It’s fall y’all! I’ve been wearing sweaters inside for a few weeks in anticipation of my favorite season. Fall is a time of change as we come back from the summer, dig back into work, and maybe deal with the whole back-to-school thing. It’s a time of new and shifting priorities. We may be asking ourselves “How do I make them all fit?”
I’m in the same boat. The end of summer was chaotic here. My son moved back home and started his Senior year. Suddenly I had to deal with accounting for another human in the house again, after months of getting myself in order. I had been working on a routine of sleep, healthy eating habits, and strength training that I had to fight to maintain with all the other interruptions going on.
It felt good to get into a rhythm. Of course, what happens as soon as that rhythm gets established? A new priority.
My son isn’t the only one going back to school. Before he came home, I had signed up to start a Master’s certification program. Days from now, classes will start and I’ll have homework and studying on top of that.
Ugh. I want to do the program, but how do I add in yet another thing?
Mindful or mindless?
There are 24 hours in a day and squeezing a few hours to take on a new priority may sound feasible. However, we were filling that time with something else before we pushed something else into our schedule. If we aren’t mindful about what’s being squeezed out, we may find ourselves neglecting something important.
As a coach, pretty much everyone I talk to shares there are more things to do than they have hours in the day to do them. When I ask what they sacrifice to “fit it all in” the answers all follow a theme…
- Weekends
- Vacations
- Sleep
- Workouts
- Healthy Eating
- Learning and Development
What do they all have in common? We sacrifice ourselves – our health, our rest and recovery, or our growth. If family or work needs us more, we give of ourselves to make it all fit.
I’m fortunate that what I’m adding is a growth goal for myself. However, the other things I have in my schedule are important too. So how can I intentionally add without sacrificing something important?
Know where we spend our time
Step one is knowing how we spend our time today. Conducting an inventory of our time for a given week is the best way to understand where we are spending our time and who/what we are prioritizing.
Some of these are going to be obvious, like work and sleep. The time it takes to get ourselves ready and cranking out our workday is a big block. Same with the time we spend catching zzzz’s. The rest might be less obvious.
No need to get to the minute, but thinking in terms of 15 minute blocks, note the time spent caring for others, the home, yourself, etc. If there are hobbies, time with friends, or other activities, add those in.
An additional “a ha” for me is tracking my screen time. Put that in there if you have a method to track it.
With our inventory, we can see clearly where our time is going. Now what?
How do we want to spend our time?
Putting the inventory aside, consider how we want to spend our time. Our priorities and goals should guide this step. What is important to us? It could be spending time with family, ensuring we are financially stable to provide for ourselves and others, or taking care of our health so we can age well.
What’s on the list will vary by person and by life stage. As our responsibilities change, what’s important to us will likely shift as well.
With our priorities and goals in mind, it’s time to develop our time plan. Create a list of times and activities to target throughout the week. This may be a mix of a wish list and a want list.
What’s the difference? We may wish to spend an hour working out every morning. Let’s say that’s our ideal. We want to spend at least 30 minutes working out, with strength 3x a week. That becomes the minimum to meet our goals.
For example, I want to spend time with my son, but the reality is that he’s a teen and isn’t always keen on spending time with mom. If I think back a few weeks, what is reasonable to anticipate? What is a must and what else would I like to do?
Add up all the time in the wishes and then the wants. Do either fit into 168 hours available in a week? If so, awesome! If not, it’s time to get creative.
Swap it, shave it, block it
I’m all about a good swap. When I started eating better, I found healthy swaps for my snacks (I am a snackaholic!). Credit card crying from retail therapy? Consignment shopping.
Maybe we spend a lot of time planning, shopping, prepping, and cooking meals throughout the week. What alternatives are out there? Weekend meal prep or grocery delivery? What else could work?
Another swap is to trade the current way we’re meeting a goal with another. For example, I want to get strength training in 3x a week and I want to spend time with my son. He likes working out too, so we train together on the weekends.
At this point, we’ve dropped what’s not important and swapped out what we can. If our priorities don’t fit into 168 hours it’s time to look for opportunities to shave time. That 60-minute workout may become 45. The stop we make for coffee on the way to work might become a homemade cup on the way out the door.
If everything still won’t fit, it might be time to determine whether everything on our list is really important without sacrificing our health. We can’t do anything if we aren’t here.
Once we get to 168 hours, we need to block the time. Ideally, we put everything into one calendar – work, kid stuff, doctor’s appointments, gym time, etc. It’s easier to prioritize what we can see.
Making it work
When we have our time blocked for what’s important to us, it reminds us to make time for those things. That includes time blocks for our own needs. If the gym isn’t on the calendar, for example, it’s going to get sacrificed for other things that pop up.
When someone asks us to do something that conflicts, a time block prompts us to ask if it can wait or be rescheduled. Just because someone asked for something doesn’t mean we need to jump or automatically say yes. Negotiation (along with boundary setting) is critical to managing our time so unexpected demands don’t constantly derail us.
I had a new manager a few years ago. Early on, he asked if we could talk well after working hours. At the time, my son was still eating what I cooked and we would spend time eating together.
I asked if it was something critical, and if so could it wait until after we had our meal. He thought about it and said it could wait until the next day. After that, he would ask – “what’s your schedule tonight? Do you have time? If not, we can meet in the morning.”
We always met in the morning. He started realizing what he wanted to talk about wasn’t critical; he had commuting time and wanted to use it catching up on topics he was thinking about. That was his preference, but didn’t align with my schedule. We found a way for us to align, and I guarantee he found other ways to use that time.
Have grace
Things aren’t always going to fit. The unexpected will occur and we’ll have to adjust. Some nights, I get less sleep than I want and am not up early enough for a longer morning workout. I do what I can and then plan to go to bed earlier so I can get it in the next day.
Remember that inventory at the beginning? Anything that didn’t align to our priorities and get scheduled should have been dropped. However, some things might sneak back in that aren’t priorities. Mindless social scrolling to decompress? Maybe we need that one night. If it becomes a habit that’s taking time away from other things, how can we gently move our way back to what’s important?
Beating ourselves up when things happen will make it difficult, if not impossible, to stay on track. This approach is meant to help us, not create opportunities for self-shaming.
As I start back to school after 25 years, grace is going to be a key element for getting through the next 9-12 months. I’ll do my best to read ahead and do my homework in advance. I imagine there will be some weekends when I’m turning in assignments right at the wire. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
Do you struggle with fitting it all in? What are some of the techniques you use? Please share them in the comments to help others as they navigate the challenge.
