Claim your time your space

Time certainly is never enough to do all that we want to do. All phases of my life starting from school till now this is one thing which is always less.

In school never enough time to play, to finish revising that last chapter before exam.

In college never enough time to do extra curricular, for some never enough time to finish amazing books in library, for some never enough time to make boyfriends/girlfriends, for some never enough time to work on assignments, never enough time to study.

In work life never enough time to relax, never enough time to eat healthy food, never enough time to exercise, never enough time to do something extra, never enough time to talk to friends and family.

As the life progresses never enough time for basic necessity like food/sleep or even take breath.

What or Who is taking my time my space from me and how can I claim it back.

I started making observation on these some 10 months back by observing my life and life of others and here is what I made certain changes to claim my time and mental space.

Decision making: A regular person needs to make so many decisions in everyday starting from

• Whether should I get up now or can sleep for 10 more mins.
• What to do as first thing after getting up
• What to eat in breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, sweet
• What to wear
• How to start office day
• How to end office day
• What to do after office

Below are the changes which I did so I don’t spend time in decision making every now.

1. Scheduling reminders and tasks lists: I use this for personal and professional life extensively. This helps me to free my mind space and I can relax because I wont miss anything important.
2. Delegation: I always see what I can delegate like hiring house helps and paying extra money to them so that money helps them and as they would be doing awesome help, I don’t spend my time in monitoring it. In professional life as well I am very cautious where I am spending my time.
3. Routines/schedule: Having routines helps me in saving my time and energy for decision making every now and then. I am absolutely fine doing same kind of exercise, wearing same kind of clothes, having same kind of meals during work week. I fix all that by Sunday for rest of the week for me. I decide what my son is going to have during the week and make sure I have things are available at home for this. I give some relaxation to me over Saturday and Sunday as have some time luxury on those days. I eat same breakfast everyday.
4. Night decision vs morning decision: I know what I need to ask my cook to prepare next day before I go to sleep and if any prepration needs to be done for this. Making those decisions in night do save time in morning and you are relaxed also because you can work better.
5. Boundaries:My office colleagues know that I am not available after 6 until its urgent and there is a protocol defined for it. I don’t even pick calls if I get one.
6. Focus:When I start my office day I would make a list of to dos for that day based on priority, so I am focused. Actually during the day I make sure people have all the information which is needed.
7. Social media: Another big time eater for is social media, specially if you are doing activity on it like posting content. You end up checking again and again to verify people reaction on it. On Whatsapp I would have groups muted which I can check when I have time luxury, If people need immediate attention they tag me or DM me. I don’t use Facebook and other social media. LinkedIn is the the only place which I login on dedicated time to do activities which might be good for my professional growth.

How its impacting my little one

Because my little one who is just 2 years old see me following the schedule, I can see he also wants to do the same thing. He has started calling out if this the time for him to have fruits, sleep, going out or play inside. It’s so amazing to learn him this at early age.

How it impacts people around you

If my husband wants any change in anything he knows he needs to call out a day before otherwise it might be little difficult for him to get his request addressed, but I always make exception for the people I love the most.

In professional life as well I have set up boundaries. I have defined working hours and if you need me beyond that it needs to be justified and protocols needs to be followed for it otherwise I don’t even pick calls.

I have been happy to make these changes in life to do the things which I love doing like follow my fitness routines and read books which used to take back seat over everything else.

When next time you feel that you don’t have time to do certain things which you really want to do check who is eating your space and I am sure you can also claim it back.

Hopefully I write another story around it in few months to share some more things which helped me to wake up with excitement and sleep with happiness and peace.