In one of my first posts I issued a challenge: You have $24.00 to spend each day, no more, no less. Where will you spend it?
I then started my Quest for Balance with trying a block schedule for the first time to try to simplify my life. That was painful and I shared some of my Scheduling Pains with that one. However, with all this focus on scheduling to achieve balance I found myself back to my first post about Time is Precious, Spend Wisely. Again, the question that came to mind is: I have $24.00 to spend today… no more, no less. Where will I spend it?
Here I sit with my $24 and now I will share how I would like to spend it.
The operative word is like, in another post I will share how it actually gets spent.
$7.50 off the bat for sleep! I did some research on sleep and found that 90 minute intervals are best. so 6 hours is too little for me, 7.5 hours is just perfect.
That leaves me with $16.50.
Let’s put $1.00 in the morning for devotional time and $0.50 in exercising because that is a great way for me to wake up and start my day. I am more focused, more calm, more energetic… just more of everything.
So I’ve got $15.00 left.
Now we’ve got to eat and prepare to eat so let’s allocate $4.00 for preparing and eating the meals and add another $1.00 for clean up.
I have $10.00 left.
Then since I homeschool my kids, I need to allocate $4.00 to that daily.
I have $6.00 left.
Did I shower today yet? Nope! Let’s allocate $1.00 to personal grooming please so we are not walking around the house stinky.
I have $5.00 left.
Finally I do work from home in addition to homeschooling. So let’s go ahead and put in my $4.00 for that.
Finally, I’ve got $1.00 left for my husband.
Whew. I’ve spent all the money I have for today and just talking about it makes me exhausted. But it gives me clarity on where my time should be going. Of course this varies during the weekend and day to day but the principle is still the same. I only have about 4 hours to give to work or some other outside activity that does not involve my kids.
If you find your schedule overwhelming you like I do, I suggest you practice this activity and write down where you would like to spend your $24.00.