Balancing My Time

I was talking to one of my guitar students the other day about making the time to practice guitar.  She was telling me that she was juggling a lot of activities in her life and it was difficult to find the time, which I completely understand.  So, I began a discussion suggesting time management and so forth—when it suddenly occurred to me: I suck at time management myself.

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There are so many responsibilities that I juggle within a day, it behooves me to prioritize my time and activities quite often.  Normally, I fill up a blank 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper with bullet points of things to do.  I scratch them off as I progress through my day, and I feel a sense of accomplishment scratching off my accomplishments by nightfall.  Nonetheless, I suck at time management.  Do you know what I mean?  Sure, I get lots of stuff done.  I also stress myself out quite bit.  Sometimes I forget to eat because I get so busy working on a project, that I lose track of time.

But, probably my worst offense in this department, is getting too wrapped up in one thing for long periods of time.

I decided to make a spreadsheet the other day to keep track of how long I work on things.  Practice guitar for an hour.  Write for an hour.  Etc..  So far, I'm sucking at that also.  I managed to make the actual spreadsheet—haven't been using it every day though.

Perfect example of me getting too wrapped up with something:  I spent a solid 8 to 10 hours recording yesterday.  Why?  Because I was having fun.  If anything, it was quite a productive day, given that I'm a musician and a songwriter and all.  However, there were a whole bunch of other things that didn't get done yesterday due to the fact that I was hanging out with my friend Anthony, recording, and having the time of my life.

I should be more organized and block my hours of operation off to 1 hour increments.  I can be like a T.S. Eliot poem where his sad protagonist, J. Alfred Prufrock, measures his life out in coffee spoons—30 minutes to practice singing, 1 hour to play guitar, 5 minutes to write this blog.  No time to check my grammar.