As the subtitle of the blog points out, I am a wife, mom and artisan. It doesn’t mention that I am also a part time employee doing merchandising stuff and I just took on a contract position piecing books together. Needless to say, good time management skills are a must. Looking good at the same time, well since I make and sell jewelry, a must also. Wanna know how I accomplish it?
First, and most important, each day actually starts before bed the night before. I go through my plans for the next day, check appointment times, set goals, and schedule my projects. Then, when the alarm goes off in the morning — yes, I set the alarm even though I work at home — I know what I need to do. It works like this:
Plan vs Actual
- 7:51am alarm goes off, I hit snooze – 7:51, hit snooze
- 8 am get up, bathe, dress, etc - 8:00, 8:09, 8:18 hit snooze, 8:27 drag outta bed, grab sweats and t-shirt
- 8:30 make tea and breakfast – 8:30, make tea and breakfast
- 8:45 have breakfast with husband - 8:45 breakfast with hubby
- 9:00 review messages, respond to important ones - 9:00 review messages, see who sent gifts and requests supplies. Respond.
- 9:30 work on business projects – 9:30 harvest, upgrade franchises, tend animals, 10:00 drag self away from games and start real work. 10:30 answer phone call from school, brush teeth, pull hair in scrunchie, run to school still in sweats to pick up sick kid. Return home at 11:15. Make another cup of tea. Sit down to work.
- 12 noon lunch – 12:00 reheat tea, stare in cupboards
- 12:30pm make phone calls – 12:3o make first phone call, leave message, decide to wait for answer and not make another call and tie up my line (yes, I have call waiting). Wander back to cupboard. Make lunch. Reheat cup of tea that is now about 1/2 gone.
- and it continues like this until
- 10:00 plan for next day – 10:00 open calendar to plan for next day; go cross eyed; make sure crops, animals and stores are set for the night; grab a glass of wine; join a team chat; refill wine and go to bed.
If you haven’t guessed, I have no idea how to get it all done, much less look good doing it. I’m easily distracted and get caught up in cute and silly things. I hate solid schedules.
Recently, I’ve been putting together some tools on my browser that I’m trying to figure out how to integrate into my life to help me keep track of things and get them done. The more I take on, the more desperately I need it. Here are 2 tools I have found that work great — when I use them:
- Remember the Milk – No, I’m not kidding. It’s a Web site where you can set up, sort and prioritize your to-do lists. It allows for repeating tasks, personalized lists, tagging, and more. If you have a phone that accesses the internet you can access your lists on the go, which is awesome. There is also a Chrome extension that allows access to your own Remember the Milk page direct from the tool bar. Nice! The paid “Pro” version is a bit expensive in my opinion, but if you get it you get access to sync Outlook, Windows Mobile and Blackberry plus aps for Android and iPhone.
- Remind Me, which is an extension / add-on for the Google Chrome browser. It allows you to set reminders that things need to be done. You type in what, ie “make phone calls” and then choose how many days, hours and minutes. When the time expires, you get a reminder in the browser that it’s time. It’s great for scatter brains like me. My biggest problem is I can be so scatter brained I forget to use it. If you aren’t using Chrome, look through the extensions on your browser to see if you can find something similar.
One of my big problems, I think, I setting and keeping goals. I just now found 2 more extensions for Chrome that I’m hoping will help. The first is Goal Reminder which randomly displays life goals and Time Tracker which tracks time you spend on various Web sites. I’m hoping by seeing where my time is going and being reminded of my goals I will make some progress!
Well, I’m of to set some goals and have a productive week. I think I’ll work on getting it all done first and looking good later!
