Time Management Skills

In the last couple of weeks I’ve learned of the bottomless bucket of time suckage that is Pinterest. I’ve had great fun looking at motivational fitness “posters”, shoes, food and my favorite subject: Halloween Decorations. Around the same time I as I discovered the blackhole of Pinterest I began tweeting. Cause all the cool kids are doing it. At least that’s what my new friends at the Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged Conference told me. “You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. You must tweet.”

To continue my downward spiral toward the Dark Side, Darth Husband and I went out and replaced our crappy old laptop with a beautiful new iMac desktop with a huge screen which holds me spellbound. I’m not actually using it yet, I just stare at the screen saver of the Universe that came preloaded and contemplate my existance before iProducts. I haven’t used a Mac in about 14 years. I worry that my learning curve will be of epic proportion. It will be harder than house training dogs. Or kids. Or even husbands.

I often wonder how ‘other’ people get it done. Every time I wonder aloud why everyone else seems to be getting it done with time to spare, my spouse reminds me of a few things: not all those ‘other’ people work 10 hour days during the week. Not all those ‘other’ people are putting in the at work hours plus starting a business during their free (cough) nights and weekends. If only life handed me free nights and weekends like my cellular service does. Not all those ‘other’ people have parasites at home who seem to rely on them endlessly for all their basic life needs like laundry, meals, shopping, errands, making appointments, keeping schedules, and all that stuff that makes every day a little hectic. My home is filled with soul suckers. Even the dogs look at me expectantly when I walk into the room. And then there are clock spinners like sitting on the board of a volunteer group and organizing my first 5K  as race director. All this and I’m supposed to workout too? Can one be the perfect employee, volunteer, volunteer coordinator, wife, mother, business owner AND get ripped abs at the same time I wonder?  Meanwhile I  Pin healthy recipes and shopping lists to keep my family fit and maybe someone will tweet a time saving gadget that will help me with the household chores, hello Housekeeper App. No, I’m probably not going to get ripped but I can keep myself from being unhealthy and/or needing to buy the extra plane seat ticket, yeah I’m talking to you Kevin Smith.

So how do ‘other’ people get it done? I’ve heard of Apps that are supposed to make it easier. Checklist Wrangler, Shopper, List Maker…does anyone out there in the blogosphere use these apps and what are your recommendations? My Google Calendar is only getting me so far and I could use the help. Honestly it isn’t getting me far because I really use an old fashioned desk blotter calendar which I leave at work. Does scheduling exact times for things that need to be done work for anyone? I’m a chronic list maker and I usually manage to tick things off the list but I am not great at prioritizing or scheduling. I need intervention. So Tweet me or Facebook message me or yahoo chat or face time or….