Still Trying To Find Free Time (or Not Having Time Or Energy To Do Things I Want)

I know that everyone has struggles with time management and finding free time. But for a while, I was doing ok with figuring out my schedule because my work hours weren’t normal business hours. When I was done with work at 3pm, even though sometimes I was too tired to do much after work, I had a lot more time to add things to my schedule. Even with working on Saturdays, I knew I always had Sundays and Mondays free as well as every afternoon. And I often would plan things on Mondays since I was always free then and I didn’t have to worry about anything else that might come up that day.

But now, I’m working longer hours and I have more work days. My only day each week without work is Sundays. This has been this way for about a year now, but I’m still getting adjusted to it. And it is surprising that being done with work only 2 or 3 hours later makes such a huge difference. When I’m done with work, the afternoon is over. And I do have things as soon as work is done either 2 or 3 days a week. So my weeknights aren’t that free until sometimes after 7pm. And if I have gotten up before 6 in the morning to work out and then am not done until after 7 in the evening, I really have no energy to do anything else that day.

I have wanted to have more fun things in my life. I want to feel like I have the time to make plans or see friends. And I want to look into acting classes again. But because of my full schedule, I am really struggling to find when I can add those things in. And when I do have the time to add them in, I don’t have the energy. I know I need to have energy if I want to get back into acting classes. If I’m going to spend money on a class, I want to take full advantage of it.

I know that part of me not having energy is because I’m not getting enough sleep. But getting enough sleep also would limit my free time after work. If I was making sure I was in bed by 10pm, I couldn’t be in a class that was from 7-10pm like so many are. As much as I would like to sleep in a little later, if I did my workouts after work then there goes any free time I might have. In some ways, this feels like a no-win situation.

But I know that’s not true. There are ways to work this out and figure out how to add in more time so that I can do what I want. But I just have to be much more careful with when I have things scheduled. I might have to decide to not keep all the obligations that I have right now. I don’t know what I would drop or stop doing, so I haven’t tried to do that yet. Maybe I just want to do too much. I don’t know.

I know that I’ve had time management issues plenty of times in the past. I do always work it out eventually, but while I’m in the middle of it, it can feel like there are no solutions. And I should be grateful that even if I’m working more hours than I would like, I am working and I’m in a better work situation than I have been in before. But life is always a balance so when I’m doing better with work, I might not be doing as well with other things in my life. So I just need to work on that balance some more and hopefully I will come up with a good solution for myself soon.

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