With that title, do you think I\u2019m going to talk about being more productive?\u00a0 I\u2019m certainly a fan of being as productive as possible and always striving to find ways to improve productivity.<\/p>\n
But, that is not my point with this title.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about being aware of how you\u2019re using your time; of asking yourself periodically if you\u2019re currently using your time in a way that you want to be.<\/p>\n
Maybe the best example is a couple of weekends ago, my husband saw me sitting on the couch playing a game and he asked me \u201cis this how you want to be spending your time?\u201d\u00a0 My answer was \u201cyup.\u201d\u00a0 What he hadn\u2019t been aware of was that I\u2019d just stopped being productive and was taking a few minutes to relax before jumping into the next task.\u00a0 I was using my time intentionally \u2013 since I had decided to take a break and play a couple of games.<\/p>\n
In what felt like an occurrence of synchronicity, one of the sessions I attended at the NAPO conference this year, talked about having an \u201cintention awareness.\u201d\u00a0 A couple of month\u2019s prior, I\u2019d started asking whether my husband and I were using our time \u201cintentionally.\u201d\u00a0 It was a way to simply pay attention to how we were spending our time, and whether there were other things we needed or wanted to be doing.<\/p>\n
You probably know, as I do, how easy it is to lose track of time.\u00a0 I love Sudoku, and there are times when I sit down to play and the next thing I know, several hours have passed!\u00a0 Eeekk!\u00a0 That wasn\u2019t what I wanted to be doing \u2013 at least not for that long.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had that happen on the other end of things, where I\u2019m working on something around the house (or even with a client) and before I know it hours have passed.\u00a0 It was \u201cproductive\u201d time, but at least with the housework, was it what I needed or wanted to be spending all that time on?<\/p>\n
It can be challenging to even remember to ask yourself the question about whether you\u2019re spending time the way you want to \u2013 if it weren\u2019t, you probably wouldn\u2019t lose track of time at all.\u00a0 It can be helpful to have someone else around to gently ask the question, as my husband did to me.\u00a0 Yet, he\u2019s gone all day and I\u2019ve gotten in the habit of first \u2013 randomly asking myself, whenever it occurs to me.\u00a0 Second, I use cues around the house, like when a plane goes overhead (which happens a lot) to stop and consider if I\u2019m using my time in the way I want to be.<\/p>\n
This second approach is actually what the session talked about \u2013 finding some ways to cue yourself to stop and think.\u00a0 Ideally, it will be somewhat randomly and periodically throughout the day, since it\u2019s something you want to think about more than once a day.\u00a0 Even a timer that you continue to reset can help here.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m fascinated with time.\u00a0 It never changes, yet it certainly feels like it does \u2013 our perceptions of time are erratic and inconsistent.\u00a0 I\u2019m amazed how easy it is to lose track of time \u2013 whether we\u2019re being productive or goofing off.\u00a0 Everyone I know, professionally or personally, seems at least a little discontented about the way they use their time.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a question for you \u2013 are you aware (and happy) with how you\u2019re using your time?\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe we can ever be perfect, yet I do believe that there\u2019s always room for improvement \u2013 are you ready to start asking yourself \u201cis this an intentional use of my time?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An odd synchronicity with \u201cintention\u201d in my life and learning (NAPO conference) and how it relates to how we spend our time inspired me to write this \u2013 sharing, not the need to be more productive, but rather just increase how conscious we are about how we\u2019re spending our time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[10,8,18,9,25,7,22,4],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-timemanagement","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-goals","tag-motivation","tag-postaweek2011","tag-procrastination","tag-productivity","tag-routines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-75","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}