Time management that brings joy

It’s funny how, when we think of time management, we think of all the things we have to do, especially for others. Yes, in the workplace, time management is about fulfilling contractual obligations, but even there, I feel we could be doing things differently. What I’m going to write about is by no means something I’m practising regularly, but it’s something I’m working towards mastering  – time management that brings joy.

I’m currently on a 9-day break from work – that’s counting in the two weekends, as well. Nine days that I could be experiencing in a number of different ways. Whichever way I choose, I will emerge from this mini-holiday with a certain set of feelings, based on how I spent the nine days. It’s up to me to go about this time in a way that gives me the best feeling afterwards – like investing, but towards a desired feeling, or state of mind.  Basically, I just hate the thought of wasted opportunities.

As you may know, I’m a great list maker – I can’t start any project without a list. This is why I function so well on my own – I don’t need others to make things happen for me; I just need the space and time to make my own life happen the way I like it to. When my personal matters and my home base are sorted, that’s when I function best in the rest of my life, when I’m able to be more effective in the various roles I play.

The crazy, nonsensical truth about this holiday, though, is that I don’t have one centralised list – rather, I have a few bits of paper with different lists relating to the different parts of my life: my day job (as a lecturer), my personal role as a mother and ‘housekeeper’, and my part-time jobs as a musician and a radio presenter. Believe me, besides those areas, I have at least three other huge areas of my life I want to make more exciting and authentic – those lists aren’t written anywhere, they just tend to occupy my brain a whole lot. Those things that we always say we’ll get to ‘one day’.  For example, I want to find a dressmaker to sew for me, because I know what I like and I don’t seem to find that in the shops. But, as long as there are electrical and plumbing repairs to be done in the home, the private seamstress idea can exist only on the periphery.  But does it have to?

And this is where my theory of 'time management that brings joy' comes in. I realise that it often entails a good bit of financial management, as well. I suppose it’s just about planning carefully, not deferring one’s joyful aspirations indefinitely, because that is exactly what makes one’s juices dry up and turns one into a permanently disgruntled, unfulfilled, joyless person. I’ve had enough of that – I want to be gruntled, fulfilled and joy-filled.  :-) A mistake too many people make is waiting for others to bring them happiness. It doesn't work that way - you attract things and people that make you happy when you're already happy. 

So this is how I propose the ‘time management that brings joy’ theory would work, for me. I have to try it out first, before I can advocate it. But try it I will. Starting TODAY! In fact, I already do this to a certain degree. Committing to a period of a year to raise the money needed for my daughter’s adventure-outreach trip to Thailand, while my broken car stood in the driveway is an example. I divorced the car in October last year, after it had become extremely unreliable and expensive to maintain, and I decided we’d use public transport until the car was sold and I could afford another. But for the past year, I’ve been putting on concerts to enable my daughter to go on a trip that could never be described as one of life’s necessities........ UNLESS someone decided it could.

And I suppose THIS is the crux of ‘time management that brings joy’ – what do YOU regard as important in your life? What brings YOU joy? What is it that, after you’ve spent time doing it, makes you a better person? Once you can be honest with yourself about that, you can start to draw up that To Do list. My friends used to laugh at me because I used to draw up my To Do List for housework, work my way from room to room, cleaning, clearing, sweeping, dusting, emptying bins, etc – but between each room, or whenever I chose, I’d play my guitar! That’s how I made cleaning my house bearable. I didn’t need anyone to bail me out – I just needed the freedom to choose when I’d work (on what I had to do) and when  I’d do what brought me joy. Space and time. Autonomy. Freedom.

So today, one day before Pay Day, when all the bills have to be paid and I have to do all those things that working adults do in order to fulfil their societal obligations, I am blessed with an overcast day. Somehow, this kind of weather always spurs me on to be productive. Today I will manage my time in a way that brings me joy. This means making time for what I have to do, as well as for what puts a smile on my face. The best time to start is right now, after I’ve posted this article.

I am going to live my life with time management that brings me joy – and I’ll see what else it produces.