spend less time at work

when cleaning lady comes, i need to get up and get going, it is so simple!

Not sure why I even think this is possible. Maybe I just need a better job.
But to start with
a) keep a daily journal of what I spend my time doing
b) from when I go back on monday, keep a todo list. A good one.
c) check my remaining holiday time – do I have any left?
d) schedule some more study leave.
e) reread my Getting Things Done book.

Sadly, my plans of short days on Tues and Thursday were completely scuppered by some the usual emergencies and disasters. However, I did, guilt free, take a half day on Friday, and will probably take the day off on Monday, so that’s much better.

Short term goal for this week is to look for a single set of tasks that I can delegate to a team mate to help them take on some of the load.

Need to try harder on this – with hubby being away next week I could SO get pulled in.
1. Short term goal for this week – if I overnight in B. to get more time at work, I take an early day on Tuesday and Friday.
2. Short term goal for this weekend – only spend 2 hours on work this weekend.

1. Measure what I spend my time on.
2. Take a time management course

have gotten from 60 hours a week to 50! Of course, this past week what with the holiday and all, it was more like 30. But what is expected is around 50 and that is what I am sticking to…now to just be more productive with those extra 10 hours a week…..

have a tendency to feel like I always should work it I’m able to… It’s so often they need more people to work and it I don’t have anything else to do, why not work??

You must always work not just within but below your means If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.
- Pablo Picasso

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
- J.M. Barrie

Although I think work is important, and that it’s something which is meant to be part of life (for theology folk, my reading is that Adam was given work to do in the garden even prior to the fall), I do think a balance is important. Right now I’m off-balance.

My work is starving family and personal time, and while I’m well looked after by my employer, this doesn’t entitle them to plunder my whole life (not that they are trying to—the irony is that the only person driving my hours at present is me).

I also think that I’m slipping a bit into the “hours are what matter” line of thinking, where really it’s productive hours that matters, and these two are often vastly different.

So I want to deliberately spend less time at work.