You relax your body by tensing and then releasing your body – part after part (I usually start with feet and end with face) also you comment in thoughts that your muscles relax, your body is limp, your blood can easily enter into your relaxed body parts. There are many audio relaxation tapes and books about it.

You relax your mind by letting it drift while observing – as you would observe a forest from a high hunter tower – you’re silent, just observing how different thoughts enter your visual field and then go away.

One hour of sleep – starting from relaxed body, peaceful mind – equals about three hours of normal sleep. For years I’ve slept 3-4 hours, waking up fresh and ready for the day. In fact I felt much better than I felt earlier, sleeping 8-9 hours a night.

http://www.nytimes.com/interac.....038;st=cse

Terrible. we’ve got too much insomniacs.

I liked the reminder in #5 to cook. Fast food isn’t fast or good for us.

(I was amused by the fact that some of the things that are “time traps” for you are exactly the kind of things I want to make more time for: cooking, time with friends and family, and sleep. Which underlines Erin’s point about individual differences, and taking the parts of the advice that work for you!)

Lately I have discovered that going to bed very early and getting up very early (4 AM) leaves me much more alert than struggling to plod through homework with a tired brain. I can do an hour and a half of homework in the morning that would have stretched out into 5 or 6 the night before due to energy levels.

I would advise the time budget to take your peak productivity times into account so that you are matching energy levels with the task.

Maureen, CV, Dave, Handyman – Re sleep I definitely don’t advise less than 7 hours a night. I think I was thinking back to the days when I was a student and slept for ten then had another hour dozing after that. You’re right, sleep is vital for our mental and physical health. I do okay on about 7 hours though I prefer 8. I catch up any I missed out on at the weekend with a wonderful siesta:)

Simplicity – I think the pie chart worked as a wake up call for me and I hope it will for other people. Taking the time to work out that one hour of tv equates to 360 hours a year might make people pull the plug on it.

Jess – That’s a great point that working out where your time goes and then being realistic about how you can make time to do what you want. We do have to make compromises and also committ to long term projects if we want to make them happen.

Laura – Glad it worked for you too. This method also helped me reach my goal of writing a book and I wrote about 80,000 words. Keep at it:)

Ronique – I like the idea of working out how to spend your family time as a team. Time management definitely gets harder when you’ve got kids and all the more reason to focus on it and come up with solutions.

Thanks again everyone. I hope to see you here again soon.

The pie chart sounds like a great idea for many. I admit, though, that my reaction to the scheduling was “If I could do that, I wouldn’t be wasting my time in the first place.” I would be interested to hear from readers who waste time but for whom scheduling works.

Within the time that I am at school, the very act of tracking my time on the time chart helps me be more productive– do I want to have to put in my time chart “2 hrs desultory web surfing”? No, so I don’t do it. I shoot for 4-6 hours of hardcore productivity a day (by which I mean brain intensive activities, not checking e-mail), which, frankly, is a lot of focused concentration (I’m in a very math heavy field). I build in time for breaks (like 15 min to check my fave blogs but try to stay focused during the limited hours I have before I need to be home for family time.

Of course, before I had a kid and started a PhD program I had time for lots of hobbies and fun stuff, and I do build in time for a little of that. But uncluttering my long list of goals has also been important for my own personal happiness and sanity. My biggest goals right now are raising a healthy, happy family and finishing my PhD on time–and that’s what I spend almost all my time doing (as the time chart proved!) so I’m ok with the fact that I don’t have time to knit sweaters, take dance classes and take 5 yoga classes a week… those days may come again, but not now.

Here’s how I view item #4 – which really got me on a slow burn when I first read it. Sometimes we get caught up in being all things to all people – the perfect wife/mother/friend/insert title here. I know I try never to say “no” to a dinner/drink out with friends. But, sometimes we all need time for ourselves – to do the laundry, clean around the house, or simply lay around the house all day in our PJ’s. Its then I proclaim to my friends – I am having an alone weekend. Which means – I’m not going out no matter how many times you call. They know me well enough that, if there is an emergency or they need something, they can call. And they also know that I ask for alone time so infrequently that they should respect it and not bug me!

That’s how I have chosen to interpret #4 – whether it was the author’s original intent or not!

{{sarcasm alert}} Now off to print my pie charts!

The older I get, the more I realize that people are more important then my list. Sure, people *can* encroach and eat up a big chunk of your time if you allow them free access. I don’t want them to do that. I do want to be available to my close friends/family that need my help or just want to connect. I guess the way I “manage them” is to go to a coffee shop to work a few hours alone and not answer the phone if I *have* to get a project completed.