“Just Enough Hours “. . . . . what does that mean? What was I thinking?

I moved over to this blog coming off of a LONG period, maybe a lifetime, of thinking I could do it all. No, scratch that. I didn’t really think (as in believe) I could do it all, I just DID a lot.

Because I ‘had’ to. And no, I don’t really qualify the ‘had’. I really sort of did have to. No, scratch that. I didn’t have to.

Where, let’s start again – Yes, there were a lot of things I needed to do. (HAD to do) (as a single mom, an employee, etc)

But there were a lot of things I was choosing to do.

In any event, I would hear people say ‘there aren’t enough hours in the day’ and I was guilty of saying that too, but then I got to thinking about how much I already do, and what if there were MORE than 24 hours in a day….can you imagine? Could I imagine? NO! I’d be dead from all the ‘doing’.

so I came to believe that really we have JUST enough hours in each day. God set the light and dark for just the right amount of time. 🙂

How we choose to spend that time is up to us.

More recently I got to thinking about how people used to ask all the time – how do you do it all? Or they would say “wow, I don’t know how you do it all”. And either way it was phrased, I’d honestly try to tell them that I really wasn’t do it all WELL . Yes, I was doing a lot of things, had a lot of irons in the fire — but so much of it was only getting a tiny bit of me. And I finally hit a breaking point. Not really in terms of stress or anxiety or like I had a nervous break down. I just sort of started to think about my time and again thought about the ‘just enough hours’ and this time from the standpoint of – there are JUST so many hours in the day — a finite number – how am I spending them?

And it’s not just about time management. It’s larger than that. It’s about life management.

How am I valuing my time but more than that how am I valuing my life and the people in it. . . . .

I came across this quote a while back (erroneously attributed to Meryl Streep) and although I don’t agree with every word and I realize that it’s not a blanket to cover every situation (for instance, I do believe in loving others even if they don’t love me and I am big on smiling at EVERY one….) but overall, this struck a chord in me.

So WOW, that’s a mouthful.  And while I do many of these things I am much more conscious these days of what I ‘bring in’ in addition to what I’m putting out.

I had been struggling for a couple of years with leaving some things behind. Letting go of things and people who I had chosen to make a part of my life that really weren’t aligning with my core values or what I wanted to surround myself with.  And because of that dichotomy, it wasn’t healthy for me. The truth is, I should have let go a lot sooner. It would have been easier, more seamless, less painful. . . . . .

It has become less about managing time, using the hours and more about aligning it all with my values – who I am and what’s truly important to me.

Life is short and unpredictable and tomorrow is not guaranteed to anyone.

Not only are there ‘just enough hours’ in a day but there are only so many hours in a life.

Is how you are choosing to use your hours in alignment with what you think and believe and what from life?  Time management is really life management. Shouldn’t it all align?

Share your thoughts below!

Facebook has for me, like many other people, it become a HUGE time drain. In thinking about having ‘just enough hours’  I’ve come to the obvious conclusion that I need to cut back on my time on ‘social media’. And FB is the biggest offender for me.

I have over 840 ‘friends’ (which I know is not a lot in comparison to a lot of people) on FB but probably only 75% of those are people I actually know. Many have a one or two degree of separation based on common friends or metalsmithing interests. Only a fraction of my FB friends are really people I communicate with.

In order to get a grip on my FB feed, I’ve taken the following steps:

UNFOLLOW:
I have begun to ‘unfollow’ people. This removes their posts from my ‘homepage’ or newsfeed.  This has reduced the amount of time it takes to go through new posts in my feed AND it allows items from people I have a genuine relationship with to be readily available.  Many other ‘friends’ who are a degree or two separated I still see in the groups we have in common.

NOTIFICATIONS:
I have turned off notifications in all but two groups. The groups that I want to keep a fairly close connection to I have favorited which moves them to the top left sidebar where I can see how many new posts there are and then click through.

UNFRIENDING:
This isn’t something I use often. I know it can be controversial, but I find it necessary at times in order to maintain my sanity! I have unfriended a few people whose posts bring too much negativity to my newsfeed. I saw a comment recently that it is ‘sad’ to see friends unfriending friends because of differences in belief.  I disagree. It’s not sad, It’s just a choice. This is MY life. It needs to work for me. I have people in my life that have different opinions and beliefs than I. I don’t live in a utopian bubble. I simply don’t have time for that on FB, it’s not how I choose to use FB.

FB can be a GREAT tool. IF we have clear expectations. Some people, like myself, use it for social outlet. Others use it for news and others for political discussion, etc.

I don’t judge other people for how they interact with FB – YOU need to decide what works for you. I’m ok with that.

There are other tools  that FB offers. Go to your home page and click the small down arrow in the upper right corner then use the ‘help’ link on the drop down. You can then search topics such as ‘organize’, ‘lists’, ‘manage’, etc.

We each have 24 hours in a day – it’s up to each of us individually to determine what our best use of that time is according to our responsibilities, goals, and dreams.

Do what works for you.