Time

Carole and Joey came over for part of the long weekend. We had a great time, shopping at the outlet mall, eating Mexican food, playing with the pups and just hanging out. It was hard to believe that it was the end of May and we hadn't crossed paths since almost New Years. We had several interesting conversations and it made me feel better to know that I'm not crazy and that there are other working women out there who feel the same way. One of our conversations was about the process of feeding ourselves, but I think that will be a future post. Another conversation was about time.

I've thought about this a lot in the last few years and recently decided that I had to get control of my time. Obviously, before I go any further I have to state that I haven't found the control lever for doing so. I've read the books and know the time management principles fairly well. The instructions make sense and the authors and personal management coaches make it sound real easy. Reality...it is not.

So tonight I came home from work and since I had not planned my time too well (I did start a list) I took some reading material outside to read through while the pups played. First I read a publication from USAA that had an enticing title about "can work ever be optional" and found the article to be pretty lame. It didn't help me in planning how I can quit working in two to five years (dream, dream). So I skimmed through a catalog from a favorite quilt shop and tried to get my thoughts organized around quilting. My sewing room is a wreck and just the thought of trying to clean it up and figure out where I was on projects was too much. So I moved on to an expensive shoe catalog but a quick flip through there told me it needed to be recycled. My last item was Guideposts magazine. It is a quick, easy read and I should have started with it first. There were several articles by women who did not have enough time in their days and how they found a small glimmer of peace through a trying situation. But what really caught my eye was a quote from Ecclesiastes that appeared on the recipe section's cover (right under the picture of the chicken and broccoli stir fry). Here it is:

"To eat and drink and find satisfaction in all your toil--this is the gift of God"

I'm sure this is a paraphrase from Ecclesiastes chapter 2, but it says enough. I've decided that if something doesn't bring me satisfaction and peace from God that it probably isn't something I should be wasting time doing. But I also think this verse is a reminder that God gives us life and we should be doing work that gives us an inner feeling of contentment. I'm going to try using this verse as a guide for time management and see what progress I make.

(and I don't know why blogger won't let me put in line breaks between paragraphs on some posts, grrr)