Introvert Talks - The Missing Hours

Welcome to Introvert Talks!

"Introvert Talks" is meant to be a new initiative or theme, where I myself as an introvert, just talk about reflections and thoughts about my life, or maybe share more personal stuff. :)

This is my weekly post under this "Introvert Talks" theme and let's see where it takes me and us.

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The past week has been exhausting.

Aside from my day job, there were a lot of stuff that kept me very occupied. I started on a new Hive game called Crownrend, wrote posts in a new community called Eating Out, and still managed to write every single day on Hive. I am not sure if people noticed, I usually take random breaks from posting, not so much because I have nothing to write, but I do need to manage my time and energy and get rest too. I did a check and I realised I have written for 20 days in a row (this being 21st). Wow. Maybe that's why I feel so exhausted.

Then I had a random thought. Am I managing my time well?

There's always this issue about time management and productivity and as the week winds down to a close, I thought it would be interesting to look at how I spent my typical weekdays in the week. So I pulled out an Excel and numbered the columns Monday to Friday, and numbered the rows from 12 midnight, 1am, 2am, all the way until 11pm, with each cell being each hour slot, totalling 120 hours. I thought of showing in the post how it looked, but since it shows my schedule by the hour and I am not sure what people will do with this slightly sensitive information since it's quite personal as well, so maybe a consolidated pie chart would do.

And this was how it looked!

As some of you know, I am a stats freak and I like to play around and analyse data. So let's do a reflection if there are any insights or if there is any room for changes/improvement. Do note that this is only the weekdays, Monday to Friday.

• Work (31%): This doesn't come at a surprise. Unless one is studying or retired, work definitely takes up a huge portion of our time in the weekdays. Of course, there could be adjustments, such as a reduction if I am on vacation leave or if I am sick, or an increase if there is overtime. Other than that, I don't think there's much to maneuver for this portion.
• Sleep (30%): If you do a quick math, 30% of 24 hours works out to about 7 hours of sleep per day. As I grow older, I actually feel that I should get more rest, which means more sleep, but life somehow always get in the way. Nonetheless, I think 7 hours of sleep is pretty reasonable and would tick the checkboxes for those health checklists.

So that's already 61% gone.

• Me/Family (18%): This is the most valuable slice in the pie chart. It's my me time, my time to spend with my family, my time to spend Hive, chat with friends, play Splinterlands, pursue my hobbies, etc. I am always looking for ways to find time to increase this portion, after all, who doesn't like more time to do things they like? But it has been a challenge because there's only 24 hours a day. (And to think I am also looking to increase my sleep time.)

• Food (8%): This is the time I spent eating, which mainly includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. The preparation time, the queueing time at food outlets, etc are all included so the number is on the higher side. 8% of 24 hours works out to be 2 hours. I am not sure if adjustments can be done to this portion though, unless I eat two meals instead of three? After all, we all need to eat to live, and it's nice to have some nice food once in a while.

• Daily Needs (5%): I am not sure how to term this category, because it's just the daily stuff that every human being does. Stuff like brushing teeth, getting ready and getting changed for work, showering, going to toilet, etc. Nothing interesting to comment.

• Commute (4%): This would mainly be the time spent travelling on the bus or train, e.g. getting to work. It's a little "understated" because I am currently only required to go to office 3 days a week. If someday it's reinstated to 5 days, this number might proportionally go up to 6 to 7%. This would surely eat into my sleeping time (having to wake up), and lesser me and family time (getting home later). Let's hope it stays this way because I am already running out of time.

• Chores (2%): This would be the stuff I do around the house such as cleaning, doing laundry, etc, and also include having to go to the supermarket to get groceries. Again, this portion is a little "understated" because most of the chores are done during the weekends, compared to the weekdays where the times are already so tight.

• Exercise (2%): On first look, this number looks disastrous. Hahaha. While I acknowledge that ideally the number should be way higher, I also need to comment that the situation is similar to chores as well as family time, where more hours and activity takes place during the weekends, not during weekdays. With the big activities such as work, sleep, food and commute, taking up close to 80% of the time, it's just very challenging to squeeze in time for exercise. On the bright side, it's not zero. :P

So after this little reflection exercise, I haven't found a solution on how to increase my me time and family time, given that it already has a generous 18% (at least relative to most activities), and most of the stuff are somewhat fixed unless drastic changes are made. Drastic changes for example would include finding a new job with shorter working hours (but it might result in a reduction in salary), or opt for delivery services for food and groceries instead of queueing and buying them myself (but it would cost more), or taking a taxi instead of the public transport to cut down the travelling time (but it would cost significantly more). There's always trade offs I guess. After all, awareness is the first step and let's see there's any tweaks I can implement going forward to find some missing hours.

Alright, that's all I have. Let me know if you have any insights or time management tips to share too!