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January 29, 2011

OYtamOL: Wk4 Slicing the Pie of Life

It's Week 4 in Unsolicited Advice's One Year to a {more} Organized Life challenge!  This week Brenda asked us to look at how we spend our time as a pie graph and she provided yet another adorable worksheet.  I tried to use it, believe me I did but I just could not quite visualize the slices so being the nerdiest of nerds that I am I resorted to creating a pie graph in Excel. 

But, do you want to hear something CRAZY???  The hours I input for the week did not add up to 168!  What?  I can barely find time to shave my underarms more than once a week but Excel is informing me that I have twenty-some odd hours not accounted for?  Something is rotten in the state of Denmark! 

So, I have a mystery on my hands it seems and the only solution is to pay more attention to where my time is actually going.   One thing I may have mentioned before that I have realized from working on this challenge is that I spend WAY too much time on the internet, especially during work hours.  Probably shouldn't confess to that on a blog but I'm trying to be accountable to make change this year so the price of admission is transparency.

Since we know that my pie chart was completely inaccurate I'm just going to share the categories I had entered into it (try not to laugh at some of these):

  1. Actual working time
  2. Time at work not working
  3. Time spent in support of my marriage
  4. Time spent with God
  5. Household maintenance
  6. Hobbies/Relaxation (ha ha!)
  7. Olivia (this represented time where I am taking care of Olivia and cannot multitask such as when I am putting her to bed, spending play time with her, etc. vs when she's in the high chair and I'm cleaning in the kitchen)
  8. Cooking or other food-related time
  9. Entertainment (including TV, movies, internet - at home)
  10. Personal hygiene (another ha ha!), and my favorite,
  11. Sleep (I have come to the conclusion that I took sleep for granted to such a degree pre-baby that I actually should apologize to it!)
So, those are the "slices" I came up with.....think I missed anything??  Have any idea where those twenty-some odd hours were spent?

2 comments:

  1. Well, since you have 20-some odd extra hours, you could just have fun with them, right? :P

    Did this help with prioritizing all the things you listed on your routine sheet from last week? If not, maybe just looking at it more from the view of roles would help... like thinking of a pie based on the importance (vs. how much time you currently spend) of each role. (You don't have to make one, necessarily.)

    For example, here's what my estimated importance pie chart looks like:

    wife: 25%
    mother: 20%
    home manager: 10%
    health & nutrition manager: 10%
    finance manager: 10%
    daughter, sister, etc (extended fam.): 8%
    friend: 8%
    creater (sewing/crafts): 3%
    designer (graphic design): 3%
    relaxer :P (do nothing): 3%

    From here, I will prioritze my routine list according to which role they fall under.

    Of course, you're certianly welcome to do it however you like. You had just mentioned feeling a bit "stuck" with it, so thought I'd just throw it out there.

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  2. Haha, I know if I put my time in a spreadsheet, I would underestimate the amount of time I spend online or sitting in my big chair or napping (my latest vice). Great job working on this task, great categories! I just can't wrap my head around the pie chart and priorities. I know I need a lot of "relaxing" time or I end up grouchy at the end of the day, but too much time wasted and I get depressed. It's a work in progress, for sure.

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