After a busy and enjoyable holiday season, I’m shifting into the school year schedule, and I’m making meaningful changes to how I organized my time last year.
Last year, a priority for me was to have time to rest each day before the kids came home from school, so I’d have energy to get through the high demand afternoons. As such, I scheduled everything I needed to do for first thing in the morning, so that I’d be finished in time for a nap around noon/1 pm.
I got everything done, I usually got a nap – but it was a very ungratifying year, a year of constantly being busy and feeling frustrated that I was wasting my life energy on so many things that really didn’t matter to me.
This year I’m reassessing how I use my time. I realize that a personal challenge for me is I like to get my ‘to do’ list knocked off so I can then relax – but too often there isn’t time for anything else once all of those items are done.
Managing foster care logistics takes up a significant chunk of my time. Rather than being continually frustrated about this, I’m accepting that the logistics and documentation are part of my ‘job’ and coming to terms with that emotionally (rather than telling myself it’s too much and I shouldn’t have to do it).
I’m also taking responsibility for giving these demands priority in my time allocation, and it’s up to me to prioritize activities that are reflective of my values. I need to schedule the activities that are important to me first, and shift everything else around that.
So far, here’s what it looks like:
I’ve always scheduled all appointments as early in the day as possible so I can do them when I have the most energy, and to get them off my list. Now I’m shifting them to late morning/noon. That give me the high value morning time to do the things that matter more to me.
I just joined a gym, something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but ‘never had time for’. We lose muscle as we get older, and I want to counter that by focusing on strength training. I’m scheduling the gym for first thing after taking dd to school in the morning, two or three times a week.
Yesterday this looked like a morning workout, followed by breakfast with my nineteen year old son. It was his last day at home before his next vacation, which will be in another six months. We sat together talking for almost an hour and a half.
After that, I spent an hour visiting my mother. This is an important relationship I haven’t invested in building. I make time for what I have to do with/for her, and it’s felt like a strain on my already full schedule. I want to change this, and treat her as someone I love and cherish. I’m scheduling it for once a week in the slot following my exercise.
When I got home I had a half hour to rest before picking up dd from school.
While rest is important to me (I wake up early and I need a midday break), I rarely nap for more than 15-30 minutes and realized that doesn’t need the bigger block of time I’d previously allocated for it. Additionally, by making time to exercise regularly, I anticipate that will help me feel more energetic, addressing my concern that I’ll be dragging through the afternoon without adequate rest. But I must be able to nap for all of this to be sustainable.
My husband and I have done a lot of talking about how to continue to be able to give all of the children what they need without depleting ourselves. We need to give to ourselves at a higher level than we have in the past, to match our high level of emotional output. We’re both exploring how to give to ourselves as individuals and as a couple.
The two of us will be going away for Shabbos this week, to recharge as a couple, and we’re both looking forward to it. My married son and his wife will be coming here and staying with the kids, and the kids are so much looking forward to it that they told me they want me to leave already so that my son will come!
(It took three and a half months, from the first week of June until the third week of September, with a LOT of work to get the logistics of respite care worked out so they can be compensated. There were times I wanted to scream in frustration at dealing with the shockingly inefficient bureacracy. I’m now convinced that it’s intended to be as difficult as possible to work with, so that people give up rather than get the services they are entitled to, thus saving money on the part of each municipality. I’ve had to deal with the municipalities in three different cities and it’s been very difficult. My local municipality was the absolute worst. I kept telling myself I wasn’t quitting until I got respite authorized for all of the four youngest children, and I did – but it was exhausting.)
To make room to put more of these good things into my day, I have to say ‘no’ to other things that I was giving more priority to than they warrant at this time in my life. I wrote about my plans for the holidays and they included hosting a community celebration at our home, and making huge pots of soup for the shul for Simchas Torah.
I changed both of those, after realizing that it was conflicting with more important things. I talked to my teen sons about the simchas beis hashoeiva, and told them I didn’t want to do it. It was important to them, and they agreed to do all the baking and set up. We decided to scale down so it was only for men and boys.
Two of our married children and their families were there, and two women I’m friendly with came. We actually had time for meaningful conversation. It was so, so nice – it was once again a beautiful event, and I enjoyed it much more than last year, when there were preteen/teen girls filling the women’s section, and me running in and out, serving and cleaning up most of the time.
As far as the soup, I decided even though I’ve done it for four (or maybe it’s five?) years, I’m not doing it this year. Maybe I will resume next year, and maybe not. What I did instead of cooking the soup was spend time making food to take to shul for Simchas Torah for our family, and we ended up all eating together during the break – it was much more aligned with my values to be sitting with my grandchildren rather than serving soup to everyone else. It was another example of listening to yourself about how something feels and being willing to make changes accordingly.
My goal is to stay conscious as to what enjoyable and valuable ways to use my time are, and to schedule accordingly. Things constantly change and what was a great thing to do in the past isn’t necessarily still the best way to use my time.
A few days ago my husband heard a book mentioned on a podcast, and I checked it out on my online library account for him. I had a lot of travel on Sunday and decided to listen to it; it’s called 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, by Laura Vanderkam. She writes about exactly what I’ve been doing, organizing according to your values. I haven’t finished it yet but although this approach isn’t new to me, it’s still been a good reminder and encouragement to keep on in the direction I’m going, and has been a good read so far.
It takes time to get clear on what is most important to you, and then to figure out how to work in those important items. I’m optimistic about the changes I’m making, and it feels good to have what I care about first on my list. I know that there are going to be ups and downs, and whatever I put into place isn’t going to stay in place. It’s going to need to be regularly adjusted, but it’s a good direction and I’m happy with how it’s going.
Avivah