One would think that if a person doesn’t have a “real” job, it would be plenty easy enough to get things done. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, if I had a “real” job, I wouldn’t have time to eat or sleep.

Ecommerce is my Real Job. Living in the middle of nowhere (75 miles from the nearest Walmart = middle of nowhere) doesn’t provide a lot of opportunity. I love ecommerce, and am very thankful for its existence even though it’s often misunderstood by the “real” people with “real” jobs in the “real” world.

So yeah, I’m self-employed. That alone is a job. Trying to ride herd over my independent nature is no easy task. Add a bit of obsessive behavior and AADD (adult attention deficit disorder), and it becomes a heroic challenge. Instilling order among the disorders is not for the easily-defeated.

Time management plays a HUGE part in my life. Can’t live without it, can’t live with it. It’s an ongoing battle to keep any sort of schedule that isn’t set in 5-minute increments. Those who are familiar with AADD know what I’m talking about. If you’re not familiar with it, check out that link to Wikipedia’s explanation. Here’s another site I just found, looks very interesting: Born to Explore

Fire ant busy at work. Do ants sleep?

So anyway, breaking a workday into segments doesn’t work. I’ve searched for an answer for years now, trying many ideas that just didn’t help. Then I found biphasic sleep and it’s pretty much turned my life around. That link is just for one of many sites that have information about this type of sleep. A quick Google search will bring up a lot of info.

So what is “biphasic sleep”??? Well, you could call it “taking a nap”. It’s exactly what the name implies: two sleep phases. Most people use one sleep phase, or polyphasic sleep – they have one sleep session in a 24-hour period. The biggie about biphasic is that you go with the flow of your body’s natural sleep cycles. These are 90-minute cycles that include REM sleep, which is the deep sleep that we need to re-energize. By going with the natural cycle, you don’t force yourself to wake up in the middle of a sleep cycle. When you wake up, you really wake up, as in refreshed, energized and ready for the day (or night). And you don’t need an alarm clock!

Lizard, ready to take a nap.

So instead of breaking the workday into segments, the day breaks up into two days in one 24-hour period:
-7 or 8:00 AM – get up, putz around the house, maybe work a little. This “first day” is mainly for housework or personal stuff, with some time set aside for making things and photos. I do try to get one thing listed in each store every morning, but all the work has been done at night.
-2 or 3:00 PM – go to bed, sleep for either 1 1/2 or 3 hours, depending on how physical the morning was.
-Sometime around 4 – 6:00 PM I’m up for the workday: photo editing, writing descriptions, researching vintage stuff, listing in the stores, etc. This “second day” is mainly for work and making things, though sometimes dishes or something get done or office area gets cleaned or whatever.
-2 or 3:00 AM – go to bed, sleep for 3 to 6 hours.

And yes, there’s still a time management factor, but it’s in bigger chunks, and even in days (laundry, photo sessions, etc. have their own day(s)).
This is like a whole different way of life, and has made an amazing change in quality of life.

Actually, it hasn’t all been neglected. There’s this thing called Organization. Been working on that. Sorta.

Do you have an organized life? Are you one of those who has a time for everything? Is your home organized? Is there “a place for everything and everything in it’s place”?

I used to be like that. I got over it. Unfortunately, I’m finding that maybe just a wee bit of organization might be a Good Thing after all. Mom would be proud…

So now there’s a work schedule – when to work, when to play. There’s also a schedule within that schedule – what will get my attention, and when. Time management. Once upon a time, I excelled at that. Now, not so much. It’s a rough road but, when you get so many irons in the fire, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.

There’s some great software out there for those of you who might need some help with this organization crap. It’s called My Life Organized. I downloaded it a while back and will be digging into it in the coming week. We’ll see how it goes…

If you try it out, let me know how it works for you.

As for the “place for everything and everything in it’s place”, well, that’s more of a challenge… heh. Will think about that for a while :-p

I’ll be back in a bit, gotta go check the stores and shops :-)