ASU2003

I'm taking a 4 day weekend to analyze my life and organize and improve it. And one of the biggest issues I currently have is finding time to do everything, and then even try to fit in dating into it all.

Since I was 10, I have been kept busy all of the time. Hockey practice, exercising, baseball, boy scouts, track/running, swimming, schoolwork (and more schoolwork), job, computers, Internet, and a lot more. I usually go to bed a 2 am and wake up at 8 am. This is an improvement since college, where I was lucky to get 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night, and then would sleep for 12-15 on the weekends.

I'm just wondering if my priorities are screwed up, and what other people's schedules were like? I have come to a time in my life that isn't as busy and complex. I would rank them right now as:

1. Work (~60 hours, includes drive and time spent getting ready)
2. Sleep (~50 hours, should be 60)
3. Exercising (~4 hours, could be 8)
4. Eating (~14 hours)
5. Internet/computers (~30 hours) / TV (~10 hours, might be less in the summer)
------------
6. Relationships/Friends (0)

I have tried turning off the Internet and TV, and what happens is I sleep 8-9 hours a night and exercise more. I clean my apartment and do my laundry more as well. I might read a book or go shopping.

It is almost as if I am avoiding the whole relationship thing, but I wouldn't have been very exciting saying I can't go out tonight, I have work to do, TV to watch, or I need to go to sleep at a normal time. In college it was always, "I have a program to write", or "I have to do this calculus assignment", and I could make friends with the other guys that were in the class doing the same work. Now, I am using the Internet and computers as a way to escape and have fun, while learning about myself and other topics.

What should I do in order to find the time to do everything, but still have time leftover just to do nothing and be available to hang out and do different things?

sadeianlinguist

You have to make time. Some people never seem to grasp the whole "making friends" thing. Even with friends, you have to take a risk and ask someone to go to the movies with you or go have a beer with you, in a friendly way.

I know how hard this is. I work thirds and I really don't even get to see my old friends a lot. My boyfriend works thirds and lives in another timezone. I think you just have to be a hardass about it. IE, I'll skip a meal to come home Saturday night for lunch and talk to my boyfriend online. I might stay up until 5 pm after working all night once a week just to go see a matinee with my best friend.

I guess there are things I neglect that you're better off for doing, but I'd rather eat and exercise less than not socialize. Of course, that's probably a little strange.

__________________
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

Nisses

What should you do?
Turn off the Internet 2 days during the week and 1 day during weekend.

That'll free up 15+h of free time. Provided you compensate a bit during other days, you'll still have 12+h of time on your hands.

that's half a day right there!

__________________
Moderation should be moderately moderated.

savvypup

You're stuck in your comfortable routine. Friendships and relationships require work and effort, and if you're spending too much time on other stuff, the really important things normally fall by the way side. Shuffle things up a bit.

__________________

ciao bella!

absorbentishe

Get out of your routine, and force yourself to be uncomfortable. Once you get over that hurdle, then meeting new people will be easy. Talk to women that work out at the place you do, or start getting coffee in the morning and talk to someone there. There's plenty of opportunity, you just have to force yourself to do it, if that's what you really want.

Toaster126

How do you make time? You do other activities less. Not that hard, kiddo.

__________________
"The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me." (Ayn Rand)
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

Cynthetiq

Schedule some time out of your day to call friends. Make a goal to call 1-2 friends each day. Even if they aren't home, call and leave a message more than, "Hi, it's me calling. Call me back."

Call them and suggest making plans, even if it's to meet and have coffee for 30 minutes.

Eventually people will be calling you back and trying to make some plans.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Rodney

How do you make time? Reorder your priorities. If having friends is more important than the internet and TV, watch less TV and do less Internet. That's it.

Thanks for inspiring me, I'm logging off and getting out of here!

Ample

Im kinda in a pickle in this area. I work fives days a week and dont get home till 6. I run six miles monday through Thursday after I get home from work. So that doesnt leave me a lot of time to what ever I need to do. Friday through Sunday I have my daughters. I could get a babysitter, and have but feel so guilty about since I only have them for three days out of the week. I think my best bet is to find a running partner.

ASU2003

I think I made my schedule a little too easy and simplistic in the original post. Just like coming up with a budget for my finances (which was easy), a time budget is much harder. I have come up with a new schedule, but there isn't very much extra time to meet new friends and do nothing. And it would be great if I could find people that enjoyed exercising at the same time I do and had similar interests to share my time with between things I do currently and spending time with other people.

New schedule:
56 hours (sleep, this changes a lot)
50 hours (work)
14 hours (eating, ~2 hours a day + shopping)
11 hours (Internet, I bought a kitchen timer to limit my 'fun' Internet use to 90 minutes a day, it will not be easy)
9 hours (Exercise, I need to exercise some more. 1 hour weekdays, 2 hours weekend days)
7 hours (TV, I TiVo everything (1 hour news weekdays, Simpsons, PBS show on Monday & Tues, & Family Guy, and don't watch anything on Fri & Sat)
5 hours (Money management/bills/stock market)
5 hours (Masturbation/Porn, only on TFP would I list this, but I guess in a relationship I would use the same amount of time for sex)
3 hours (Various things, checking mail, driving, laundry,...)
2 hours (Cleaning, my place needs it)
--------------------------------------
+6 hours left

6 hours is better than nothing I guess, but if you throw in sun tanning, reading books, having fun (what's that?), going to nightclubs, doing hobbies besides exercising and sports, napping, and whatever else, I think I am trying to do too much sometimes.

I am event thinking about taking a college class (fun one) in the fall if my work schedule allows it and I'm in town. While I might meet a few new people from that, it would require 5 or 6 hours a week.

I do need to reduce the amount of time I am on-line. 11 hours is a good goal to start, and it is the message boards that have been my problem in the past 3 years. I want to check them everyday a few times a day it seems like. Maybe I could set up a few bookmark folders labeled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,... and I could only go to those sites in the folder on the correct day.

Glory's Sun

If I were to switch anything about your new hours.. I would reverse the TV and Money Management time slots. Spend a couple extra hours on the money instead of tv. Oh, and I still think 11 hours of internet is wayyyyy too much. I get bored with the internet in about 30 minutes. Anyway, as far as the friend time goes.. it's not hard to call someone up and go out for lunch. Then you've accomplished 2 things at once. You've had something to eat, and you've had social time.

Mantus

Good job on getting organized man. I was writing very similar lists a few months ago so I know how useful they can be at putting everything in perspective.

It's all about priorities. I set 3 major goals for myself in January and since then I commit 90% of my waking hours to them. As some here have noticed, I havent been posting much since then...

...I simply have no time. I love the TFP but my goals have to come first.

If I may make a small sugestion. Do a list for the next 10 years of your life or even the next 20. That exercise really made me jump off my ass

Cheers man!

applesauce

Instead of just going out to lunch with someone, why not make it a longer event? If you TiVo everything, you can watch it whenever, so invite someone over after work for dinner (it's really not that much more time consuming cooking for two instead of for one), and after you eat, watch a couple episodes of Family Guy or your PBS show with them. If you want more free time, you could also combine eating with Internet time or money time, assuming of course that you're not a messy eater who needs to sit at a table with no distractions at hand. Depending on what sort of exercise you get, you could combine it with something as well. Watch your TiVoed shows while you're on a treadmill or exercise bike. You just have to get a little creative with things.

taboo

take a couple of hours out of the internet, and call someone up.
it's very hard to get out of the routine sometimes, but i'm telling you, once you do it one time, you'll feel soooo proud of yourself!!!! trust me!!!!

ngdawg

Wow, I can spend those 11 hours on the internet in less than two days and still get out of the house on weekends.
Since you're on it anyway, find something that encourages real life participation, then go participate. Car clubs, bike clubs (either pedal or motor), photography clubs, all kinds of organizations have real life people doing real life things within those interests. Do you have any interests or hobbies you put on the back burner? Dig them up, start doing them again, find others that share in your interest.
Seems to me from looking at your list, the one thing that is missing is any passion for anything. TIVO and porn are time-killers, not a passion to pursue and get you out there.
Good luck. Self-reevaluation is never a bad thing-it keeps us on our toes and prevents us from sinking too far into an abyss of boredom and rut-ness.

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

Cynthetiq

Right, it's called isolating. In order to bring you out of your skin and isolation, you have to do something different. If you want tollhouse cookings and you keep adding the same ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies, you'll never get tollhouse cookies.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

ASU2003

This is what I really need to do. But, it is very hard to find any stable regular groups around here. It just seems like everyone is always busy and have other stuff to do as well. I am trying to get together with a bunch of people from another message board that we've all been posting on for 2-3 years, and we have found 2 weekends from now until October where everyone can get together.

I'm still working on my schedule and trying to find a good balance. I've started to not watch TV before work, so that is 2 hours not wasted getting ready for work in the morning.

I'm open to all ideas and suggestions, but the 4-5 of porn is probably not going away until it is replaced with 4-5 hours of cuddling and sex. I would just be able to sleep a few hours more a week if I stopped watching it anyway.

I do need to combine things more and be able to have friends that would want to exercise at the same time. 11 hours of Internet time would be a good goal coming down from 30 hours a week. Once I get some computer projects done, I hope I can turn it off on Fridays and possibly Saturdays. And the TiVo hours have dropped since there aren't any new episodes on until the Fall of some of the shows. I'm not too concerned about the TV anymore.

Cynthetiq

Go volunteer at a hospital, non-profit, big brother program, etc. You have to get outside in order to socialize. Socializing here on internet forums is not the same kind of interaction as you've admitted.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

CaliLivChick

You could exercise 1 hour a day, weekday or weekend (what makes your routine different on weekends?), that would give you an extra two hours. If your friends/dates work out at the same gym, make a workout date (I do that with one of my friends).

Instead of watching the news every day for an hour, listen to the radio in the morning, or have the morning news on while you're getting ready for work. I find those newscasts less depressing than the evening news, and they cover the major headlines, so if the world is ending, you'll still find out. That would give you another five hours.

If you don't already, try multi-tasking. The news while getting ready/going to work is one way. Another way is to have a stock market ticker on your computer at work/home. You can ususally program those to show the stocks you're interested in, and you get the quick summary whenever you glance at it.

As far as money management/bills, do you use online banking? I was hesitant to use it at first, but now that I've gotten into it, I love it, and wouldn't trade it for anything. If you've seen the Bank of America commercials about online bill pay, they're not kidding. Whenever I get a bill in, I pop on the computer, enter it onto the website, tell it when I want it to be paid, and pop off. Two minutes, tops.

I also maintain a spreadsheet instead of having a checkbook register. I check my bank account every couple of days online, and if there's something on there that doesn't look familiar, I check it against my spreadsheet. If it doesn't match up, then I call the bank. In that spreadsheet, I budget ahead for all the bills I know I'm going to have, and most of the amounts stay pretty steady, and I can roughly budget the ones that change. That way, I know how much play money I have. I have money automatically transferred from my checking to my savings every pay period, and have that budgeted in to my spreadsheet as well, so I can build up my savings account without even thinking about it. Combine all this with the muti-tasking for stocks, and the five hours can be brought down to two, and that's a high estimate. Three hours saved there.

So if your eleven hours of internet time is so important to you, fine, with the steps above, you can probably save an additional 10 hours per week, making your free time 16 hours per week, more if you workout with friends/dates.

Good luck. =)

__________________
Don't trust anything that can bleed for a week and not die. Oh wait, that's me... nevermind... you can trust me.

monkeysugar

It's a matter of priorities.
30 hours/week for internet: is that a necessity or is that a replacement for your social life? It sounds like you are goal and schedule oriented: try setting a goal to go out socially once a week, during the time you'd usually be on the internet for leisure. Let it build from there.

__________________
I've got the love of my life and a job that I enjoy most of the time. Life is good.

jewels

Just bumped into this old thread and wondered how it was going for you.

I sometimes neglect friendships because I can get caught up in other things, but sometimes I have to pull back to take a new look at my priorities. Maybe you've got some new insight to offer?

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

Ustwo

Old thread I know, but all I know was when I wasn't getting any sex finding time for it was pretty easy if the opportunity came up.

Dating potential trumped about everything time management wise.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

ASU2003

Actually, I was thinking about this today (and the past two weeks). My schedule has gotten better in some areas, worse in others. I can't believe that it's been over a year and half since I posted that... ell last year was a whirlwind where I was not at home for close to half the year.

I now only spend about 50 hours at work and doing work stuff. Well, that is when I am here at home. When I travel, it can be anything. And then I have to do everything to catch back up when I get back home. My sleep time could be a little better, but it isn't bad(~50/week).

The next issue is that I just moved, and there are a lot of little projects that turn into big projects. I hope to be done by February for the most part. But, 40 hours/week for the past two weeks in addition to working 50 hours isn't easy. But I want to get done so I can move on.

Yes, internet time was a big factor. In the winter here, TV and internet are easy things to do. But they also take away from time I should be out socializing. And that is the plan for once I get my house organized and fixed, is to find more things to do with other people around this area. It isn't easy though, since most other people hang out at home as well.

And my number one goal for 2008 is to automate everything that is easy, but takes time in my life. Like I have setup automatic bill payments for everything from now until Dec 2008. Monitorng stuff is easy, and I don't have to worry about changing my schedule to find time to get on-line and pay some bill that is due tomorrow. The TV schedule doesn't dictate my life, neither should bill payment schedules.

I do need to start exercising more, but I am in good shape still because all this work is a workout in itself.

I'm sure I am going to re-evaluate things once I get settled in and get my life somewhat back to normal. But, I still have the same issues as before.

I'm figuring that I need to come up with 24 hours a week (4 hours/4 work nights, 8 hours weekend) to focus on friendships, communictio, and doing activities where I am likely to meet other people.

jewels

Thanks for responding.

I'm gonna check up on you again. I need some inspiration.

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

ASU2003

I'm back on this same problem once again. It's been 6 months since the last update. But, things are changing a little.

I'm currently feeling a little overwhelmed and feeling like I can't keep up with my basic & simple life. I am traveling a lot in July and August and did almost nothing but computer and TV stuff this weekend. It was very unproductive except for catching up on a few unimportant things. But the basics like having a clean house and doing laundry didn't happen. I also wrote an IM to an on-line friend, but I probably should have been working on real-life issues.

The positive changes since the last time are that I have setup my linux DVR so I never have to be home to watch TV, and I have cut back on a lot of TV since the first post because I don't have cable anymore. I still have to limit how much I watch each week, but this isn't too big of a problem anymore. My house is pretty much all setup, and I planted a garden even. It took a lot more time to dig up than I had thought, but it is done now. I am still trying to come up with things to make life easier, and I still have a few projects to finish. And besides what is on TFP, I haven't downloaded or really looked for porn in the past 3 or 4 months. Both of the sites I used to use got all these rules and it wasn't worth it anymore. I have plenty.

And the biggest thing is that I am part of a Saturday morning bike riding group now. I even met and talked to a girl on two trips (she wasn't there last weekend for some reason, I may have to call and find out if she is going to be there next weekend). This is something that has never happened before, so it was unexpected and I'm kind of lost as to what to do.

But, I am still a long way from the lifestyle I want to live and how I should be spending my time. The internet is still a problem, even though I didn't use it at all from July 4th-July 19th, I was in a hotel room with cable TV and that can be just as bad. And I think the problem this weekend was that I have so much to do, it feels overwhelming to even start.