Write an area about your life that you’d like to improve.

I look at where I was four years ago when my life kinda blew up and the kind of progress that I’ve made, and I’m fairly astounded at the progress. The progress part we’ll get to tomorrow, but for today, I’m going to have a go at an area I’d like to improve on.

Time management is an area where I’ve really, really struggled over time. I have always had the capacity to get lots of shit done, but I’ve never had the organizational wherewithal to make it happen. I have been less good at prioritizing tasks, and definitely not good at making time for myself.

I’m as guilty (or more) as the next person of losing hours on social media. I have to admit that the Screen Time function in the recent iOS update was a very telling thing, and it’s caused me to think about my own screen time. I’ve had a couple of periods where my social media consumption patterns changed – focus more on Instagram, less on Facebook, less time reading the news, times where I’m off the grid completely. Lately, the trend has been ticking downward. I’m still spending north of an hour and a half on my phone every day, but a good chunk of that is text messaging, thankfully. FB and its politicized drivel is pushing me away, and Instagram, well, the photos are cool from time to time, but it’s often just mindless.

Not spending time on social media gives me some time to do other things, like read, or take up writing (ahem). Maybe even spend more time doing things like score study, and practicing. Things I’ve maybe subconsciously been avoiding over time.

I’m making inroads through planning out my days/weeks/months, looking at over-arching projects and tasks I need to take care of, and trying to not get overwhelmed by the day-to-day things that are (or aren’t) getting done around here.

The B-side to my time management issues also tie in with my natural tendency towards slovenliness in my household. Admittedly, I’m doing much better than I ever have, but it’s tough, too, when I have three extra humans in the house who consume and don’t necessarily do much in return other than leave messes for me to clean up. I’m not great at ensuring their tasks get completed, and they know that they can just put up a fight and eventually I’ll just do it myself, sometimes angrily. Nobody is winning in this situation.

Tomorrow’s topic of conversation is the opposite of today’s – the discussion of things that are going really well for me right now. I much prefer focusing on positives.

As an aside, I really notice a difference in trying to write at 9pm vs. writing at 6am. I’m SO much fresher first thing in the morning. Right now, the words are there, but it’s pretty noisy in my head from a day’s worth of input. With this post, it took a good half an hour to get going, and this after agonizing somewhat over yesterday’s post.