s/o "Time Confetti" or Using Those Scraps of Time

[JumpyTheFrog]

In the stay at home thread someone posted a link to an article where a woman talked about how the supposed 30 hours of "leisure time" she had according to a time management expert were all "time confetti" or scraps of five minutes here, ten minutes there. (He even counted time spent waiting for a tow truck as leisure time.)

 

I find that I typically have several hours a day broken up like this where I am waiting for a kid to just find a stupid pencil already or stop daydreaming or whatever. How do you find ways to use these scraps of time, expecially when you don't know you'll have a few minutes until they are dawdling?

 

How I long for blocks of uninterrupted time.

[Mom22ns]

I don't know that I can claim to "use" the time, but I always have a book to read on my phone so I can always fill a few minutes. If I'm home and need to kill 5 min, I usually do it by cleaning something.

[Critterfixer]

Well, typically I go goof off on the Forum. :laugh:  But if I'm being good, I change over laundry, scribble a bit in my journal, write a few notes on a story, load a few dishes, scoop a cat box, figure out next quarter's schedule and so forth.

[Critterfixer]

And I wouldn't call it leisure--it's just reclaimed time. Just like reclaiming a little bit of land that is already been mined for resources. It's not quality time, just time I'm not going to let go to waste. 

[regentrude]

I fill small scraps of time at home (for example while I work with DS on math and wait until he has a problem finished) with quick household tasks: start a load of laundry, wash knives and cutting boards that don't go in the dishwasher, wipe down a sink, sweep the floor. None of these takes more than a few minutes. Or I do a few quick work tasks, like sending emails. Or I get on this forum. Like now, while waiting for the pasta water to boil.

ETA: Come to think of, pretty much all of my housework gets done in such brief spurts. Chunks of uninterrupted time are too precious ;-)

 

When I was still driving kids and waiting, I always had a book in the car, and I took work such as grading papers for longer waits. Generally I found that I am not terribly focused during these times, so I gave up on being too ambitious. Read a few minutes, write some greeting cards, make a phone call, listen to the news - this type of thing.

 

I found that much of my leisure time when kids were younger was spent with the kids - hanging out at the playground for example was leisure time, even though it was part of my mom duty.

 

Love the term "time confetti".

 

ETA: I personally found that a change of attitude helped me greatly to re-evaluate time spent. My kids rode horses, so I had to spend a lot of time waiting at the barn, since that was out of town, so driving home not worth it. For a time I tried to bring work and was dissatisfied with how little I managed to get done while waiting there. At some point, I reclassified the afternoon I had to wait at the barn as "mental health time" and reclaimed it for myself: I no longer felt guilty about the unproductive hours, because I stopped assigning myself work. Instead, I embraced the time without tasks and came to view it as leisure time for walking and thinking. But I could as easily have felt resentful about time spent waiting for kids activities.

Edited March 8, 2016 by regentrude

[Critterfixer]

 

How I long for blocks of uninterrupted time. 

 

 

I find I don't get those unless I plan for them, schedule them and refuse to compromise on them. This often means controlling my own impulses as much as getting the boys to let me be. 

[Arcadia]

For me

 

5 mins - exercise by doing stretches

10mins - sort socks, mail, start dinner prep

Not sure how long - read a book or grade my kids math.

 

Waiting for AAA because the car battery went flat - tidied my email inbox and read the New Yorker magazine.

 

I don't like blocks of uninterrupted time though and if I get that, my furniture gets rearranged because of my excess energy.

[SKL]

Open envelopes, file, do really quick exercises, check WTM / facebook / emails, plan something my kids are going to do later, clean up clutter, fold laundry (if there's any around to fold), update my calendars, browse my kids' bookshelves or closets to weed out hand-me-downs, bathroom reading, 3-minute shower, check my kids' grades or AR scores, and if I have at least 10 minutes, go to jigzone.com.

[Guest]

I keep my to-do list broken up by context. At home, on phone, at computer, errands, etc. It makes it easier to get things done. For example, I never make phone calls from home because I know I have 30 minutes in the car every day. Lots of research can be done on my phone, while waiting on kids (planning a trip on my phone as we speak).

 

My issues is the time suck of "just checking" WTM, FB, etc.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Interesting topic. I have a hard time with time confetti too. The bigger blocks, like when I'm waiting at karate, aren't an issue. I. An always fill those with lesson planning, research, errands, whatever. But the few-minutes bits and pieces all day long are much harder and do feel like wasted time. I can't read to fill a few minutes' time, because it takes me that few minutes to get myself reabsorbed in the plot and then I get annoyed when I'm pulled away. I try to find little things to do, but it frustrates me to put a job aside unfinished, and often, if I'm not ready the minute a kid is, the kid wanders off or starts doing something to fill THEIR time confetti, and then it's a struggle to get started again. I do try to always have something to do, but it's hard to feel pulled away from yet another thing all day long. Nothing ever feels completed!

[JumpyTheFrog]

I'm thinking I need to keep a basket next to me all the time at home with things like writing a thank you note, birthday cards to send out, or anything else that I can do in an unexpected scrap of time.

[Miss Tick]

I love the idea of scribbling out a postcard during those scraps of time - although figuring out the necessary postage can be surprisingly difficult.

I knit for this reason, but that only works if I'm in a section that doesn't require actual thought (foot of sock is ok, toe or heel usually need a more relaxing block).

 

"Time Confetti" is a great term.  I also like Critterfixer's point that it isn't leisure time but rather reclaimed time. I can't relax while waiting to see if they are going to figure out what 9x7 is, but I also can't say anything out loud or make eye contact. 

[Critterfixer]

I do try to keep scraps of time down to the bare minimum. For instance, when the boys are wrapping up with French, I'm busy getting Latin out of the cabinet. When they are finishing spelling, I'm reading over the grammar lesson to anticipate problems. 

I also do a lot of prep work to avoid having to scramble. By unloading the dishwasher as part of morning chores, the dishes from snacks, lunch and tea are ready to load when I've got a minute. By having the boys throw their dirty duds right into the washing machine at night, I'm ready to load my things first thing in the morning and laundry is going first thing in the morning, just before I'm leashing up dogs for their morning walk. So when I get my first fifteen minute scrap of time, I've got laundry to toss to the dryer. 

I also try to use the same scraps the same way as often as I can. I figure out by cleaning things the same way every day I have been able to streamline the process to as fast as I can make it. I think that if I do the same thing with my time scraps, I can get those used in the most efficient way, maybe even toss laundry and do a quick sweep of the mudroom at the same time, for instance. 

The goal is to create a large chunk of good leisure time in the evenings for relaxing, writing, reading, or just sitting and letting the boys read their stories to me. Right now I've pretty much got an hour between 4 and 5, and 7-8:30 for myself. Working on getting a morning hour, too. :001_smile:

[marbel]

I try not to waste those little bits of time.  I tend to move laundry around, or scrub something, or work on the grocery list/meal plan. 

 

 

<snip>

 

ETA: I personally found that a change of attitude helped me greatly to re-evaluate time spent. My kids rode horses, so I had to spend a lot of time waiting at the barn, since that was out of town, so driving home not worth it. For a time I tried to bring work and was dissatisfied with how little I managed to get done while waiting there. At some point, I reclassified the afternoon I had to wait at the barn as "mental health time" and reclaimed it for myself: I no longer felt guilty about the unproductive hours, because I stopped assigning myself work. Instead, I embraced the time without tasks and came to view it as leisure time for walking and thinking. But I could as easily have felt resentful about time spent waiting for kids activities.

 

I figure waiting around is part of the job description of mother, so I don't feel guilty if I am not productive during those times.  I mean, I try to be, but there are some things that just can't be done away from home. But I have things I can do that are a pleasure, yet productive, such as reading a novel one of my kids is reading for homeschool English, or the history text, so I can discuss it with them.  But I also fit in some relaxation time.

 

Today is a community college day - both kids have classes.  I have started staying on campus and doing my "homeschool work" rather than going home.  But I also got a good walk around the campus while listening to an audiobook for pleasure.  

 

No guilt!  Being a mom is not 8-5.  I think in general, even the most involved dads are "on" fewer hours overall, including working at their jobs, than moms.  (Note I am saying "in general" and not talking about SAHDs and such, or anyone's husband in particular; based on my own experience and observation of families in my world.)

[shawthorne44]

I fill small scraps of time at home (for example while I work with DS on math and wait until he has a problem finished) with quick household tasks: start a load of laundry, wash knives and cutting boards that don't go in the dishwasher, wipe down a sink, sweep the floor. None of these takes more than a few minutes. Or I do a few quick work tasks, like sending emails. Or I get on this forum. Like now, while waiting for the pasta water to boil.

ETA: Come to think of, pretty much all of my housework gets done in such brief spurts. Chunks of uninterrupted time are too precious ;-)

 

When I was still driving kids and waiting, I always had a book in the car, and I took work such as grading papers for longer waits. Generally I found that I am not terribly focused during these times, so I gave up on being too ambitious. Read a few minutes, write some greeting cards, make a phone call, listen to the news - this type of thing.

 

I found that much of my leisure time when kids were younger was spent with the kids - hanging out at the playground for example was leisure time, even though it was part of my mom duty.

 

Love the term "time confetti".

 

ETA: I personally found that a change of attitude helped me greatly to re-evaluate time spent. My kids rode horses, so I had to spend a lot of time waiting at the barn, since that was out of town, so driving home not worth it. For a time I tried to bring work and was dissatisfied with how little I managed to get done while waiting there. At some point, I reclassified the afternoon I had to wait at the barn as "mental health time" and reclaimed it for myself: I no longer felt guilty about the unproductive hours, because I stopped assigning myself work. Instead, I embraced the time without tasks and came to view it as leisure time for walking and thinking. But I could as easily have felt resentful about time spent waiting for kids activities.

 

 

When I was a kid, me parents got the Bits and Pieces magazines.  It had a story about truck driving partners.  They both had a long drive before they even got into work.   The young one didn't understand how the old one was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the start of work.  The old one said, "You have a long drive to work before you get here.   I have a pleasant drive through pretty country before I get here."

[SparklyUnicorn]

Sometimes I use up bits of time to get stuff done and then sometimes I don't do a damn thing.  I sit and think.  I have several ongoing hobbies and sometimes I just steal a bit of time to do this little bit of thing or that. 

 

But all this little bit of time here or there doesn't really add up to a sense someone got a break or lots of time for relaxation.  it can feel very chaotic and disjointed.  And really only until fairly recently did I have the option to do something here or there.  Prior my kids needed more attention.  I couldn't even run a quick errand without that being somewhat of a production.  Now I can.  That's a lot less stressful. 

 

 

[Valley Girl]

In the stay at home thread someone posted a link to an article where a woman talked about how the supposed 30 hours of "leisure time" she had according to a time management expert were all "time confetti" or scraps of five minutes here, ten minutes there. (He even counted time spent waiting for a tow truck as leisure time.)

 

I find that I typically have several hours a day broken up like this where I am waiting for a kid to just find a stupid pencil already or stop daydreaming or whatever. How do you find ways to use these scraps of time, expecially when you don't know you'll have a few minutes until they are dawdling?

 

How I long for blocks of uninterrupted time.

 

Personally, anybody who actually thinks those scraps of time are "leisure" needs his head examined. What nonsense. That said, I use those 5-10 bits of time to start fold laundry (a few short stints, and the load is done)... file a few papers... wash a couple of dishes... empty the trash... pay a bill... etc. Over the day, those little bits add up. By 4 p.m., I can look back and feel as though I accomplished something. The down side is that the day becomes sort of scattershot for me, which is mentally exhausting because I'm having to jump from task to homeschool to task and back again constantly. I end up feeling very unfocused, which should make me have more compassion for my kiddo who struggles.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

The down side is that the day becomes sort of scattershot for me, which is mentally exhausting because I'm having to jump from task to homeschool to task and back again constantly. I end up feeling very unfocused, which should make me have more compassion for my kiddo who struggles.

 

I feel the same way. And often, if I managed to pay one bill, in my head that translates to "I paid the bills!" when really I have three more to deal with. If I spend a minute writing a postcard and then get pulled away, there's no guarantee that I'll ever get back to it to stamp it and mail it. If I start folding laundry, I'm liable to come back to my room at bedtime only to find laundry all over the bed in various states of foldedness instead of contained in the basket, so then I have to either put it all back in the basket or deal with getting the folded laundry to its various homes, only to do it again the next day. 

 

If I spend my days like that, instead of feeling like I accomplished things, I sometimes feel like I started a bunch of jobs that I never finished and are now hanging over my head! I like the idea of a basket of things to do. I was actually thinking of maybe making a list in my bullet journal of tiny things that need doing in those small spaces of time--like, "change a lightbulb" or "throw away three things in the fridge" or "bring two things from the pile downstairs." Maybe they'll feel more self-contained that way? So instead of feeling like I started to clean out the fridge but didn't get to finish the job, instead I can feel like I finished the job of throwing away three things? :lol:

Edited March 8, 2016 by ILiveInFlipFlops

[Ali in OR]

Love the expression "time confetti!"

 

I have a ton of time confetti around here; sometimes I use it productively and too often I don't. I think I'm pretty good at making the most of my time in the morning when I am full of energy. By the afternoon, it gets a lot harder. I have too many small chunks of time between dropping off/picking up various kids at various places. Not enough time to go home and really do anything (I'd have to turn around and leave right away to be at the next thing), not enough small errands to fill all of the 20-30 minute confetti chunks during the week (but I pretty much get all errands done during the confetti moments--not wasting big chunks of time on errands!) I always have a book in the car with me--most of my reading is confetti reading.

[JumpyTheFrog]

The down side is that the day becomes sort of scattershot for me, which is mentally exhausting because I'm having to jump from task to homeschool to task and back again constantly. I end up feeling very unfocused

 

 

But all this little bit of time here or there doesn't really add up to a sense someone got a break or lots of time for relaxation.  it can feel very chaotic and disjointed.  

 

If I try to reclaim the smaller bits of time, jumping back and forth between tasks, I feel like I'm multitasking and I know research shows it isn't effective. If I just sit and read the forum, I feel like I'm being lazy when my to-do list is a mile long.

 

The author of the article said that sociologists (?) call much of the time women spend "contaminated" because they have so much on their mind about everything that isn't getting done that they can't enjoy it. This almost never happens to DH. He compartmentalizes things very well and seems to forget the giant to-do list. I frequently say I feel like the weekend went by and we made no dent in the list, but that is something that never bothers him. Is that a man thing? Or just personality?

[regentrude]

If I try to reclaim the smaller bits of time, jumping back and forth between tasks, I feel like I'm multitasking and I know research shows it isn't effective. If I just sit and read the forum, I feel like I'm being lazy when my to-do list is a mile long.

 

The author of the article said that sociologists (?) call much of the time women spend "contaminated" because they have so much on their mind about everything that isn't getting done that they can't enjoy it. This almost never happens to DH. He compartmentalizes things very well and seems to forget the giant to-do list. I frequently say I feel like the weekend went by and we made no dent in the list, but that is something that never bothers him. Is that a man thing? Or just personality?

 

I don't know whether it is a man thing - I'd be inclined to think personality.

My DH has a lot on his mind and a long to-do list, but he manages to compartmentalize and leave work (mostly) at work. I mean, yes, he will work some on weekends and evenings, but unless there is an important deadline or an immediate crisis, this will not interfere with our weekend plans. When we were in college, we made the conscious decision that one day of the weekend is sacred and must not be used for work, and we pretty much stuck with it and it kept us sane.

I myself have a to-do list as well, both at work, and then there are various tasks at home for which I am responsible to a larger degree since I work fewer hours than DH. I do, however, very rarely have the feeling of  not getting done what I have on my list. Everything always gets done in time somehow, without too much trouble. And except for work tasks and home essentials, I am quite content to let "extra" stuff slip in favor of going hiking on the weekend. So, I'd say personality. I don't see my time as "contaminated" - I find a sense of accomplishment in using the confetti efficiently to free up the large blocks of time that are precious.

 

Edited March 8, 2016 by regentrude

[myfunnybunch]

I thought that's what these boards were created for.....

 

Just kidding. Sort of.

 

I might read a short article, correct schoolwork, organize papers, clean something.

 

Or I might just stare out the window for 5 minutes. In that "wasted" time, I've usually planned dinner or errands or solved a problem or made a decision or just taken a short break. I like those little bits of mental space throughout the day. It's like stopping for a little breather or to take in the view when one is on a long hike.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I thought that's what these boards were created for.....

 

Just kidding. Sort of.

 

I might read a short article, correct schoolwork, organize papers, clean something.

 

Or I might just stare out the window for 5 minutes. In that "wasted" time, I've usually planned dinner or errands or solved a problem or made a decision or just taken a short break. I like those little bits of mental space throughout the day. It's like stopping for a little breather or to take in the view when one is on a long hike.

 

Well it certainly is something I do with my bits of time.  Makes me feel like once in awhile I can have conversations with real people.  And it didn't require the production that is leaving the house to meet up with people.  I don't know of too many people who would enjoy me calling them for a few minutes here or there either.

[myfunnybunch]

 I don't know of too many people who would enjoy me calling them for a few minutes here or there either.

 

You mean, you don't call up your friends to ask who's going to tackle Tuesday, or to get San Diego travel tips, or to ask what they're telling their kids about porn, then hang up and call back later to see what they've come up with?

 

:D

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

You mean, you don't call up your friends to ask who's going to tackle Tuesday, or to get San Diego travel tips, or to ask what they're telling their kids about porn, then hang up and call back later to see what they've come up with?

 

:D

 

This literally made me  :smilielol5:.