Report on My Time Budget

The fact that I publish my post late in the day on Monday shows that I did not properly budget my time for that day!

Without a plan, it is so easy for me to slide off and do something else, thinking in the 2 hours that my little girl nap, I could finish the post, prepare dinner, and check out Facebook, Twitter and new cases for my up coming new phone...

The Results

So, I reap what I sow and spend the rest of the afternoon, finishing up the post while serving my kids afternoon snack, cleaning up the table, asking them to be quiet, washing dishes, having them do their homework - quietly, preparing dinner, asking them to be quiet again...

A day without a plan is difficult to be a good day.

What's worse, with all those writing I have done on Monday, and the negative experience I have without a plan, I still have not learnt my lesson and change my behavior!

I continue to slack for the rest of the week.

I keep asking myself, why? The fact is, two weeks before I put up the post on Monday, I had already started to put budgeting my time into practice and it was going pretty well.

I would make a brief plan on Sunday, what we are going to eat and finalize on Monday when the fliers come in. I also plan ahead on which day to do the grocery shopping, what dishes I would need to prepare/marinate the night before and how much time I may need on the actual day of the meal.

What went wrong? Why couldn't I just keep up?

That Itchy Shopping Bug

One of the main problem was that I keep on checking out online shopping site and stay late. I do have something that I need to get and it is usually cheaper online. But I did not budget the time and I did not stop myself from doing it.

Problems Accumulate

I spent too much time online shopping, so, I became too tired to plan for the next day. So, I rolled back into my default mode: spent the next day as it comes. As a result, I worked only on what is presented to me and failed to look ahead to what I need done later the day, or, the following day. It became a vicious cycle.

Living in Comfort Zone

Perhaps, the slack in planning ahead is also a sign that I can move on. It is easier to plan when there is a challenge or a goal, right? Maybe, it is time to move on with more solid decluttering project now while I continue to keep the other areas on track.

So, next week, we will begin "clutter snowball" and work on some of my own hotspots. This time I want to make sure my post publish before 3:01 A.M. P.D.T. on Monday. I hope you can join.

Now, do you have any tips and experiences you can share on budgeting your time? You can share it in the comments below or link to your blog post if you have one.

I am sure we need more of that next week.