I’m the first person to complain about not having enough time. My to-do list is ALWAYS getting longer vs. shorter, I don’t read enough, paint enough, see friends and family enough, and oh, sleep enough. If I could just add an hour to my day it would make a difference.

Well, this is what I usually think. But I recently had a strange experience: A working day without interruptions. My husband took my daughter to school and picked her up. The babysitter (who comes after school for a few hours) met them outside and stayed outside to play with my daughter, removing even that brief usual interruption in my day when we get home from school and do the “transfer”, as I call it. I was feeling sick so I skipped my daily workout and it was snowing, so I didn’t go for my daily half-hour walk. In other words, I had a full 9 hours to work, uninterrupted.

I’ll spare you the details and get to the punch line: I got less done than on a normal day. Usually I work in spurts, which look something like this (depending on the day):

Take my daughter to school

Work for 3 hours

Go for a walk or gym

Work for 2 hours

Pick her up, play with her, do the babysitter “transfer”

Work for 2 hours

Play with my daughter, feed her dinner, clean up, put her to bed

Work for an hour

Eat dinner with my husband, clean up

Work for 2-3 hours, etc.

And perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that when my work is broken up into shorter periods I am more productive and get more done. But what this got me thinking about is the whole idea of wishing for more time in my day. Maybe what I really should be focused on is allocating time better.

As I was thinking about this I read MaryP’s note on our weekly theme of What would you do if you had an extra hour in your day? Here’s what she wrote:

“You know what? I don’t need an extra hour, not really. It often feels like I do, but when I go through the list of possibilities, things that could be accomplished in one short hour — go for a walk, have a nap, read, de-clutter that heap o’stuff on the end cabinet in the kitchen, write that post, phone my mother — they are all things I could do any day of the week. I don’t, because I let other things get in the way, or maybe I just prioritize differently, or maybe because I fritter time away. “

I found this extremely enlightening — thank you MaryP — and it’s something I am going to work on. I am going to see if I can shift things around to be more productive and to allocate the freed up time to all the things I am definitely not getting time to do now — reading, painting, calling and seeing friends and family more, and yes, that annoying sleeping thing. If I cut down on answering emails as they come in, checking site stats, reading tech blogs (which all say the same thing); if I take frequent breaks so that my brain stays fresh; if I get more selective about things I do in general, like dusting the office, which hey, isn’t that bad to begin with, will I have more time for things I am not finding time for? Stay tuned.

I’d love to hear what you think about this: Do you need more time in your day or do you think that it’s a matter of being better organized, prioritizing differently? Do you accomplish more when you have less time to do it?