There isn’t Enough Time in the Day by Debra
H. Goldstein
Have
you ever wondered why so many Type A people only sleep a few hours each night?
I’m positive there is a scientific explanation, but I’ve got my own (and I’m
sticking with it). There simply isn’t enough time in the day.
I’ve
been doing a little survey on this topic by canvasing different women.
Personally, I average four to six hours of sleep a night until my body insists
on crashing for an eight to ten-hour period. My body clock hates six a.m., but
has no problem being fully awake between two and four a.m. My low point is at
three p.m. One of my dearest friends has
a similar body rhythm – which makes for wonderful e-mail exchanges at one in
the morning.
One of
my daughters gets up between three and four a.m., but we don’t call her house
after nine p.m. An attorney friend, who keeps a similar schedule, welcomes her
trainer a few days a week at four-thirty a.m. I don’t know how they do it.
I feel
the same way about an internet writing group who has a morning sprint. Although
I am a member of the group, by the time I read their postings, all of them have
finished their hour of writing and have moved on to other activities. What’s
worse, many of them don’t even need coffee before they begin sprinting.
The one
thing these Type A people have in common is being overachievers. There’s no way
they could maintain their homes, shop, do the laundry, write books, make
presentations, put in ten-hour days at the office, be at everything for their
children, and pay attention to their spouses or pets if they limited their
activities to the twelve hours of daytime. What each juggles and accomplishes
is only achievable by encroaching into the other twelve hours. There simply
isn’t enough time in the day. I know there isn’t for me to accomplish only a
portion of this. What about you? Do you have enough time?
I knew the mother of five teenage boys in Atlanta. Her house was immaculate, her refrigerator always stocked.
ReplyDeleteI concluded that her sons lived in the basement.
We each have the same 1440 minutes each day. Some of us can sleep less than others—I generally need seven hours, which still leaves me over 1,000 minutes every day. My experience is that over time we prioritize those hours based on what is important to us. We get in trouble when we compare ourselves to others with different priorities. What we should do is determine if we need to change our priorities because they aren’t what we want.
ReplyDeleteAll of which is easier said than done.
~ Jim
Never!
ReplyDeleteI'm retired and don't have to report to work so I'm content with my schedule. I head to bed around 8 O'clock and read until about 10:30 or 11:00 and sleep until about 7:00 a.m. Since I live alone except for my collie Maggie and three birds, I don't have to cook meals if I don't want to. I do have two ponies, a barn cat and walk over to my son's house to feed our peacocks each morning also. I also have two book clubs to attend each month, and church every Sunday and my writers group the second Saturday of every month, too. Now that spring is here, I'll be quite busy planting plants, weeding and mowing my lawn, too, and not with a riding mower either. Meanwhile I'm working on the tenth book in my series, too.
ReplyDelete