Why you feel like you never have time

Maybe normal people don’t have to think about this stuff, but I do. If you’ve played the Sims and chafed that it takes your sim so long to finish breakfast and walk to the footpath to catch their carpool (which waits a generous hour) that they consistently miss work, you’ll know what my life is like some days.

I don’t know where the time goes. I don’t know how my child is turning ten this year. I don’t know why I live with my husband but still miss him terribly. I don’t understand how other authors are releasing four books a year while mine take me a year and a half each.

And so, this year, I’ve been paying attention. I’ve been tracking my work minutes. If another writer in my virtual office derails me, I stop my timer until I’m focused again. I’m paying tracking where my leisure time goes and yes – how much time I spend on social media or blue-screened. Because there is a chunk of time every day where I’m awake, but unable to do anything. I’m off with the fairies. Lights are on but I’m not home.

I think this might be one of the reasons social media gets people, you know. Because if you just zone out into nothingness, people are like “are you okay?” but if you’re endlessly scrolling, not really engaging, you look occupied. You look okay. I’m going to bet the scrolling isn’t as restful for the brain though.

Maybe that’s why it takes my kids (and my sims!) so long to brush their teeth. Their brains are taking a short rest.

In my house “I don’t know why I did that” is a valid explanation. I remember being a kid and not having a reason for the weird shit I tried. Heck, sometimes I don’t know why I do things NOW. So I won’t be judging a witchling for their missteps. Tangent there, sorry.

Anyway, I have tracked and planned and read countless articles, so you don’t have to. Here’s where my time goes, and maybe where yours does too.

Sleep – Is anyone actually getting eight hours a night? I doubt it. However, you might be in the bed for eight hours, either trying to sleep or scrolling social media. And eight is a tidy number.

Sixteen hours left

Work – They’re going to make you take an unpaid lunch hour. And housework and childcare are still work, they’re counted here. I have to clean my house a minimum of one hour a day to keep it liveable (that’s with everyone else here having chores).  There goes ten hours every day, longer if you commute.

Six hours left

Marriage – I found a study that said healthy couples generally have two hours and fifteen minutes together a day (Or fifteen hours a week). It also said that included time spent doing housework but I think that’s ridiculous. I’m not bonding with him when I’m scrubbing the dunny and he’s stacking the dishwasher, that’s not what marriage is made of.

But we do eat dinner together most days (half an hour) and we make coffee together and chat twice a day (2 x 15 minutes). We don’t use the other hour and fifteen every day, instead we have a couple of nights a week where we spend the whole evening together. But for the sake of this breakdown, pretend we do. The maths holds true for us.

Hygiene – to keep numbers nice and even, I’m going to say this takes forty five minutes a day, including skincare and getting dressed.

Three hours left

Everything else – ideally this time goes to leisure. To living your best life and having fun. Socialising. Hobbies. But in reality, half of it is going to go to eating, exercising, sewing children’s costumes, home administration, and yes – staring blankly at nothing.

So if you ever wonder why you don’t have time, this is why. Because you really only have two hours a day to do that thing you desperately want to do.

But what about the weekend, Miriam?

Well if you’re anything like me, a good chunk of that is going toward errands that you couldn’t do while you were at work, children’s birthday parties and sports, volunteering, and other obligations. If your children are young, there’s no weekend until they’re in bed. Like yes, I do enjoy playing with them at the park and doing family stuff. But I’m doing it for them, it’s not the thing-I-really-want-to-do-but-never-get-to. You know?

I feel better knowing how limited and finite and valuable time is though. Knowing that I’m not disorganised or failing at being an adult – We just spend a lot of time doing things that keep our bodies running and our homes liveable.

And yes, there’s always some arsehole who is going to say “we all have the same 24 hours in a day” (I’ve been that arsehole before) but that’s actually not true. If you’ve got a newborn, you’ve only got 12 hours in a day – Literally half your day goes to feeding them. If you have a disability or illness, you have less time. Or you might have loads of time, but no money or no energy to do the things you want with your time. Which leads me to…

Manage your energy, not your time.

At one of the workshops I attended, the speaker dropped this tidbit:

“We only get about three hours of highly-productive, fully-focused time a day. That’s the most you can ask of your brain, so use that time wisely.”

I haven’t fact-checked it, but it’s emotionally true for me, and so I’ve been trying to apply it.

Before you ask, no, she did not say how to trigger that focus at a time outside of work!

Another good one I’ve heard is to manage your energy, not your time. But honestly, I don’t know how to do that! All year I’ve been tracking the things that give me energy (and what sucks the life out of me) but I haven’t yet applied that information to my life.

Sitting in the sun I find restorative. Gardening. Sometimes video games. But those things, whilst restorative, don’t give me a second wind. Like, I can’t get up from my desk during my 12pm slump and spend half an hour outside, and then come back to work. Once my mind has clocked off, it’s hard to get back in the zone. I might feel restored, in my mood and energy, but task-switching isn’t my friend.

Plus sometimes work restores me, while other times it’s draining. So, if you’ve got any tips for practically applying this advice, I’d love to hear them!

Either way, I hope this breakdown gives you some measure of peace and helps you pave your best path forward. Because that’s what we’re doing here: creating happiness. Building lives that we want to be present in. Feeling the magick.

Miriam Cumming is a parent, author, and a practising witch. Ne’s queer AF and unapologetic, too. When ne isn’t writing, ne loves playing with Lego and stickers, gardening, playing video games and sitting in the sunny patch with hir cat. Their mission in life is to have a good one, and to help everyone around them have a good one too.