3 thoughts on “Time Management

  1. jigsaw analogy--ellis

    yes.

    oh, wait, are we supposed to say more? i suppose my biggest struggle is finding a way to do all of the different things that different parts want to do. what makes it particularly hard for me is that each part could fill up 36 hours a day just with the stuff *they* want to get done. so let’s say there are 10 parts who really want to be active, each of whom has 36 hours worth of stuff they want to do in a day. that’s 360 hours of stuff to cram into 24 hours (and it’s more like 12 hours, once you account for things like sleeping, therapy, eating, housework, etc). and even if a couple of parts can agree on something, it’s really hard to get consensus.

    less assertive parts really tend to get the short end of the stick. i know that several of the quieter parts have projects they’d like to be working on, things they’d like to do, and they haven’t gotten a chance for months, if not years. and i feel guilty, but at the same time, it’s not like *I* get to do the projects *I’m* interested in (and no, snotty people in the back of my head, i’m not so much *interested* in housework as i am interested in not becoming sarah cynthia sylvia stout.)

    the even more frustrating thing is that when there is so much more parts want to do than we can actually get done, what winds up happening is that because we can’t decide how to spend the limited amount of time available, we do nothing, rather than just making a choice. it’s incredibly frustrating.

  2. chariots

    Hahaha…. “yes” – ya – exactly – me too.

    I know I’ve worked SOOOOO hard on this, and am still lousy at getting places on time. Time always seems to go MUCH faster than I anticipate – and I usually need more time to do things than I realize.

    I’ve started overestimating how long I’ll need by like an extra 1/2 hour or so – and that helps me arrive right on time, sometimes!

    Now I need to account for the time it takes my partner to get ready too. And he’s not so good with the time management thing either.

    All I can say, is that I HATE it! My poor time management skills are actually hurtful to people – and I hate that. I just keep working really hard to change this pattern – and I’ve gotten much more successful than I used to be.

    Hi – my name is chariots and I’m a tardyholic.

  3. jigsaw analogy--ellis

    i’m pretty good about getting places on time. i think it’s important enough to some parts that we’ve just built it in to the entire functioning of the system. we set reminders for things and automatically plan extra time for things. it means we’re often early, but very rarely late.

    like for therapy, if the trains are running reasonably, then it should take about an hour, or an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. but i will NOT trust public transit to run reasonably, so i plan 2 1/2 hours. mostly this is so i have some time to decompress from the train before going in, but it means that if the trains are really slow i am still most likely going to be on time.

    i guess it’s one really useful thing about the “computer” i made inside my head when i was 14 for real. i was having some trouble remembering things (hm. maybe because of switching.) anyhow. i remembered that thing about how people only use part of their brains so i figured i would practice training one part of my brain to be aware of all of those little details. i worked pretty hard on that, and it’s good for things like remembering things i’m supposed to do, or where i’m supposed to be, or having a sense of how long things will take.

    what’s funny is that i’m surrounded by people who just do NOT understand how long things take. so i’ll say “if we want to get to this place on time, we need to leave by ___ o’clock.” and they’ll be all like “oh, come on. we’ll get there SO early if we do that!!” but then the inevitable things happen, like traffic or needing to stop for gas, and lo and behold, we get to the destination within about fifteen minutes of when i said we would.

    or like knowing which things are in the house when i’m at the grocery store. there’s a running grocery list in my internal computer, so if i am at the right store, it’s like a message pops up “you need to buy cat litter!” or something like that.

    i’m not saying it works perfectly, but it does a pretty good job. i need to practice using it a little more, though, because i’ve been super switchy lately and i can never remember whether i’ve taken my allergy meds.

    oh, and one thing that helps a lot with time management is having different things that will text or email me to remind me to do things. like google calendar sends me an email and a text message and a computer pop-up message before the car insurance is due (that one is hard to remember because it’s not every single month).

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