Have you wondered how some women find time to scrapbook, exercise, read, or spend so much time with their family?  I just finished Laura Vanderkam’s I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time and found the book to give me several ideas of how to “find” more time in my day (which I will be blogging about in the next few weeks).

If you have found yourself struggling for finding time to do hobbies and activities that you enjoy (or need to do and aren’t getting done) Vanderkam suggests tracking your time with a time log.

Here’s how I tracked me time, on Vanderkam’s blog, she has a free time tracker to download.  Each time slot is 15 minutes.  (I would have preferred 30 minutes but by doing 15 minute intervals, I was really able to examine exactly what I was doing.)

I tried this last week and was amazed at all the 10 minute blocks of time throughout the day that I normally waste either waiting for someone to put on their shoes, waiting for dinner to finish baking, waiting for the kids to get off the school bus, or waiting while Jason ran an errand.  These small chunks of time alone added up to 40 minutes of waste throughout the day!

I’m not trying to be a time Nazi or be 100% productive!  I’m just pointing out that even using two of these 10-minute time blocks would give me 20 minutes of reading time (or working on a blog post, throwing in a load of laundry, starting the dishwasher, etc)!  I can get quite a bit of reading done in 20 minutes and it’s something I love to do!

Now, I will admit that it took a lot of intentionality to physically track my time for a week (and I wasn’t perfect but I was very diligent about it).

By tracking my time with a time log, I confirmed that I am more productive in the morning so I can save some of my lighter tasks for after lunch (like pinning blog posts to Pinterest that don’t require any will power) to utilize my brain power in the morning.

I also discovered that I should always have a book in my purse! Instead of mindlessly browsing Facebook while I’m waiting for Jason (or for a kid to finish up an activity) I can use that time to read (which added up to over 20 minutes throughout the week).

I also found it interesting that by tracking my time, I was able to see exactly how much sleep I was getting (or not getting in a few cases).

Have you ever tried tracking time?  Where do you think you could find time to do more of what you love?

Hi ladies! Welcome to week 57 of Women With Intention Wednesdays!

Welcome to a new week of Women With Intention Wednesdays!  I’m so thankful for a new week!  Last week several of my kids battled strep throat and now we are smack in the middle of a blizzard!  Needless to say, I have a family that is ready to get out of the house!  I’m so thankful they are all healthy again and we still have power!

Next week I’d like to have our first featured blogger.  If you’d like to be a featured blogger, here is the link for you to fill out a link to be the Featured Blogger on WWIW’s! There aren’t many questions and I’d love to include you in our features!

Last week the most popular post was Using Your Worship as Your War-ship by Ifeoma at Purposeful and Meaningful. I loved her clever play on words and am happy to feature her this week!

Welcome to Women With Intention Wednesdays!

Here is what you will find at Women With Intention Wednesdays:

• This is a link up party where you come to encourage one another, have fun, and share your best posts to help women live their best life!
• In other words, any post that you have written about Christian living, homemaking, relationships, healthy living, living a frugal life or that helps another woman can be included in this link up! Please just them family friendly (I reserve the right to remove anything that I feel isn’t appropriate).
• This link up is beneficial for every woman! Whether you are a blogger or a reader, this is one you won’t want to miss! I’m very excited to offer this link up as a place to not only build new relationships between bloggers but also by providing an awesome resource of information for my readers!

Here are the rules of this link up:

1. You must link directly to your post (no homepages, please).
2. Please link up no more than 2 posts each week and please do not link up the same post week after week.

3. For every link you add, please visit the link before you and one other of your choice. If your links are consecutive visit the blogger before you and your choice for the 2nd link. It’s impossible to build relationships when no one communicates! Please don’t link and run!

4. By linking up you give me permission to share your posts and photos on this blog and social media. Each week I will choose a featured blogger as well as the most popular post. I will only feature you and the most popular posts if you have followed the rules (otherwise I’ll move on to the next most popular post). All features will be linked back to the original source.
5. You also give me permission to email you a quick reminder that the party is live. You may opt out anytime. I don’t spam my readers with emails.
6. Answer the community building question below so we all get to know each other! That’s the purpose of being here! 🙂

I’d love for you to add a button to help spread the word about Women With Intention Wednesdays (thank you)!

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If you were featured, please feel free to grab this button!

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Community Building Question: If you had 30 minutes of free time today to do whatever you wanted, what would you do?

I would read!  I’m smack in the middle of a book and I’ve been trying to sneak in small pockets of time to keep reading!  This blizzardy weather is the perfect opportunity to curl up and read!

Have you enjoyed what you read here today? Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource? If so, please do me a favor! I have included the links below to share with other intentional women! They’ll be glad you did!