24 May 2011

Where Does My Time Go?

If my calculations are correct, there are 168 hours in a week.  What exactly am I doing with all that time?  During an average week, I spend:
  • 49-56 hours (~33% of my time) sleeping
  • 50-60 hours (~30%) taking care of Adelaide
  • 21 hours (13%) running errands and doing chores
  • 20 hours (12%) working
  • 10 hours (6%) watching TV, wasting time on Facebook, etc. (aka, screen time)
  • 3 hours (2%) on schoolwork
  • 4 hours (2%) at church and related activities
  • 3 hours (2%) with friends
I think that encompasses most things.  Can you think of anything I may have left out?  While these are my best estimates, I know they're not completely accurate since some categories overlap.  For example, I'm usually watching TV while feeding Adelaide.

There are some things that are not included in this list that should be, such as time with Spencer, a hobby, religious study, and exercise.  Ideally, I would like to see the time distribution look more like this:
  • 50-60 hours (30% of my time) taking care of Adelaide
  • 42 hours (25%) sleeping
  • 20 hours (12%) working
  • 20 hours (12%) on schoolwork
  • 14 hours (8%) running errands and doing chores
  • 7 hours (5%) on screen time
  • 6 hours (3%) at church and on religious study
  • 3-4 hours (~2%) with friends
  • 3-4 hours (~2%) with Spencer
  • 3.5 hours (1%) exercising
This is the distribution I will be aiming for when I plan my weekly schedule.  I'm not going to try to achieve this ideal overnight - that's just a recipe for discouragement - but will hopefully be pretty close by the end of the year.  I'm also pleased that it lays a good foundation for me to reach my goals.

What do you spend your week doing?  Do your weekly activities support your short- and long-term goals?

1 comment:

  1. With three kids, and as a stay-at-home mom, I'd say I spend at least 65-70% of my time taking care of one or more of them, if you include passive supervision. So there's a ton of overlap. I also figured out that most of my screen time is spent reading articles/blogs about parenting, trying to learn new things and get some good ideas.

    I want to spend more time actively with my kids (it's what I'm blogging about at the moment). I feel pretty good about how I spend my time now, though. I don't waste nearly as much time as I did when I had no kids. I wish I could spend a little more time cleaning, but that would be hard right now!

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