I have a confession to make. I work well under pressure. Scratch that, I work well under pressure, because I often find myself in a position where I have to do so!
This often comes down to an issue of time management and ambition. I have always had some struggles with time management, but this problem has become magnified with my 6 month old daughter Olivia. I am finding that my time is really not my own (not that it really ever was!), and because of the unpredictability that an infant brings, I am attempting to adjust on a day-to-day basis. I want to make it clear-- I am not complaining! I love spending time with her and she is without a doubt my greatest daily joy!
Since my daughter has been born, I have been blessed with many opportunities that I have never had before. Writing projects proliferate at this point...at least for me! Needless to say, I am enjoying these opportunities, but I have to be careful about what I take on, and at this point in my life, it is very difficult to say "no, thanks."
Coming to the end of this rambling post, I guess my question is this: How do you develop good-time management habits? I marvel at the output of some of my favorite scholars who have families and ministerial responsibilities at their church. I wonder how they get it all done. Do they sleep less? Do they budget how much time they spend on the Internet? Do they forsake family time on the weekends?
I realize that because of my full-time second shift job, unrelated to anything I do for biblical scholarship, that my dynamics might be different than some. But, it would be helpful to hear from others who either have struggled with juggling 'life' or are currently trying to process some of the same dilemmas that I have mentioned above.
Look forward to hearing from you...
1 comment:
just wait till you have more than one child! basically there is never enough time to do all the things you want especially because study is so endless, there are always more books to read, articles to write, etc, etc, it doesn't end.
How I have coped in the last few years of juggling jobs and study and family is just to decide how much time and when i would spend on different projects and then finish them in that time no matter what. it has meant a number of projects were not as good as they could have been, but often you will find "good enough is good enough", or as Chesterton alledgedly put it, "if something is worth doing it is worth doing badly"! You will find tht many of those scholars with large outputs do so by not being perfectionists, and if you want to give your family the time they deserve and need from you then you will have to be willing to deny the demands of doing everything else 100%.
that is my tupence worth anyhow!
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