Organisation: time management

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post about optimisation, my little work for the year. But it has been hard at work behind the scenes.

This time, I’m going to be talking about time management. I suck at it, so I’m hoping by getting it out here, other people might have some good ideas about it all.

The problem is that I have too many hobbies, and not enough time to do them all *sigh*. It’s a wonderful problem to have!

I currently (or at least want to) knit, crochet, make Dorset buttons, cross stitch, take up embroidery, read, play computer games, sew, and spin. (Yes, spinning is decidedly new! I learnt the basics yesterday, and I’m definitely looking into getting a drop spindle soon!)

And then, on top of these hobbies of mine, I have a PhD to complete, and next academic year I’ll also be working towards a teaching qualification, which will also be fairly time-expensive.

So, something has to give. And I really don’t want anything to give (except the sleep, which isn’t exactly optional!).

For a while, a while ago, I used to have a little time-table for my day. Just something quick and dirty, like this:

10:00 work

12:00 lunch

13:00 work

15:00 break (knitting)

16:00 work

18:00 finish (cross stitch)

19:00 dinner

20:00 free time (generally knitting and watching tv)

Unfortunately, it stopped because it was too awkward keeping track of the teaching I had on different days, and that’s going to start again in September. But maybe next time, if I’m used to this routine I’ll be able to think of something to help it work.

Also, I think I need to stop trying to bury my product side of crafter- I want to see results dammit! So, in future, I’ll take more pictures of what I’ve done in a day. Even if I don’t post them (and I probably won’t!) it will let me see that I’ve made progress every day, even if it doesn’t seem particularly visible.

So, how do you stay on track? Any other tips you can think of for me?