Beyond "crazy-busy"

I am tracking time this month to get a fuller sense of where my time goes and how I use it.  It's my most precious resource and I want to be sure I am stewarding it with my priorities.

Looking back at this week, I worked about 42.5 hours.  This includes my actual work time, but also meetings and work-related events.  It is actually pretty hard for me to work as many hours as I would like.  I know that the cultural story in higher ed is that we work all the time and that the pace is very intense.  I would agree: the pace is really intense.  However, we also get times when the pace slows (summer and winter break). Even if we work year-round, we do enjoy a change of pace and less intensity during these periods of time.  But I am suspicious that we do not really work the 60+ hour weeks that we think we do. Most weeks, I don't even come close to 60 hours a week.  It's tempting to say I am "crazy busy" because I certainly feel like
no grass is growing under my feet.  But that narrative on my life isn't helpful to my frame of mind, heart or soul.  I want to live peacefully with my priorities (or rethink them).

I think it may be more of how modern life comes together that makes us feel that "crazy-busy" feeling--particularly with the demands of the creative/intellectual person who has lots of things he or she wants to pursue (or needs to pursue) outside of their official job responsibilities.  Or, when you are a parent of a small child or a big family and you have ministry commitments in your church or non-profit, that feeling of being overwhelmed may be pervasive.

Well, I don't want to live with this underlying feeling of being constantly overwhelmed.  It's going to happen sometimes, but I want to be more clear about where my time is going and how best to leverage it. I want to live joyfully in the midst of a full life.  I will have weeks that are very high-pressure and days that I feel frazzled.  But overall, I want to choose joy even when it feels "crazy-busy".  This is part of my journey to live joyfully in the midst of the chaos of working mama-university life.

I didn't sleep as much as I need to this week.  I clocked in at 46 hours of sleep and my sleep goal is 50.  Unfortunately, I could have met my sleep goal.  I ended up dozing on the couch or just being slow in going to a bed a few nights that could have made me meet my sleep plan=.  I need about 7 hours a night.  There was two nights when I was up with my son who wet the bed--so that was unavoidable--and one of those nights I didn't get back to sleep--so that is also the reason for missing the mark.

Thinking back more on my work hours, I realize that I don't really need to work more hours--I need less of my hours to be spent in meetings.  I spent over 23 hours in meetings this week! I like to get work done through meetings, but right now, I need to have more "at my desk" work time.    This is my goal for the next few weeks:  reduce my time in meetings in order to have more "at my desk" time.

One great thing about my week is that I was home putting Kai to bed 5 nights out of the week! Actually, it was 6 nights--because one night Kai was still not asleep when I got home at 9:30.  This is pretty great for being a vice president with a "crazy-busy" job.

I also got to have friends over for dinner (pizza, didn't cook) and had family lunch with my parents and got to read books by the fire with hot chocolate with my son.

Clint and I have a date night tonight. We are celebrating Madi who is in the show "Sleeping Beauty" and we will see two shows of that.  Kai loved seeing his sister in a show!

I didn't get to see Madi very much this week (she was really busy with rehearsals) so I plan to get some good time with her this next week.

So that's an update from my time tracking this week. How was your week?  Do you feel "crazy-busy"? Why?
Enjoy your Saturday--whatever you may be doing: if it's lining up with your priorities, it's to be celebrated!

with grace,
Sarah