With my family out of town for the past couple of days, I found myself with a lot of free time that I'm not normally used to. I was planning on doing some things that I've wanted to get done for a while now. I didn't get any of these things done. I look back and realize that I didn't use my time effectively. I need a new strategy.

The Norm

Normally, a full time job, significant commute and a toddler add up and leave me with almost no free time each day. What free time I do have with ends up being at the end of the day, spent on time fillers that are of questionable value, but allow me to let off some steam. Things such as reading blogs, watching TV, playing games on my DS.

While my television time has gone down significantly (thanks to TiVo), it's empty time. The same could be said for playing video games, but at least they're more interactive and engaging. Reading blogs could be considered useful, but I seem to only really learn anything from maybe 10% of what I read.

Everyone needs time for activities that allow them to relax, but I think I've gotten so used to spending my free time in this way, when I end up with a large chunk of time to do something useful I fall back to the things that I'm used to doing. I've been conditioned to fill my free time with small chunks of relaxing activities.

So with several evenings with no responsibilities, what did I spend my time doing?

• I put in extra hours at work.
• I read blogs.
• I slept in.
• I played video games.
• I spent time making lists of things I've been meaning to get done.
  

Boring!

Have I really become such a dull person. I'm not going to complain about having time to do all of this, because it was nice. But, please! Working overtime?

I think it was so novel to not have to leave by a certain time to pick up my son at day care that I worked later than usual. When I got home, I had the computer to myself, and got sucked into catching up on my feeds. I was so lost in the moment of not being distracted, that I even forgot to eat supper.

The next morning I slept in and worked late again. "Hey, I don't have to leave until I get my current task done!" I arrived home late again, low on energy. "I need to focus on getting some of these things on my mind done, " I said to myself. "I know, I'll make a list!" I started up the laptop. "Let me just read my email first. Oh yeah, and I'll quickly check some of the blogs that I like to read regularly." You can see where this is leading. By the time I made my list, it was late at night. The list was also so large it was overwhelming.

Luckily, one of the blog posts I read made me realize that I need to manage my time better. J. D. Meier has some good advice on time management that I'm going to try to leverage. I need to cut my list down mercilessly and figure out what my top priority is. Another problem I have is that there are so many amazing new technologies coming out lately, in addition to existing languages and frameworks I'd like to learn, that I can't possibly learn them all so I need to focus on one, but I don't know which one to choose.

The Plan

My plan is to commit to a 30 Day Improvement Sprint focused on my top priority. I can't spend a lot of time each day, but if I spend it consistently I will get results. I'm still not sure what my focus area is, but it will be obvious because part of that goal is to blog daily about my progress.

Labels: effectiveness