My time blindness was real tonight. I made a little post-work agenda for myself that looked like this:
- 5:15 – 6:15 — walk and listen to HR audiotracks (studying)
- 6:15 – 7 — eat dinner and take HR practice quizzes
- 7 – 7:30 — write up program proposal for the League of Women Voters
And then, wow, done by 7:30 to enjoy my evening.
In actuality, it looked more like:
- 5:20 – 6:20 — walk and listen to HR audiotracks (starting off on track!)
- 6:20 – 7:45 — dinner and quizzes and 15-minute phone call with mom (okay, I don’t know how long quizzes take)
- 7:45 – 8: Dance break. I’m still practicing that viral line dance and it gets my heart rate up.
- 8 – 9:40: Write up the program proposal for the League of Women Voters (why did I think this would take me thirty minutes?)
That’s not exactly precise but you get the picture. There was also loading and changing laundry somewhere in there.
I know I’m not alone in poor time estimation, but I swear there are days I do better than this! But then again, I had an agenda yesterday that got screwed too. I seem to either highly overestimate the time I need to do something or completely underestimate it. I truly believe I can get ready for work in under 90 seconds but I think emptying the dishwasher will take me 15 minutes. Logically, I know those should 100% be flip-flopped but that’s not how my brain processes it.
At work, I’ve been trying to deal with this using the 6 things rule (or the Ivy Lee Method). It’s been working . . . sometimes. Today it didn’t work because I had 6 hours of meetings and none of those meetings were on my list. I had about 8 hours of projects slotted for those in-between times and maybe one meaningful task got done outside of the meetings (which, to the meetings’ credit today, were on the whole meaningful).
Perhaps I need a new 6 things rule for my evenings. Or like a 3 things rule, and making dinner counts.
With Love,
Natalie