If your kids aren’t back at school already (if that’s the case, you have my sympathy), they soon will be.

Today I am listening to the Go Back-to-school without the Back-to-Crazy Webinar presented by Laura Vanderkam of 168 hours book and blog fame and Current Mom’s Katherine Lewis.

And I am going to attempt to update this post as it happens, aka live blogging. A first for me so be kind and feel free to add corrections or comments below.

The hashtag if you want to follow the discussion is #168hours on Twitter.

Now for Laura Vanderkam’s presentation …

“Going back to school is a momentous time for all of us,” says Laura. “We often think of September as a return to craziness, but there are some real upsides to back to school,”  says Laura.

“It is a return to reliable schedules and a return to pursuing your professional goals. Others are going back to school yourself, and that’s very exciting, looking to balance class time and balance your life. Time management is a universal topic. By end of session, hope you’ll have more techniques to manage your time. Learn where the time goes, and decide as a family where to focus your attention: How to have bits of joy and other important things.

“Make space for the things that really matter.”

What is 168 hours?

What is 168 hours? It is what you get when you multiply 24 hours times seven.

It is a better way to think about time. It gives us a fuller picture. In any given day, we may not achieve balance … kids may miss bus, we may be late to work, but we do have other time during the week to make up.

If you work 40, and sleep X amount, you’ll still have 52 hours or more to do other things.

Why the disconnect? Who do we think we have so little time?

One narrative is the time crunch. That goes: Between two jobs, etc., we barely have time to sleep. When the National Sleep Federation calls to survey,  most people claim to sleep only six or seven hours a night.

When you probe deeper, the fundamental problem is people lie.

Oh do we lie!

Not on purpose. But I’ve found the American Time Use Survey, which required thousands of respondents to log data, paints a different picture of American life.

The average American sleeps over 8 hours a night.  Not just retirees. American moms sleep 8 hours.

The average work week is 35 to 40 hours. And the average person claiming to work 80 hours is really only working 60 hours.

Even when it comes to something as simple as estimates of h0w long we spend washing dishes, people exaggerate how much time it takes.

Most of us can’t even recall how we spent weekends. (Ain’t that the truth? something us folk at MomstoWork know.)

First step to understanding how you spend your time is tracking it.

You can download a time log from Laura’s website with instructions. Keep it with you and be specific.

You can write down “work” but more helpful to say, “email” or “meeting.”

Great idea:Think of yourself as a lawyer billing a client. Because time is a currency.

And break down time into categories … working, personal care, etc.

Later, tally it and ask, “Does this reflect my priorities?’

When I did it, I found checking email was taking up more of my time than I thought, and I wasn’t reading to my son as much as I wanted.  Why? I was bored with the books. Solution: I ordered prize winners.

Keeping a time log isn’t easy. It isn’t intuitive. Important to do it because it keeps you accountable.

I am hosting a 168- hour challenge. Posting my time log on my site and you can log with me, in the comments, on your own blog, on the 168 hours Facebook fanpage, or on twitter using the same hashtag #168hours.

Note: Vanderkam will  be doing a time makeover for someone.

Think of your 168 hours as a time makeover.

Quotes a mom of six children, including 8 year old twins, who runs her own business, who says: “Every minute I spend is my choice.”

I don’t do X,Y or Z because it is NOT a priority. Often, this is a perfectly adequate explanation.  For example, sewing Halloween costumes isn’t a priority.

But then you try it on other things, more important things …

I am  not going to read to you because it isn’t a priority … help you with college applications.  Try it  .. yikes ..

Here’s another reason to think of your time as a blank slate. Fill it only with things that deserve to be there.

Recommends doing a  list of 100 dreams exercise. An unedited list of anything you want to do or have in your life, places you want to go, things you can do with your family, etc.

Dreams you have for all of you.

I had on my list write a book, go on family safari, etc.

Suggests everyone get out a pencil and paper.

My list: Get my house better organized, spend more time with my husband without the kids, spend more time with each of the kids by themselves.

(They’re having some technical problems but it is still a good Webinar with good ideas.)

What did others say?

Nancy said: “More time volunteering and doing hospice care.”

Katie said: “I received a car from my dad and I want to get that restored.”

Katherine Lewis: “Wants to learn Chinese, and get down to her college weight and pay for college education, book proposal, etc.”

Stacy: “Learn to play polo and do (something?) crew.”

I’m quoted. Hey! I want to spend more time with each of my kid’s alone.

Laura says many people share my goal.

Denise: “Wants to be a better, more informed teacher with a philosophy I can believe in when I return to work after being a stay at home mom for nine year. ”

Charlotte: “Training for the army 10 miler.”

Back to Laura ..

Great recommendation: Do this 100 dreams exercise with your kids, your spouse, yourself.

One of the things which was on my list. I wanted fresh flowers and nice green plants on my desk. Didn’t take too long. Now I have that.

I also wanted to attend a concert. That didn’t take too long.

The point is to see what you like and who you don’t. And you may not even like the things on the list once you try them.

Start small, and then attack bigger things. I wanted to run longer races, like Big Sur marathon in April, so I broke it down. Now I’ve done it, it is off my list of 100 dreams.

You’ll discover more about yourself and your core competencies.

Companies do this … but core competences are things you do best that others don’t do as well. You want to be spending a lot of your time on those things that you do best, which others don’t do as well.

Usually they fit into three categories:

• Nurturing your career
• Nurturing family and close friends, such as spending one on one time with kids and building a solid marriage, and
• Nurturing yourself, such as a hobby.

If you focus most of your time on these things, you won’t feel busy. If you spend your time working on moving your career forward, or on going back to the workplace, you will be focusing on things you want to do. If you focus on nurturing your spouse or your kids …

Break down things on your list into doable chunks and block them into your schedule.

We live in a distracted world. And Twitter, email, pottering around the house, watching TV, will easily fill the time. So block the calendar, put in blocks of time.

For example:

• 6 to 8am could be great time to learn to row with another family member.
• 9 to 12 noon could be a great time for focused work, such as writing a book proposal, and
• in the afternoons, you could schedule things that can be interrupted such as writing a blog post or stopping by a language site to learn.
• 4 to 8 is often time with kids for many of us. You could carve out a time to spend some time alone with one of them.
• after dinner. Good time for studying, learning, time for working on a proposal, etc.

Ignore, minimize or outsource those things that aren’t your core competencies.

For example, I ignore emails! (Me too)

Great option for house work. It isn’t a core competency for many of us.
You can ignore, lower your standards, outsource (I do all of these and keep to my strength, cooking and yapping!) if you can afford it to laundry or house cleaning. Or ask your kids make lunch or buy twice a week and order groceries online.

Don’t over think dinner.

Buy up stocks of underwear so you don’t have to wash.

Get spouse and kids to be more self sufficient.

Sometimes we think we have to do everything.

Little boxes, little boxes, and they’re all made of minutes that turn into hours

Important thing is to free up blocks of time. We have time but we may think we have to do something else. Get those off your plate and honor your core competencies.

Many women want to spend less time organizing being the family social secretary, organizing home work, housework, getting husbands to control calendar.

Housework? Ignore, minimize or outsource.

Lessening the commute? In cases like this, you need to come up with other things to do during your commute. Making waiting a little less stressful or think about alignment, a special form of multitasking.

We have a fair amount of leisure time, but the problem is most of it comes in small chunks. And we can get better than that by carving out small chunks of times.

When you can’t get rid of small chunks, make two lists.

The homework:

Pick some  things that only take 30 to 60 minutes. Take a walk, etc.

And then make a list of things that only take 10 minutes.

For example, one woman had 10 minutes in the car between kids drop off times, so she read Hardy Boys books to her sons in the car.

Doesn’t sound like much, but over a week that added up to 50 minutes to an hour.

Which brings us to the end of the  Webinar  … and questions:

“If you are working somewhere until 6pm, you need to use weekday evenings, what are the strategies for that? ” Time during work where we can build things in. During commute, listen to audio books. Lunch break .. for learning Chinese, writing a book proposal.

Many of us tired at night … so we don’t think about what we want to achieve.

Think of how you want to spend that four-hour block.

For example, I want to do something active with my kids, ride a bike, and read a chapter of my book.  We need to be just as strategic about how we spend our nonworking hours as how we spend our working hours.

Wrapping up … check out Current Mom, etc.

What do you plan to do differently? What do you ignore?  I am notorious for ignoring my expenses. Crazy? Maybe, but they piss me off.

yes, you can do it all without going crazy

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