I love my children dearly and enjoy spending lots of time with them, but I also believe that I need to plan time for myself to pursue interests of my own.
I have a number of plans as to what I would like to do with this blog, but found back in May that I was spending too much time on the computer to the detriment of other activities that I like. I was also going to bed way too late most evenings and was starting to get very tired.
Part of the issue for me is that when I become involved in something I like to give it 110% and will be very focused on achieving the goals I have set for myself.
To try and achieve a better balance of blog, family and play, I needed to reassess my current working patterns and define new ones.
I sat down with Mr Infrastructure and worked out with him what times and hours were going to be practical for me to work (without the interruption of the children). I like to get to the gym three times a week and this also relies on having Mr I around to look after the children, so we scheduled those in as well.
I then had to agree to the plan and commit to finishing up at the designated time in the evening and not working on late into the night! The plan of course has a level of flexibility, so that if I have a commitment on one night, I can then work on the free evening instead. The same with the weekend – if we have family things to do on Sunday, then I can try and work on Saturday instead.
The work plan has made a big difference to my time manageent. My next step after I developed the plan was to realign my goals to fit with the time that I was going to be spending on the blog. In reality this meant things I had hoped to release in July will not not be released until August now.
I do have to admit that I have had moments of frustration finishing up at 10.00pm when I still have many things on the to do list, but I have become far more efficient with my time, when I know that I have a defined end time.
I would love to hear strategies that you use while trying to build your blog readership or work on your craft projects etc.