Boundaries and Guilt

I said no.

One of the bullet points of my personal mission statement is to "carefully consider requests to commit my time, accepting or declining as best fits my values and goals." Sounds unemotional and reasonable, but I can't adequately express how difficult living this is for me, and what negative emotions it stirs up! I could benefit from a can't-say-no support group.

But for once, I said no.

I was asked to serve on a new, and needed, parish committee by a person I like and respect. My first impulse was to say yes, but I forced myself to sit with the request and think it through. In this case, I could tell that my impulse to join came more from fear of disappointing this person than it did from wanting to commit time to the objectives of the committee, as worthy as those objectives are. It was a tough decision -- the need to please nearly consumes me -- but in the end, I DID say no.

Do I feel good about it? Not really. I'm struggling with guilt and the feeling that I've let this person down. This is why I end up with too much busy and not enough time spent on the things I value most.

As uncomfortable as these feelings are, I will live with them knowing that I made a good decision. Maybe with a little more practice, saying no won't be so hard.

How Many Hours Do You Need Part II

Phew, so glad October is in the rearview. What a busy month! Kat's dad came in for a week and helped with house projects. We did make time for a little fun, including taking in the mummy exhibit at the Witte Museum and partying in the driveway with our neighbors Halloween night. Although fun, Halloween seemed subdued on our street this year. Still plenty of trick-or-treaters, but not as many as in years past. Seems that fewer of our neighbors are turning on their porch lights. Too early to tell if this is a blip or the start of a trend.

I did manage to work on the tracking hours exercise. For a week I tracked how I spent my hours, then plugged those hours into categories to see how my time is spend. A few insights:

• I had compared this exercise to tracking where your pennies go with the idea of planning a reasonable budget; however, it was really more like tracking calories with a goal of losing weight. It's a disciplinary technique. I found that I maintained focus and kept on track better with writing and project goals because I knew I would be jotting down how the time was spent. Keeping track of time will not be a daily task, but on shapeless days that require lots of self-motivation and organization, it's not a bad tool for staying focused.

• The hours of my week (a "normal" week) are fairly well balanced among the major areas of work, family, church, and community. While that seems good, my frustration is that I do not spend enough time on my job, which is writing. Some balance is good, but that's not what I need to improve. I need more intensity with my work.

• I don't have very many "normal" weeks. Some weeks or stretches of days are given over to guests or big events that come up. Yes I need more intensity with work, but sometimes I can simply accept what life is offering and not get frustrated.

• One area that is very much not in balance is Personal Growth. While I do read books that would fall in this category, things like exercise, taking classes, and working on Spanish are earning big goose eggs.

One last thing. I've been a little obsessed with time lately. I'm closer to fifty than to forty, and there's so much I want to do. My perception of time and attempts to manage it are related to this particular season of my life, a season that is busy -- fevered almost -- full of meetings and family and hopeful projects. I am determined to enjoy it for what it is while I have it. If I live long enough, the day could come when time moves slowly again and I have acres of it.

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." (Ecclesiastes)

How Many Hours Do You Need?

Mid-October already? For some reason, September/October are such horribly busy months. Maybe it's the pleasant weather. Kat and I spend a lot of time outside catching up with yard work and other home maintenance projects.

It's also birthday time in her family, and we travel to Austin for a couple of different birthday celebrations. Then there are budgets to put together for organizations I'm involved with, specifically church and homeowners association.

But all of that is not much more than we have at other times, and much of it is fun stuff (not the budget stuff!!). So why am I rushing from one thing to the next, with so little time to spend on my transition goals, and feeling that I've ended the day with not a whole lot done?

Recently a group of us in my church discussed the stewardship of time. (The topic of stewardship is percolating in the parish -- 'tis the season). One person asked, "Do you have enough time in your week? If not, how many more hours would you need?"

How many more hours would I need? And for what? While I am still tying up loose ends from my real estate business, most of my time is not spent on real estate. So how exactly am I spending it?

I like the idea, brought up in the group, of tracking hours for a week or so to see where time is being spent. It's the same concept as tracking where your dollars are going, with the idea that it's difficult to make a realistic "budget" without knowing where the hours are currently being spent.

Our rector offered a chart for tracking hours which lists some major areas of daily living:

Work
Family
Church
Community
Personal Growth
Sleep
Other

For each I write the # of hours presently spent, the "ideal" # of hours, and the difference (+) or (-).

My ultimate goal is not to schedule my days to the minute. I wouldn't follow such a schedule any more than I'm able to follow a budget that allots money to the penny for different categories. I do hope to gain insight. If I find I'm spending 50 hours of the 168 hours in a week reading, that will tell me something about why I have "no time" to make better progress toward my goals.

By the way, the photo above is of our back yard tree, a Chinese Pistache. The color is actually from last year, closer to the end of November. At this time in San Antonio, the trees are still green and the weather warm, though cooling off some. But it SEEMS like an October picture :-)