One of my goals for this month is improving my time management skills. When I sat down to write this I realized I’ve been looking at time management as something isolated, but I need to figure out how to merge it with my daily responsibilities and long term plans.

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I’m still trying to decide how structured I need to be. While I feel like I don’t manage my time well, I’m seldom late, I meet all my obligations and I get Emma to where she needs to be on time. It makes me wonder if I’m doing as badly as I think I am. Here’s my plan:

• Rethink volunteering: I jumped into volunteering when Emma started school. I helped out with a few PTA events, and became a Girl Scout leader. Last fall, when Emma’s basketball team needed a coach, I offered to do it even though I knew nothing about coaching. At the moment I’m co-chairing an author visit event at Emma’s school, and it’s been very stressful, which I’m taking as a sign not to run anything again. On the flip side, I love Girl Scouts and my experience has been great, so I’ve decided that scouting will be the way I contribute to the community.

• Trim the apron strings: Emma takes dance once a week, two classes back-to-back.. Most of the time, I wait there, parking myself on a hard wooden bench for an hour and a half. But I know I can make better use of the time by running errands or even going home. This is also a little connected to volunteering. She was unhappy when she learned that I was coaching her basketball team. I didn’t take it personally, because I realized I had a hand in all her activities, and she never had a chance to have something just hers. So I’m going to start dropping her off and using the time for something useful.

• Use a timer: After I quit teaching, I landed a job working from home, writing curriculum for an education foundation. The work was challenging at times, and I got into the bad habit of surfing the internet whenever I felt stuck. During one of my surfing sessions, I stumbled across an article about the Pomodoro Technique. In brief, it involves using a timer to create 25 minute blocks, called Pomodoros, followed by a five minute break. This article explains it in more detail and suggests some mobile and web apps. I installed a timer on my computer and it helped a lot because I knew I could commit to 25 minutes of solid work, and it forced me to work through mental blocks. When I got a smart phone last year, a Pomodoro app was one of the first ones I downloaded. I still use it mainly while working but I’m going to start using it for chores and decluttering will help with motivation. I drag my feet too much when it comes to dealing with messes so I hope this helps.

So my main goal is to free up a little more time, and when I’ve done that successfully I’ll figure out how to use it better and whether or not I need to schedule myself more rigidly. I think simplicity is not supposed to be this complicated, so I’m going to start small and try to figure out if my current skills are good enough.