Overcoming the challenge of not having enough time for your Self-Reliant life
Time to complete this lesson:
Video: 20 minutes
Handout: 10 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
Do you struggle with fitting all the things you’d like to accomplish into each day? We all do at one time or another! Even though we all have the same 24 hours to work with, some people just naturally seem to get a lot accomplished.
Why is that?
- Do they have a special potion or formula that makes them super human? Nope.
- Are they just good at hiding it? If we dug deeper would we that they have all their dirty clothes stuffed in the laundry room where we can’t see? Let’s hope not!
- Are they quick to make decisions and ultra organized? Maybe.
Most likely, those super productive people are very good at setting personal priorities and focusing on the task at hand.
We are starting off the series by talking about ways we can overcome the challenges of too little time. So in this lesson, we’ll give you tips to increase your productivity, save time, and get to the things that are most important for YOU.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- Why we procrastinate in the first place.
- What your perfect self-reliant day would look like.
- How to take a big project and break it down into bitesize chunks.
- 5 tips to make extra time in your day.
I love to do lists. They always keep me on track and help me accomplish more with my time. Nice presentation. 🙂
Teri
I really appreciated the visualization exercise- what your perfect homestead day would include. Although I don’t think of it as a perfecteam day, it helped clarify in my mind the skills I want/need to learn. Thank you!
I’m so glad to hear that was helpful, Krystal! I find that visualization is really important in keeping me focused on my goals.
Great information! One thing that really helps me is to lump my “to do”s by type. That is, I am always running to the computer to Google some non-pressing thing that comes to mind because I know I won’t remember it when I’m at the computer…because my computer time often looks like this: “I need to go pay that bill….ooh…I wonder if there’s anything new in the news…or on Facebook….oh, I forgot about that email I need to send…[2 hours later]…oh no! Why did I get on here?!”
So, I keep a little notebook that has a tab for phone calls to make, another for emails to write, and another for things I need to do when I’m next on the computer. I don’t know how much time this has saved me, but I’m sure it’s a lot!
Thank you for the video!
That’s such a great tip, Shawnele! I totally know what you mean – sometimes I feel like a squirrel running back and forth, back and forth, not focusing on one internet task and keeping 10 tabs open!! Yours is a very smart idea!
Make a list and make a commitment to stick to it. Then I will start completing those task.
Great plan, Tom! Let us know how it’s going in a few weeks!
Thanks so much for sharing your time and skills with us 🙂 I love the idea of the batch boxes for helping me to communicate to my husband what I need his help with and planning time with him to do it . I keep running lists all over the place and have a hard time sorting through it at times to decide what to do so I will be trying to implement the Monthly Weekly Daily listing. My biggest problem I think is be able to appropriately prioritize……Decisions Decisions, Decisions 😉
I’m so glad you enjoyed that tip, Bonnie! I love it, and use the boxes to help me with business projects, gardening tasks, even creative projects like knitting!
I believe the Batch Tasking will be great and help me the most. If I write down the skills that I want to learn in the batch squares I am sure I will find a lot of the 5-10 min blocks and 30 min-1 hour blocks will already be filled in. Then it will be easier for me to not procrastinate because I will want to get that last square checked off because that bugs the crap out of me that something is started and not finished. I have a lot of things started but they are not written down so I can visually see what I have done. Therefore I have lots of anxieties about what I need to do. Once again if I use this batch tasking and write everything down, I know this will help me accomplish my small goals. Thank you so much for this lesson. I am anxious to get started. I already have a list of skills that I want to learn so I can print a paper out like the batch paper for each skill and start filling them in and prioritize them in order and get busy. This will also help me decide which skills i can do and want to keep doing on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
Yes, this is a fantastic way to organize, Deborah, and I hope it helps you check things off your list and reduce your stress!! I know there is SO much to get done each day. Just keep taking baby steps every day and you’ll get your goals accomplished!
As a newbie to simple living, I’ve never stopped and thought about what my perfect day would be. What a great idea!! Thanks for getting me started on my dreams!
Thank you for this info! I love the idea of time blocks, 5-10 minutes to get something small done to chip away at a bigger task/ project is a great idea. Personally, I keep a running list of stuff I need to do and that’s helpful to keep me from forgetting stuff and delegating to the kids or husband when needed. but I have found that I stay more on task and feel accomplished if each evening I write 5 things in my planner for the next day that are “must-do’s”. This keeps me focused and if/ when those 5 things are Complete I will look to my running list to see what else I have time for. I’ve also found that turning off push notifications and not keeping my phone with me all the time saves a ton of lost time that would have been spent looking at email, texts, social media, etc. instead those have set times throughout the day.
Thanks for sharing, these are such great ideas! I especially love the ideas with your phone…goodness, the phone can be such a time suck.
My biggest take away is keeping my dream in the forefront. Actually visualizing it and making it real. Secondly, breaking down dreams and projects into manageable bite size pieces. Thank you!
I tend to forget the prioritize my ‘to do’s’ and let overwhelm from braindumping everything on one day keep me from moving forward. Thanks for giving me a reset today with this lesson.
Out of the 5 tips you gave there are two of them that I can change big time!! TV, and Social Media. I have a record player that I have picked up new records to play so am going to do that instead of the TV.. A new goal!! My biggest challenge is pain. I have to deal with it daily. It wears me out. So I have to find time to rest several times a day. Then I get behind on what I need to do. After listening to you, I know that I can work around my pain and schedule things less physical for the rest times so I’m still accomplishing something. Thanks!!
So glad you were inspired by this article. Chronic pain is hard and I’m glad you’ve found some new ways of working around it.
Thank you for this. Task Batching speaks to me also. Though I am not homesteading in a formal way or taking care of a young family, you just gave me a good reason to actually do the laundry. I often scroll while waiting for a load to finish. But it’s a perfect time to get in a short meditation or practice a little music. I can check off the twenty to thirty minute box for each load!
Yes! It’s often in the margins that we feel most productive.