Single Moms' Limitations

I had plans for today. It's Sunday, so I'm going to take Blaise to the park. He just loves swinging and propping his foot up in the swing to steady himself. That way, he doesn't have to hold on and can gnaw on his hands instead.

I also need to get my blogs done for the week. That's five blog posts. No problem. Blaise will sleep several times throughout the day, so that gives me plenty of time to do them. Great. I have a plan for the day, and I should have time to finish it all.

The problem is my plans never go the way I plan them to go... and not due to my boy. He is so good and patient. It all has to do with me and my bit of obsessiveness. I had a website redesigned a few weeks ago. Now each time I need something changed on my site, I have to do it myself, and I am not familiar with the software which just add problems and time to what I need to do. So I have to email my designer asking questions, if I can't find the answer or figure it out myself. I spent 13 hours on my site today, minus feeding Blaise and taking him to the park for an hour. Thirteen ridiculous hours--and most of that was NOT on social media sites--and I still didn't get it figured out.

It's frustrating working on something for so long and it not being the way you want it. I feel like I wasted so much time doing it. How much time do you spend doing something that would be easier to find someone else to do for you?

It's easy to think, I'll just go ahead and do it myself. It shouldn't take too long. Then initially it doesn't, but the longer you're doing it, the more time it's taking. It's not your specialty, so you aren't efficient doing it. One task takes you two or three times longer than it should. Then you get frustrated about that one thing, so you go slower on the other parts. Then before you know it, the whole process takes you forever. You realize you could have hired someone to do it for less than the amount of hours it's taken you to do it.

What kept you from hiring someone to do it? What is your time worth? When you spend a lot of time doing something that is not your forte, you are taking time away from doing something that is more important.

For instance if you spend time updating your website, and it takes 13 hours to do it. That is 13 hours of time you could be spending doing what you're good at. So is it worth spending 13 hours doing something that is not your specialty? Even if you had to pay someone $260 to update your website. That's $20 an hour. So is your time worth $20 an hour? Is paying $20 an hour worth spending that time on what you should be doing in order to make $50 (or whatever you charge) an hour? I think so, because you are still coming out $30 an hour ahead ($50-$20=$30).

Sometimes it may seem like you don't have the money or don't want to spend the money on something, but it's important to think about the amount of time it will take you to complete a task. Is it worth your spending that time, when you could could be spending it being more productive on other things?

Needless to say, my blog posts for the week didn't happen. At the end of the 13 hours, I was exhausted... more specifically, my brain was exhausted. I started writing and when I re-read them the next day, there was mistake after mistake, and I was barely making sense to myself. That's a scary thought.

I realize I don't have to do everything myself. I can have someone else do things where their specialties lie, so I can spend time where I thrive. That will not only make my life so much easier, but it will also relieve the pressure and stress that I'm unknowingly putting on myself. As a single mom, we can all use that!