Kinds of Time

I’ve got a job, wife, kids, church responsibilities, housework, finances to manage, and a backlog of things I should do someday. You’re busy too.

But there are different kinds of time in the day. There’s time for perusing, time for family, and time for deep focus. My ideal breakdown would look something like this:

Family: 40%
Focus: 40%
Perusing: 20%

But the problem is that this time gets all muddled up. It’s like the person who works from home and cannot separate home from work, thus only giving half his attention to both areas, all of the time. Not a good idea.

So why not physically separate your time? I adjusted my sleep schedule, so I could have focus time in the morning, before work, and family time in the evening after work. I “peruse” (aka read books, listen to podcasts, social media, etc.) during my commute, and sometimes before bed, once the kids are asleep. If I want to adjust the percentages, I shift the times that I go to bed and wake up.

If it’s focus time, I leave my phone in the other room and keep social media closed. If it’s peruse time, I don’t feel guilty that I’m not crunching through a to-do list. Life is messy, and sometimes wrenches are thrown into the system, but overall it’s pretty good. If nothing else, it’s been really valuable to break down my hours into “kinds of time” so I can get the percentages that best match my principles.

If you had it your way, how would you break down your time?