When I was working full-time, it was easier to structure my time. At work, I had deadlines and many set tasks that carried me through my day. As soon as I walked in my door, I opened mail, put away my shopping, and started dinner without batting an eyelash. The momentum of the day carried me past dinnertime. By the time I could quit, the critical things were done and I could relax.

Now that I’m mostly retired, I find time management to be a bigger challenge. You’d think with more time and fewer tasks, it would be easier! But now I am getting to the projects I’d had to put off previously:  deeper gospel study, gardening, keeping up with friends, bigger projects with grandkids, and finally getting my house really in order.

It helps me to remember a freelance photographer describing how he worked. He categorized work into A, B, and C TASKS:

• A‘s were the big ones – they take time as well as creative and emotional energy – easy to put off.  Examples: Writing my blog post for the week or cooking a company dinner.
• B‘s are medium sized – still somewhat time-consuming but less daunting: Editing and typing the final draft of a report or doing an hour’s ironing.
• C‘s are short and easy – we can string several together and hardly feel it: Emptying the dishwasher, checking email, changing the laundry, etc.

Then he went on to talk about A, B, and C TIME:

• A‘s are peak energy and a bigger chunk of time – mornings for most of us, long evenings for night owls.
• B‘s are winding up or winding down time – transitioning out of high energy – and a little shorter.
• C‘s are low energy times when we need to relax, putter around, and reflect, and may only be a few minutes.

Here’s the kicker:  We need to match A Tasks with A Time and so on, for maximum productivity.  I then remembered a talk on time management with an object lesson (shown below), using tennis balls, ping pong balls and marbles (A, B, and C Tasks) in a bowl (the productive part of your day). The speaker made the point that if you start filling your day with the multitude of easy tasks facing you, then move to the harder ones, and leaving the big tough ones until last, it will look like the bowl on the left. You’ll get to the end of your day facing the biggest tasks when you’re most tired and least motivated.  You’ll feel guilty for not getting to all of them. And you’ll have gaps in your day when you’re bored but don’t have enough time to tackle the big projects, so you can’t really relax and enjoy it.

Now look at the bowl on the right. The same number of tasks are facing you, but you start by tackling A Tasks in A Time, then fill in the remaining time with B Tasks first, and C Tasks second. This way, you can both pace yourself and get it all done before the end of your day.

I’ve been holding my feet to the fire this week and tackling the daunting projects early in the day, early in the week, and at the peak of my energy. I still want to procrastinate, but my mantra is NO EXCUSES!  And here’s the payday: There’s more satisfaction – way more – tied to A Tasks relative to the time and energy invested, and far more momentum to carry us into the next big project than if we miss that peak moment.

Tuesday I forced myself to go out in the heat of early afternoon and face my research goal at our local Family History Center. I was rusty and had hit wall after wall this spring while working on my own. This time, with help from two wonderful women, I identified my great grandmother Anderson’s brother Frederick to flesh out his family and do their temple work. He married Arianna Lorton in his late thirties, died five years later, childless, all in Davenport, Iowa. Arianna buried him in Chicago and moved there. Three years later, census records show her working as a hairdresser and as a Boarder with a single woman with a Machine Shop. I imagined them with living quarters above the shop, possibly with other boarders. Arianna’s death record many years later show her name still as Anderson; I assume she never remarried. I found her parents and siblings in the area, so she wasn’t alone. It felt like a little window back into history, and it tugged at my heart. Frederick was my great grandmother’s only sibling. I imagine she greatly missed him and will be thrilled to have them sealed to their family for the next life.

A final memory comes back to me: diving off the board at the City Pool as a teenager. I would walk quickly to the end and jump straight up while pushing the end of the board downward. As I dropped, the board came up, hitting my feet to spring me into the air and give my dive energy and height. If you hit it just right, it’s a little scary but much more exciting than just diving off the end of a stationary board. Using our creative energy synchronized with life’s timing is a lot like that. My second post, The Gems Within, talks about a life force out there that wants to work through us. Now I realize we have to use it at flood tide and not when it’s ebbing away – the ride into shore is thrilling and worth the effort!