This time of year is typically all about making resolutions and setting goals, but I haven’t set any goals in a long time. I think I became jaded after failing to accomplish just about everything I set out to do; get fit, eat healthier, read more books… I haven’t done any of these things, and it always comes down to one reason- I don’t have time. So this year I want to address my time management skills, because not having time is really just a big fat lie I tell myself that keeps me from being successful.

So where does the time go?

The majority of my time is spent at work. Every teacher knows that a 40 hour work week is difficult to achieve. I easily put in 50+ hours every week. Some of it can’t be helped- I sponsor an after school club every other Tuesday, and I teach in the after school tutoring program once a week. So I need to look at the rest of that time. I have to plan and prepare, but how can I be more efficient? Firstly, I could make use of my amazing parent volunteers. I have the best parents this year! They could help with the cutting out, making, and organizing of all the center stuff and the materials for crafts and  lessons. They want to help. I should let them.

Secondly, I need to stop allowing myself to be interrupted and stop interrupting others. This one is hard because I love my colleagues and I love to visit with them. Adult conversation is so rare and precious in teacher/mom life! But so often it happens that one simple question will turn into a 30 minute chat session (or gripe session depending on the day), and before you know it it’s five o’clock and my work is not finished and I still have to go home and be mom. Not to mention the fact that my poor children are at school All. The. Time. My goal for the rest of this year is to be out the door by 4 p.m. at the latest on days I don’t have club meetings or tutoring. My action steps are to stop running my mouth so much and delegate the things I can.

My next biggest time waster is social media. I spend much too much time checking Facebook and Instagram. I don’t post so much as I just mindlessly scroll through my newsfeed, reading status updates, looking at my friends’ photos, reading articles and blogs…for way longer than I should. This obsession is fueled in part by FOMO, in part by the loneliness of motherhood, and in part by the sheer exhaustion of carrying the mental load. Mindless scrolling is just that- mindless. Not having to think about anything for a few minutes seems like it should be relaxing, but what I’ve found is that being plugged in to social media all the time rouses feelings of competition and jealousy, and an overall dissatisfaction with my life. Why do we never go on exotic vacations? Why can she lose her baby weight and I can’t? Why does everyone else seem to be flourishing and I’m barely keeping my head above water? Even though intellectually I know that Facebook and Instagram are only showing the highlight reel and not the struggles, it still gets to me emotionally sometimes. To combat the urge to check in constantly I’ve removed Facebook and Instagram from my phone. I won’t go so far as to deactivate my accounts, because it is nice to keep up with family and friends and I like my groups, but logging on once or twice a day is enough.

And by that same token, no more taking the phone into the bathroom! Not only is this habit gross, but it’s also not good for you. Time was, the average magazine article or back of a shampoo bottle never took longer than the average poop to read. Now I have this portable computer with an endless supply of news articles and games to keep me entertained on the toilet for as long as I can stand it. Til my legs fall asleep even. Taking the phone into the bathroom is not only gross and a huge waste of time, but it’s also really bad for your bunghole. (Hemorrhoids anyone?) So enough of that already.

My hope for the new year is to make better use of the time that I have to play with my kids, pursue hobbies, and generally enjoy more of all that life has to offer.

So 2018, this is me (in the words of Maxine Waters) reclaiming my time.

(This is a repost from a blog I had several years ago, but it was a good lesson.)

First of all let me preface this by saying I’ve never been a particularly religious person. My faith is  sort of an odd patchwork of ideas I’ve picked up in various churches, passages I’ve read in books, lessons I’ve learned from people I’ve met, and maybe there are a few ideas of my own thrown in there, too. It’s quite possible I’m going to hell in a hand basket, but I don’t know.  I just like to think of myself as a weird little soul just fumbling around through this life trying to learn and grow through experience. So there’s that, for whatever it’s worth.

That being said, I do like to acknowledge when God, the Universe, or whatever IT is reveals something to me, and I take these lessons very seriously.

This is a story about a pool noodle. A pool noodle very much like this one, but not this one.

I had taken the boys to the pool that day, and the oldest, having no further use for his noodle, left it to float away freely. No big deal, there weren’t many families there, and it was only a noodle after all. When we had finished swimming, I gathered up my boys and our belongings and headed for the playground to play in the sun and dry off a bit before getting into the car.  That’s when I saw another child playing with our free roaming noodle.

“No big deal,” I thought to myself. “He can play with it until we are ready to leave.”
Then I gave myself a mental pat on the back for being so decent and sharing my noodle.

All was right with the world until, out of the corner of my eye, I spied the boy taking my noodle and putting it in the chair next to his mother.

OH. NO. YOU. DIDN’T.

I felt my pulse quicken, my chest tighten. I had to investigate further. Surely this kid was not thinking of taking my noodle. I did a quick stroll around the pool just to be sure there were no other rogue noodles before I marched up to his mother to (very politely) demand my property back.

“Excuse me, ma’am. Is that your noodle?”

“Yeah, we just picked it up at the Dollar General on the way here.”

“Oh, OK, because we have one that looks just like it and it’s missing.”

“Sorry.”

That was the confrontation. I’m not one to start fights at swimming pools over toys that cost a dollar, but I was angry. And the more I thought about it, the angrier I became.  Not only did these people steal from me, they lied about it. So the whole time my kids were playing, I’m staring at this woman sunbathing next to my noodle, and my anger is growing into rage and taking on a life of its own. Inside my brain is a viciousness, a steady churn of hateful thoughts. “You’re a lying liar and a thief, and you’re teaching your kids to be dirty lying thieves, too!”

I had to explain to my kids that our noodle was gone. Of course there was some whining in response, and a chorus of “Why? Why?”
“Because we didn’t take care of our things. We need to write our name on our things next time, ” was my response. But in my mind was a litany of swear words, all directed at this lying, thieving woman and her lying thieving kids. They are what’s wrong with the world today! They are the reason good, decent people can’t go to the pool and have a good time without worrying about someone stealing their stuff.
We gathered our snacks and towels and began our noodle-less walk toward the exit.

That’s when I saw it.

A little girl popped out of the water, noodle in hand, and made her way to the lifeguard stand. She placed the noodle, MY noodle on the ground next to the lifeguard and jumped back into the water.

I glanced back over at the lying thieving woman and her kids and HER noodle and I immediately felt very small.

I was wrong. I sent my son to go retrieve our property and I stood there, alone in my shame. We left the pool with everything we had come with and went home.

All’s well that ends well, right?

Well, not really. Not for me, anyway. I just couldn’t get over how angry I had become, and how quick I was to blame this woman, whom I had never met, and how quick I was to hate her. I mean HATE. I hated her. I thought the most horrible things about her and I was so self-righteous and justified in my anger and hatred of this woman. All over a pool toy that costs a dollar.  So much ugliness, all over a cheap, piece of crap pool toy.  It was as if God, the Universe, or whatever IT is held up a mirror in front of me and showed me the mean, bitchy, hateful side of myself that I like to pretend doesn’t exist. Oh, it exists, all right!

I was humbled. I was humbled by a noodle.

So from now on I will not be so quick to rush to judgement, so quick to anger,  or so quick to hate.

And thank you for the lesson. I needed it.