This post is a follow-up to last Wednesday’s entry Tithing Time, in which I considered how an abundant mindset in giving away time might result in attracting more time. Cultivating a feeling that time is an abundant resource can lead to reflection and positive behavioral changes, I concluded, thus resulting in better time management. Having recently donated two days of my vacation time, I set myself a challenge to monitor my time more closely for the rest of the year, to see if any unexpected additional time does in fact turn up.
At first, there didn’t seem to be anything promising on the horizon when it came to attracting time. Thursday was a long day with a lot to do; I had two personal errands on my calendar for Monday morning and expected to take a half-day of vacation; and on Tuesday (today) I had a hair appointment scheduled, making my workday run longer afterward. Also, when my daughter gets her new apartment, my husband and I plan to help her move. So it just looked like I would be busy, busy, busy, with no relief in sight!
Friday went smoothly and left me feeling pretty relaxed, though; so I decided to do some work on Sunday afternoon to make up for Monday morning, instead of taking a half-day off. That was something I usually hadn’t done in the past because I felt that I needed my weekends to rest, and didn’t want to cut into that time. But as it turned out, the work seemed like it went quickly; and I didn’t end up feeling deprived because of having less time to read, play video games, or whatever I might have been doing instead.
By the time I got started on Monday morning’s errands, I realized that I’d already gotten back 4 hours of the 16 that I gave away, just by not taking the half-day of vacation time! Although working on Sunday is not something I would do as a general rule, I didn’t feel that it had made this particular weekend stressful or hectic. And I am sure I’ll appreciate that vacation time whenever I decide to take it. So, at the end of the first week, I would describe the time-attraction challenge as going well.
Click here to read the final post in this series, Making Peace with Time.