It comes down to time

Fellow Tri Mu, Tori, blogged over at the Tri Mu blog about time today, and I totally get her frustration. Balancing time is always a struggle. It seems the more time you should have, the more stuff crops up to absorb that time.

Reading over Tori's post made me want to analyze where my time went during this very first week of the year:

Writing: I devoted (on average) five to nine hours a day to writing. Despite this time, I am not as far along in my WIP as I would like at this time. I hope to make up for that in the coming days.

Hooping:In my life, hooping fills a lot of 'needs'. It is my main source of face to face socialization, my daily exercise, and it may become my second 'job' soon. That said, it ate a lot of time this week. I took a class on Sunday, performed in demos most every week day, practiced hoop danced and tricks during the weekly meetups, and spent way too much time worrying over music. Hooping averaged as much or more of my time as writing did this week. I need to cut back on that time, clearly. At the same time, there is so much with hooping I want to do/practice/choreograph/and learn.

Internet Time: This is a difficult category as it includes answering email (to my editors/my agent/readers/other writers/etc.), blogging, and updating websites. Those are all legitimate and important things, but it is easy to lose a lot of time to this category. This has been absorbing between two and four hours a day, and like so much else, there is a back list of things I'm supposed to be doing during my internet time.

Reading: I have barely been able to sneak any reading time in. Too much to do, and I'm too exhausted at the end of the night. If I'm averaging more than an hour a day I'd be surprised. Reading a book I am absolutely loving right now (by Jeaniene Frost), but I just haven't had time to read more than a few chapters at a time.

Sleep: I try to get at least 8 hours sleep a night as I tend to run down eventually if I don't. I don't think I accomplished a full 8 hours once this week.

Critique: So far this week, I have been a horrible critique partner. I've devoted absolutely no time to my CPs. That said, I don't actually think I'm behind on critiquing anything, so that should be okay.

Family and Friends: Sadly, this category is not only last in the list, but tends to draw the short end of the time-stick. I can't guess how much time got devoted to family and friends, but I promise it wasn't enough.

So, adding up the high end of those estimates and needs, I'm looking at 30 hour days without factoring in family or critique--no wonder I never seem to fit everything in! A time management system might need to be put in place in my life.

How have you distributed your time this first week in the year? What do you wish you had more time for? What kind of time management system do you use?