Time goes fast. It goes even faster if you’re a parent. As parents, we need to be creative in making time for ourselves to make sure we are continually feeding our minds and growing while taking care of our responsibilities. It is a juggling act. Every day brings its own challenges but still, we push forward and find ways to make time for ourselves.
Sure there will be days which throw us off our plans. Life happens to us all but we still keep charging forward and making the best of the time we have.
What strategies do you use to make the time to learn/make/play?
I’ll go first:
- I wake up a few hours before my family to get my personal time. Those few hours of quiet time are wonderful.
- I read if I need to be with the kids while they play. Even if I can sneak in a single page I feel like I am making progress on the reading front.
- Make good use of lunchtime to learn/read/illustrate.
Your turn! Share the strategies you use to make time for yourself. I know I need more of them. :)
Cheers
Photo by Kaylah Otto on Unsplash
Top comments (2)
If you're employed you need to shift as much learning as possible to the work-time. I recommend baking in the learning-time into estimations for tasks. (If the topic is work-related)
For non-employment-related learning and side-projects, I'd do stuff I can easily put aside and pick up again. Nothing I have to stare at for 15 minutes, to know where I stopped last time. I like video-courses with ~10-min-lessons for this.
I wouldn't fill up all of my off-time, though. Enough sleep and occasional boredom are far more important. Especially with family.
I wondered about the same some time ago, and while I complained about too little free time, I also somehow managed to finish Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War. So there was time, it was just the priority that was off.
Family time is table stakes :) That should be a given. Any time besides family time, work, and responsibilities is the challenge. Your last point about priorities is crucial in making time for the learning and growing as a parent. Questioons like, what is the most important thing I need to spend my time on? or Will I be happy tomorrow with what I choose to spend my time on today? help to gain focus so that the precious time isn't wasted.
Thanks for sharing. :)