mdlbear | River: Who knows where the time goes? (Reply)

I've never been any good at managing my time. (Or my money, but that's a matter for another post.) Caring for Colleen, with her limited mobility, has taken a large chunk out of my day. And I've recently discovered that I need more sleep -- at least 8 hours, where I was getting by on 6.

So let's add this up: a full-time job, sleep, caregiving, filling in for the things Colleen can't do now, and everything else. No wonder "working from home" is marginal, and my lunchtime walk often gets squeezed out. I seem to have fallen into the all-too-common caregiver's trap of trying to do it all.

Things have gotten a lot better in the last two months:

Colleen now does most of the grocery shopping online.
Friends now do a lot of the errand-running; we can usually find someone to take the YD places, and to go out shopping with Colleen. Colleen's making better use of her network.
I can work from home, especially in the mornings, and I'm gradually learning how to make that more effective and efficient.
Colleen has been making better use of her network of local friends, and can usually find someone to
The Younger Daughter can cook, though she often doesn't.
I can't multitask, but I can merge or overlap tasks sometimes: time spent taking care of Colleen is quality time together; I can do minor chores while she's on the commode. Things like that.
I go out with Colleen on Thursday evenings, so that's one less day when somebody (e.g. me) has to cook.

Still, it isn't enough, and it's discouraging.

Here are some of the things I've thought of and started implementing:

I've made a "reading" filter for my LJ friends list. I think that all of my current human friends are on it; it filters out some feeds, cartoons I don't care much about, and so on. A few of them are still there because Colleen and probably a few other people read my friends page. LJ and email are non-negotiable -- they're just about my only way of staying in touch with most of my friends.
I'm trimming the "AM" bookmark folder, which contains the things I read every morning, to the ones I've actually been paying attention to lately. I should do the same to my other bookmarks, and my link page.
I've started to accept the fact that I can't do everything I want to, or even everything that I think I need to.

Here are some of the things I've thought of but haven't done yet.

I need to shift more of the household chores onto the YD. I'll still do the dishes, but it would be nice if I didn't have to cook on days when I also have to work. Did I mention that I have trouble setting limits?
It would really help for the YD to learn to drive. We need to schedule driving lessons soon.
Probably the only way I'm going to make more time for music is if Colleen asks me to sing for her, so I have to make sure that she does that more often, and that I don't resist when she does. (Probably not on Wednesdays unless there are other filkers there.)
We have to get Colleen to start using Outreach for transportation when friends aren't available.
I have to learn how to ask for help and, perhaps more importantly, how to recognize when I need to.