Intentional

My word this year was "INTENTIONAL".  I've never had a word of the year before.  To be honest I didn't even know that was a thing.  And then I started hearing about it, but the word had already come to me.

You see I was living my days fairly unintentionally.  I would come home, do the few things that really needed to get done and then flop down on the couch to relax.  That's how I have often found I best relax after a day of work.  But for this year I wanted more.  I wanted to find more time, I was sick of feeling like nothing ever got done.  And then I realized that I have all this time in my day, I'm just not using it properly.

So now I'm being more intentional with my time, and let me tell you, it's amazing how much time you can find in your day when you use it a bit more wisely.  Sure I'm busier, but I'm getting more done and it actually fills me up more than just watching TV all night does.

I'm listening to podcasts during my commute, which gives me just over an hour a day to learn something new from someone, or give myself something to think about.  I'm trying to get up half an hour earlier, to work out or get something else done that needs to be done.  (Although Cooper was up crying for over an hour last night, which is so unusual, so I felt that the extra half hour of sleep was more important this morning!)  I'm taking the time to meal plan and week plan, which makes me way more productive throughout my week.  I'm reading on my lunch rather than surfing the internet, which gets my reading done and makes me feel refreshed after lunch.  Instead of just going minute to minute, when I find you tend to waste time, I'm thinking "ok what can I do now that's worthwhile".

We live in a society where we are so "busy."  And to be honest I'm kind of sick of it.  I'm sick of us saying that we can't get anything done because we are too busy.  Because we aren't that busy.  I'm nowhere near perfect.  My house isn't perfectly clean (future blog post idea: when you spend hours on a task, but it doesn't look like anything is different in your house...)  But I would say I'm finding much more time to clean and tidy than I did before.    I still watch TV in the evenings, but try to cut back, and I try to get more done before I watch TV.   

So let's stop saying we are too busy to meal plan, or clean, or start a side passion project.  Because you can make time for anything.  I thought I was busy before I had kids, and I was.  But then you have kids and you find the time to do what you need to do.  Well you can go beyond that and find time for more even once you have kids.  It's about progress, not perfection.