how busy my week was but in reality it wasn't as busy as I thought and that it definitely could be busier.  I do know life gets crazy at times and some weeks are crazier than others but I do think that we are a society that puts value on how "busy" we are and then complain about how we don't have time to do read, excercise, etc.  I can't wait to read this book and see what this author has to say.

Part of the book is as a reader tracking your daily activities for a week and writing everything down.  Then after the week is over evaluating how you truly spend you time.  I am hoping to start this next Monday.  Here are my predictions on how I believe I spend my time.

Sleep:  I think I get at least 7 hours of sleep a night-it might not be uniterrupted but I think I get at least that much throughout the night. So that would be 49 hours a week.

Household Obligations:  This is cleaning, laundry, general picking up, house pojects, running errands etc.  this varies so much day to day so I think over the week I would say 20 hours.

Work:  My goal is to get in 30-32 hours of work a week.  26 hours going in to work and 5-6 hours at home.

Elsie:  This area would be all things Elsie, playing, taking care of her, feeding her, getting dressed, washign bottles, diapers etc.  I bet over the course of the week it takes 30 hours of my time.  The thing is we go for walks...is this Elsie time since she loves to go for a walk and be outside or is it my exercise time?  I would say exercise time.

Personal Care:  Exercise, eating and preparing meals, getting ready in the mornings, etc.  2.5 hours/day so 17.5 hours/week.

Leisure:  Doing things I want to do...reading, blogging, socializing, reading blogs, watching TV (something I rarely do on its own), internet stuff...well I guess this would be 21.5 hours a week.

So those are my predictions.  We will see how close I really am and how I perceive I spend my time vs how I really spend my time :) I am going to see if John wants to do it along side me and track how he spends his time too.  He is such a great help around the house, helping to take care of Elsie, cooking dinner, etc.  I don't know what my time would look like with out his help.

I can't wait to see the how it goes!