Could I really be falling into time poverty?

I've been extremely interested in the theory of happiness lately. I would say I'm borderline obsessed but can still retain the pride of saying that I have a life.

The past month, all I've been thinking about optimizing my time. For one week, I observed how I spent my time. I wrote down everything that I did and discovered I wasted an average of 7 hours a week just on Facebook. And I'm not even that avid of a Facebook user. I only use it to read messages between me and my cousins. Maybe see some events. Maybe stalk a few old high school acquaintances. ha ha.

I "wasted" another 7 hours just cruising through the internet from interesting article to interesting article. But, it's almost like there are too many interesting articles and that the value of them have decreased. I come across an exceptional article once a day, I would say, but after collecting a weeks worth of "fascinating" articles, they all start to blur together. How much am I really getting out of these articles? I don't even remember half of them.

Though I hate commuting an hour to work, I've found that THAT is when I best use my time. Bus time is reading time for me. Uninterrupted, baby-proof reading. I've flown through my books (not at the speed that I'm used to) but I can now proudly return a book well within the 3 week library limit. If I don't feel like reading, I have the opportunity to listen to CBC without any distractions. They have the best programs running between 9am-11am. I've already learnt so much.

My evenings, despite being so crammed with just chores, I found that I couldn't push things around to get more free time. Baby feedings, baby baths, feeding myself, bib laundry and packing my lunch took my entire 3 hour precious evening. I've come to accept that this is just the reality of my life at this time and will eventually change when Rosie is 1 year old and no longer goes through 6 bibs a day.

So, despite my hard effort to optimize my time, time poverty is actually a legit existence in my life. It's there and I have to decide what to cut out of my life in order to maintain my steady stream of contentment.

Ferberizing baby

So it's 1:54 am and I am ferberizing Rosie.

Definition of Ferberization: "baby-training" children to self-soothe by allowing the child to cry for a predetermined amount of time before receiving external comfort.

It's been 25 minutes of crying so far. I've been walking into the room every 5-10 minutes to let her know I'm still here and that's it's okay to fall asleep. Let's see how that goes.

My decision to quit Rosie cold-turkey came out of nowhere. I've been having lots of difficulty sleeping with her the past month. She wakes up every 2-3 times a night now (vs. sleeping 6 hours before when she was in her crib). I gave up putting her in her crib when I started working full time. It was just exhuasting waking 5 metres to her crib twice a night and the anxiety attached to putting her in her crib made it almost not worth it for me. Would she stay asleep? How long before she woke up?

I would sleep at the edge of my bed with my glasses still on and fall asleep with the expectation of shooting awake anytime for another undetermined number of hours. Try doing that and working 8 hours a day with a 2 hour commute. Guh.

My decision spawned because she woke me up at 12:57 am after not falling asleep until 11. I was SURE, absolutely positive, that it was 3 am or so. I would have been happy if it were even 2 am. I guess my patience just snapped when I realized she had only let me sleep less than 2 hours.

I tried rocking her back to sleep to no prevalence. Sometimes I get lazy and feed her every hour just to stop her from crying. Then I'm drowned with feelings of guilt that I'm a wimp of a mother.

Fantastic. My mom just went and picked up Rosie. There goes 3o minutes of my work. I'm trying so hard to control my rage. I feel horrible and guilty but my patience is just running out. It's been so long since I've gotten even 5 hours of unbroken sleep. I just want to sleep again.

Just some picturesque updates

Life is fantastic. I'm doing good, spreading good and reading "All Marketers are Liars" by Seth Godin. I'm feeling inspired and am only on page 9.

Here are some pictures from the past long weekend and yes, I chopped off all my hair. I love it!




More to come. Rosie and I spent Saturday having a photo shoot with her great uncle. :)

The Time Project: credit card concierge

I'm on the path to optimize my TIME. I want time to work for me, benefit me and make me happy.

Credit Card concierge services is exactly what I want and need.

Know of any Canadian credit cards that will do THIS?

There are 168 Hours in a Week

I don't know how I never really knew this, but there are 168 hours in a week. Time poverty, you hear it all the time. Like never before, my life has turned into a race for more time. There's something I have to do every minute and I still can't finish everything. I sometimes find myself sitting on the bus after work and just inhaling time. Time to just sit and do nothing. Time to appreciate little things like the tiny hairs on the neck of the guy standing in front of me.

Time runs by so fast. It seems like just yesterday I was rocking a 6 lbs Rosie in my arms at 3 in the morning.

I think one of the smartest things you can ever do in life, is to just live every moment.
Imagine how much more you could get out of life...

Reference: 168 Hours: The Blank State of Time

One of the smartest designs I've seen in a while...

The Papervore from Pigeontail Design on Vimeo.

Do this for one day

I'm absolutely exhausted but just had to write this out. I recently watched this video and have been playing around with the word "why".
Such a powerful word contained in 3 letters.

My friend called me up today to ask for some help about his life. He basically wanted to find more fulfillment (I had just lent him The Last Lecture so I knew that this talk was going to be coming soon). So we talked and debated about how you can find happiness. Does it come from helping yourself? Does it come from helping others? What can steps can you take in life that would make you happy now, in 5 years, in 50 years, the minute before you die?

So my friend started listing out the things that would make him happy and then, I started asking him why.

Why would being rich make you happy?

Because then I could give money to my family.

Why?

Because I want my family to never have to worry about money.

Why would that make your family happy?

Because then they could do things that would make them happy.

Why would they do that?

Because then they could help people.

Why?

Because helping people is good.

Why?

Because it makes the world a better place.

Why?

Because people won't be unhappy.

Why wait to be rich if all you want to do is make people unhappy?

Why?

So, here's my proposition.
In everything that you do today, keeping asking 'why' over and over. Eventually, you'll get to the root and the answer may surprise you.