If your day is anything like mine, you have little bits of time where you don’t really know what to do. Waiting for one of the kids to get done with a sports practice. Standing in line at the grocery store. Killing time while your tires are getting rotated. Or waiting at the doctor’s office. With the advent of smartphones and social media we’ve all become somewhat addicted to jumping on our phones and checking Twitter or Facebook. But if you totaled up the amount of time that you have in these bits of time you might be surprised at how much there really is. The real question is, can we make better use of this time?
I’ve taken to calling these bits of time confetti time. You know, after the little bits of paper that appear at parties or parades and then take gobs of time to cleanup. Little tiny pieces of paper that get in every nook and cranny, creating much more of a mess than they’re worth.
But confetti time doesn’t have to be a waste. Rather than thumb through the six month old copies of Good Housekeeping while waiting for the doctor (in the days before smartphones and social media), my Mom would take along a Reader’s Digest condensed book. She actually kept one or two in the car with her for these opportunities. She would haul the book into the waiting room and pick up where she’d left off the last time she had confetti time. Until I was thinking about this post, I hadn’t really thought of those books. Honestly, I inherited a dozen or so during one of her moves, and they’re sitting on my shelf right now. The important thing was, rather than waste those little bits of unevenly distributed time, she would be doing something more profitable. In her case, it was reading.
While I’m as guilty as the next person of jumping on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook during my confetti time, I’ve been making a concerted effort to actually use that time more productively. While I’m not a huge fan of reading on my iPhone, I do have my Kindle account linked to the phone, and when I have a bit of time I’ll read one of the books in my library. I’ve also made it my business to have a current magazine or two in my car so that I can catch up on that reading. At the rate I’m going with my magazines, I have enough to last me until the sun burns out…and then for another couple of years. Using my confetti time to catch up is a great use of those bits of time.
If I don’t feel like reading, I’ll pop into Todoist on my phone and check on my tasks for the day. Sometimes I’m just checking off the things that I’ve already accomplished. Sometimes I’m moving things around to make better use of time later that day or week. Sometimes I’m just giving up on things that won’t get done and I try to figure out how to fit them in elsewhere. Upon occasion I use my confetti time to add tasks to the app that I wouldn’t remember to do later. Again, this is a great use of the small bits of time that seem to cop up in the most unexpected ways.
I’m also blessed (or is it cursed, I get those two mixed up all the time) with lots of confetti time while driving different places. While we live in a small town, it still takes 10 minutes or so to get from our house to the locations where my kids practice sports. When they need a ride I’ve got a 10 minute snippet to use. Of course, I could just listen to music. Or talk radio. Or the news. But I’ve taken to doing one of two things lately that seem to make better use of that time. On the one hand, I’ll pick up the phone and call my Mom. I don’t get around to see her enough, and I know she enjoys talking to me. Heck, who wouldn’t…I’m funny, insightful, and always good for an anecdote or two! But seriously, our quick chats and checkins are a nice way to stay in touch despite my hectic life. Of course, sometimes my travels are outside her normal waking hours, so in those cases I’ll pop into Overcast on my iPhone and listen to the next podcast that’s queued up. Several podcasts that I listen to are ideally suited to my quick trips. So much so that I’ve created a specific playlist for short podcasts. When I find myself in a situation where I can listen to a podcast and don’t want to do anything else…boom…I’ve already got a group lined up and ready to go.
The bottom line is I’m making much better use of these instances of confetti time than I ever did before. In the past it was all social media and music. While there’s nothing wrong with that, too much of anything isn’t a good thing. Now I’ve got the option to do something more worthwhile whether it be reading, managing my task list, talking to my Mom, or listening to podcasts.
So how about you…what do you do with your confetti time?
