Time Pie

In the shower this morning, I was thinking about why I felt so tired and where all my time goes.  So being a visual hands on kind of person, I made a pie graph.  This weekend was a work weekend for me (although I did trade off half my day yesterday to attend a wedding..).  My work weekends typically look like this.  Maybe I should use the words ideally look like this since this graph doesn't include things like, time spent with my kids (chasing, changing, talking, listening, feeding and disciplining), cleaning, prepping, finding lost stuff... surely you get this.  If you add up the time on the chart, you get 48 hours, so obviously this is not an actual representation of my time.  And lets face it, I never get 8 hours of sleep a night... maybe on average...

So this is why I feel tired.  All these little slivers of my time are gone and rest doesn't really factor in.  Much less anything else.  I have been working really hard this summer to fit exercise... regular real exercise (not the I'm chasing three year olds around all day- type exercise) in to my life.  Where should I put it?

I tried putting my time during the school terms into a pie chart, it was ridiculous. But what this exercise did for me, was help me to understand why I do sometimes feel like I'm being forced into acts of super human proportions. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to complain here.  Over the years I have come to understand about myself, that I feed off this kind of stress.  I like to be a busy person.  I want to experience a lot f things.  I like to tinker, I like to try my own hand at things that interest me.  Subconsciously, I'm always adding more to my plate.  By the time I realize that my proverbial plate is full, the proverbial food is cemented on and I have to go with it.  When the cement falls off, I have realized, I find some new color to replace it and the cycle continues.  As I have gotten older, I am finding this life harder to maintain.  I do think my awareness of it has made me a little bit better.  Though I admit that I still get in over my head at times.

I'm not sure if I am a good planner/organizer because of my tendency to take on a full plate, or if I take on a full plate because I a good planner/organizer.  I'm really not sure what came first.  I find it interesting that what actually stresses me out, is when I loose track of something.  It is like juggling balls or bowling pins, when you loose track of one the whole thing comes crashing down.  Then I feel frustrated, sometimes angry, and a lot of times disappointed in myself.  I have always held high expectations for myself, and it is extremely hard for me to admit my own humanity.