I have always been one with a tendency to cram as much as humanly possible into a 24-hr period. Before I had children I routinely logged 14 hour days, first in corporate America, then as an entrepreneur…and I ran marathons, loved entertaining, and, and, and…

What can I say, I like being busy!

But having kids changed everything.

Well, not everything. My desire to do a lot remained in tact.

Sadly though, the number of hours in the day did not magically expand to accommodate the new additions to my family. As I headed back to work, I struggled to maintain my previous level of productivity given the entirely new reality of having to start later and finish earlier.

I made a lot of mistakes.

At first, I threw all “me” nurturing activities right out the window (after all, I’d say to myself, “isn’t work really ‘me’ time?”). Then I crashed & burned. My husband literally begged me to find a creative or physical outlet.

I time-shifted a lot of thinking work to the quiet evening hours after the kids went to bed. But then my husband and I slowly started to grow apart…

I did work after everyone in the house was asleep. That lasted until my body got down on its knees and begged for more sleep via a bout with pneumonia.

It took me awhile, but I eventually got my sea legs. One thing I learned along the way: there are five big time traps that working women should avoid at all costs.

The Five Time Traps

• Responding to everything immediately For some reason women tend to feel obligated to reply to someone or pick up a phone right away, when it’s really not necessary. Maybe it’s because you don’t want to be rude. Maybe it’s because it feels urgent. Stop. A study by HP showed a 10-point drop off in IQ when someone is distracted by an incoming call or email. That’s more than twice the impact smoking pot has on your IQ! If you have a pavlovian response to alerts, turn them off when you are doing something and make standing ‘appointments’ to check messages and emails.
• Procrastinating online Be honest, how much time are you spending surfing the internet during the day? Sadly, 61 percent of employees admit that they spend at least some time surfing non work-related websites during the work day. According to AOL and Salary.com, 44.7% of workers said surfing the Web was the biggest distraction in their workplace. The same survey found that, on average, employees waste over two hours a day online. The problem is, we tend to surf in 15-20 minute increments of time, saying to ourselves “well, I don’t have enough time do really focus on and do x, y, z – so I’ll just see what’s happening on Facebook.” It’s a slippery slope. Wear a rubber band around your wrist and every time you find yourself mindlessly surfing at work, snap it against your wrist. Awareness is the first step to recovering that lost time.
• Skipping the menu planning Not only will a lack of a plan cause your stress to skyrocket every day around 4:30pm, but without one you waste time at the grocery store, waste money (the average American family throws out almost $600 worth of meat, produce and grains that have gone bad each year), and waste precious moments with your family because you’re dinner plans aren’t buttoned up. There are so many great tools for overcoming your meal planning avoidance: online menu-planning services, like The Six O’Clock Scramble, free printables, and great blogs, like 5DollarDinners.
• Skipping exercise When you’re feeling time-crunched, it’s often the first thing to go. But studies show workday workouts improve your time management skills by 28%, your ability to concentrate by 26%, and your overall productivity by 25%. Your boss will benefit, you will benefit, the people you love will benefit. Stop shortchanging yourself and everybody else in the name of saving time.
• Keeping a work-only to-do list How you keep your lists isn’t important. That you keep a list – and include all areas of your life on it – is. Life with children is complex, if you insist on carrying around all of those personal to-do’s in your head, you (a) waste time and energy trying to remember what’s on that list and feeling insecure you don’t, and (b) will perceive that you have more on your plate than you actually do. Reduce the noise in your head and see the big picture with a comprehensive list.

I suppose I will continue to go through, cycles of readjustment as my boys grow up. But for now, I make a real effort to steer clear of these traps.

What about you, do you fall prey to any bad time sucks? Was your re-entry to work as bumpy as mine?

I am an unabashed fan of The Onion.

Earlier this week they ran a fall-down funny piece titled “Open-Minded Man Grimly Realizes How Much Life He’s Wasted Listening To Bullsh**” (warning: there is a touch of profanity in the article). I chortled and passed it on to my brother to share the laugh. We both have a tendency to place a premium on being “considerate” at the expense of our own time and sanity, so I knew he’d appreciate it.

After it left my inbox, it also left my mind.

Until yesterday when my brother shot back a quick “ROTFL” reply. For some reason his email made me feel compelled to stop and re-read the article a second time.

Like a good satire should, it got me thinking.

How much time do I waste each day in an effort to be polite? Could I even quantify it? How much of others’ time do I waste in any given week with disorganized meanderings or irrelevant chatter?

Does mindless chatter ever serve a useful function? Surely there must be a balance between “efficiency” and humanity. Idle gossip and discussions about the weather do give two (or more) people an opportunity to find additional, often more personal, points of connection and involvement – which theoretically improves the quality and efficiency of future interactions.

And what about half-baked ideas? Are they always a waste of time?

It seems to me that while there are certainly times it is productive and useful to seek feedback and input early on, more often than not, it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Net/net: I can see the utility of idle chatter as a warm-up to productive conversations. But throwing out half-baked ideas is decidedly un-buttoned up. Be considerate. Take a moment to think ideas through before using another’s time. If you need additional input and ideas to complete your own, take a moment to be clear about what you are asking of the other person. Just that one little step will save both of you precious moments.

Curious about the impact on my own time, I’m going to log the number of minutes I spend in “useless” conversations because I’m being nice. If it’s a big number, I think I’ll need to develop a line or two that, while respectful of the other person’s feelings, enables me to extract myself and salvage more of my time.

What do you think? Do you hate it when people waste your time with half-baked ideas? How much of your time do you think others waste with this kind of thing? Do you think it’s okay to tell someone that they’re idea is dumb and to stop wasting your time with it?

I got a little flack this weekend via email regarding my post questioning the necessity of Valentine’s Day.

While I personally fall into the camp of, “I’d rather celebrate the people we love every day,” I’d also argue that for most of us Valentine’s Day is an absolute necessity.

Why?

It drags us kicking and screaming from our daily, just-in-time-scramble to a place of organized thoughtfulness – where we are forced to take a moment to tell the people we love how great they are.

Be honest, if you didn’t have the external pressure to say “I love you” to all of your Valentines – how many months (or years) would pass before you got around to showering them with warm fuzzies?

It takes organization and planning to truly honor the people in our lives. Without the deadline of February 14th, most of us would probably never get around to it.

It got me thinking…maybe we all dislike the holiday in inverse proportion to our overall level of time management skills. The better you are at scheduling your priorities (including those I love you’s), the less you hate the holiday. And vice-versa.

Tell me, are you pro-Valentine’s Day or anti-Valentine’s Day? Why? Do you think you would remember to tell your loved ones how much you appreciate them without a reminder like Valentine’s Day? Would your significant other?

{Feature Photo Credit} – Is there anything better than candy hearts?

Who couldn’t use a little more time?

I know I sure could.

As we roll into the weekend, I thought I’d share six sites with you – each of which has a really smart strategy for saving time. Happy reading!

#1: Sleep Chart!

Anyone with a three-year-old in the house knows how clever they can be at delaying bedtime. Danielle over at the lovely blog Boys, Buildings, Books & Berries came up with an ingenious chart to help cut down on the nighttime shenanigans.

She hopes the chart will help her put a stop to all sorts of extra imaginative hoops her son had her or her husband jump through on any given night. It’s also a great tool for babysitters who may not know the usual routine. I say brilliant.

#2: Monthly Menus

Who wouldn’t love cooking just once a month – and still having home cooked meals every day? I met Once a Month Mom last year at Blissdom and was in awe of her approach to cooking. Basically she cooks every meal on one marathon cooking day so she has the rest of the month “off.”

I’m linking to her complete menu for the month of February. If you’re crunched for time and order out more than you’d like to admit, it’s definitely worth trying.

#3: Stop Checking Email First Thing in the Morning

I’ve posted about the benefits of turning off your incoming alerts before, but blogger Sid Savara says we’d be wise to go one step farther and ignore email all together in the morning.

Among other things, Sid says that checking email in the morning means you’re more apt to do what other people want you to do rather than what’s on your to-do list.

#4: Adopt a Nighttime Routine

I just never get tired of hearing how Kerry’s simple strategy helps her get out of the house in the morning without losing her mind.

She’d be forgiven if she did! She & husband, Des, were going for baby #3 and got identical triplets (a 1 in 250 million chance). Read more about her journey at Lyons Den Mom.

#5: Learn from Others

Sometimes all that’ needed is a little inspiration in the form of someone who manages to consistently get an awful lot done in a day. Check out Kevin’s suggestions on Life Hacker.

#6: Wear the Same Thing You Did Yesterday

How much time and energy do we waste digging through our closets in search of something to wear. What if you only had one outfit?

Christianna, creator of the beautiful blog Elegant Simple Life, put this idea to the test for 31 days and came away surprised and delighted.