Hello there. If you are expecting a post about Mars bars then I will apologise in advance.
This is a post about time management. Sort of.
It is inspired by the Eight Hour Theory of Time Management.
Eight hours sleep time.
Eight hours at work.
Eight hours time that is my own.
This is a great theory, in principle. My issue is with it is the blurred bits in between the 'zones'.
The time when I can't get to sleep but when I am too tired to do anything, or don't feel able to because I should be sleeping.
The two hours a day I spend commuting. It's not part of my eight hour 'work' day, but it still feels like work because it is work related.
This can even sometimes go for my lunch break. I specifically get to work half an hour earlier than I have to so I can take an hour for lunch. But quite often my lunch breaks are spent running errands or wasted going to the pound shop yet again. Or buying more food because I neglected to pack enough snacks. Probably from the poundshop. I seem to live in there.
I appreciate that working the usual 9-5 day means my free hours are going to be in the evening, and that they are not always that practical. The cinema costs more, and often you can't go because the showing starts later into the evening so by the time you get home you are late to bed, and then tired for work the next day.
That one example shows how the zones all blur together. We beg,borrow and steal from then as it suits us. Promising to catch up on that sleep on the weekend (incidentally science says this doesn't work), that we will take that hour back that we stay late at the office, or just sleeping through our free time because we are so blinking tired!
I think the 8 hour time thing could work. But not for everyone. As far as I can tell, it's only going to work for people who can really limit the blurred zones. And what about people who do shifts? Sometimes their working day could be 12 hours. Other times only 4! Who knows. And what happens if you do over time on the weekend? Surely that is all your time right? Oh bother...
I think all you can really do is try to make all the hours happy ones.
If you have trouble sleeping (like I do) you have to use some of your time to help you sleep better. This might mean researching, taking up expertise, eating healthier or something else. Because if you're tired, none of your hours will be as happy as they could be.
If you don't like your job what can you do to improve it? Is it so bad that you need to find a new one? Or could you just make some changes? Are you allowed to listen to music or an audio book during your work? I find that helps when I can fit it in.
If you feel like you are wasting your personal time, try new things to get more out of it. Spend ages deciding what to wear on the morning because you're still half asleep? Get your clothes out the night before to make the morning run smoother.
Maybe I don't think the 8 hour thing can work after all. But finding a healthy mix of activities that works for you of what we should all be aiming for!
