Time for yourself

Jeanette Verster wrote a post titled “Needing time, needing change” about demands on her time and how she so rarely has an opportunity to take time for herself. I identify so strongly with what she says in her post, particularly this:

She asked me when I have time in the day for myself. She asked me when I spend quality time with Lance. She asked me when I exercise.

I had to answer that I don’t do any of the above. Apart from running around when I do photoshoots

There aren’t enough hours in the day. Seriously.

I love the work I do (for the most part) but that 24 hour time limit is problematic. This year also seems to be rushing past as if its in a hurry to end. I am barely into a month when it is over and I find myself wondering what happened to my plans to be more productive, efficient and effective with my time.

I have plans to do some really terrific stuff in the Web and digital media law space and finding time to make real progress is not easy at all. Add to that some of my tendencies to, let’s say, be less efficient with my time, and the result is craziness, more grey hairs and temporal whiplash.

I am fairly sure that the answer lies in what vaguely resembles my productivity and time management. I am very keen on the Getting Things Done methodology although my great irony is that I haven’t had time to finish the book yet (I am tempted to shell out for the audiobook and listen to that instead). The answer is probably in there in the bits I haven’t read yet. I don’t know if the answer is hiring people or if there is so much inefficiency in my days that I could be doing a heck of a lot more in less time.

One thing I do believe (and have experienced in those rare times I have taken time for myself) is that taking time for yourself creates a great space for creativity and I find that enormously useful.

What do you do about making time for yourself? What works for you?