The Power of 20 in Real Life

I often have people ask me, how do you do it all? Truth be told, I don’t do it all. Quite honestly if I stopped to think about all I am doing and WANT to do, I’d probably get a little overwhelmed.

A big part of not getting overwhelmed for me is being smart with my time, knowing my WHY, and consolidating BIG things into little, manageable tasks I can complete in 20 minute segments.

It sounds so simple, but the hardest part is getting started. Today I want to share just one simple thing that has helped me be a little better with my time and that is filling the wait.

How many times a week do you find yourself waiting? Waiting in line at the post office, waiting for the doctor, waiting for a meeting, waiting for a prescription, waiting for your kids…  This little piece of time in your schedule can be powerful.

I learned this last year and continue to use it today.  I had a goal of getting my digital scrapbooking supply catalog organized. Yep, all 50,000 images tagged and organized. The way I did it was to cart my laptop around with me. When I was waiting for my daughter at practice, waiting between basketball games, I would tag and organize a kit or a designer folder. The amazing thing is that these little tidbits of time added up over a few months to be something very tangible and measurable – with them and some other huge blocks of time I was finally organized!

Another time in my life I did this was when my twins were less than a year old. My two youngest were in school so I timed my schedule to feed & change the twins right before school pickup. I actually drove around for a few minutes to get the twins to sleep and then while waiting in the after school pickup line, I used the quiet wait time to journal a few lines on what was happening in our lives. I look back at the crazy busy time in my life and read those journal entries now and I’m so grateful I used that waiting time to do something so meaningful.

The reality is your life is filled with waiting moments that are just ready to be snatched up to snowball into a meaningful accomplishment in your life.

Just a few weeks ago I was waiting at a city council meeting for an hour. The old me would have whipped out my smartphone and played games or checked the news feed on Facebook. Instead I took out my notebook and smart phone and used it to Google references while mapping out a framework of the blog posts and projects I want to do for this blog and newsletter this month.  I waited for over an hour in that meeting until my agenda item and yet I wasn’t frustrated, I was excited!

My challenge to you is to take something with you that you can do in those waiting moments. Snag them while you can. Use them to accomplish things you don’t necessarily want to do during more important time in your day. I can promise you that you will be glad you did.

P.S. Today those sweet little twins I talk about in this post are turning ten – how time flies!  Happy Birthday Emily & Grace!