This is a guest post from team member Samantha Landay.
Time management is something I have always struggled with. I am a mom of three boys, and I am a procrastinator by nature. I often feel like I can’t find a good balance between things I want to do and things I need to do.
One of my favorite time management techniques is something I learned from some of my favorite organizing and cleaning bloggers. It is called Fifteens. The basic concept is that you take fifteen minutes and do something. Set a timer and focus all of your energy on a task. When your timer goes off you stop and take a break.
Taking just fifteen minutes at a time to do a task helps reduce stress, stops you from getting bored, and helps you get things done. Fifteens allow a lot of energy to be channeled into one task in a short amount of time! Which means you can find the time.
Are your pictures scattered all over your computer needing to be organized? Work on it for fifteen minutes! Do you need to clean off and organize your scrapping area? Work on it for fifteen minutes! Do you need to organize your die cuts? Work on it for fifteen minutes! Need to get that baby album finished? You know what you need to do! It will feel so good to know that you made progress on something, I promise!
I know sometimes fifteen minutes isn’t enough, maybe you find your energy and want to keep going. Don’t let the timer stop you! The great thing about Fifteens is you can stop, you are allowed to stop because you only dedicated yourself to fifteen minutes, but if you feel like you can keep going then do it!
I hope you find this suggestion helpful, and will at try it a few times. It felt life changing for me when I discovered Fifteens, life seemed so much more manageable! What do you think about Fifteens? Have you been using Fifteens in other areas of your life? How do you feel about applying them to scrapbooking? Discuss in the comments below!
Editor’s Note: You can learn my best techniques for scrapbooking faster and managing your time more effectively in Focus, our 2013 simple scrapbooking program here at Simple Scrapper. And don’t forget, this week you can sign up for 25% off – no coupon needed!
I started using Fifteens 33 years ago when my son was a new born. No one knew how long a baby’s nap would last. If I used the entire nap time to accomplish a chore I felt cheated. If I used the entire time to read or craft, I felt guilty. By alternating 15 minutes of productivity with 15 minutes of “me-time” I felt validated whether the nap time was 30 minutes or two hours.
Oh this takes me back! My best friend and I were stay at home moms and we loved talking on the phone. This was before we got into scrapbooking. We also loved our soaps on TV. So we would make ourselves do a household chore while the commercials were on so we felt like we accomplished something and still had our chats. Even to this day we will have a marathon conversation (she lives in Fla and me in Va) and we will take a break for chores, then call each other again!
I am going to try this today as I start organizing my scrap room!
Self imposed timetables are a great way to get moving, particularly when multiple tasks need to be done. Yes, I use
fifteens. It is amazing what I can accomplish in fifteen minutes.