Stealing time

2015 was a long year for me. Literally. My 2015 was three hours longer than 2014 because I rang in the new year on the West Coast. For me, 2015 was 365 days and 3 hours long.

But here’s the thing with stealing time. You don’t get extra time, you have to steal it from somewhere. My 2016 will be three hours shorter* — unless I celebrate the new year in a different time zone again. 

I have lots of projects on my plate at any given time. Add to that my family, my job, organizations, teaching and more. (And oh yeah, I start grad school this week.) I’m always stealing time from somewhere.

I’ve been bad about stealing time from sleep. I tend to stay up late and get a lot done after the kids go to bed. But I need to dial that back and get to bed a little earlier each night. I’m aiming for an extra hour of sleep a night, which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that’s 7 hours a week… roughly 15 days over the course of a year. So I’ve got to make some adjustments.

Right now, my plan is to be more efficient and make the most of the time I have. Maybe I’ll be more effective working with more sleep. But efficiency will only get me part of the way. 

After that, it’s about prioritizing my projects and commitments. We’ll see what projects make the cut and which ones go on the back burner.


* Actually, 2016 will be longer than 2015 because it’s a leap year.