Recently this quote caught my attention: Not enough hours in the day? Stop doing things that don’t matter.
When I became a first-time mother 7 months ago, just like most parents, I began to feel like most of my time now went to raising my baby. Mind you, that’s not a waste of time at all. I think it’s a very honorable as well as challenging endeavor. You’re raising a human being who will be contributing and impacting this planet. I clearly didn’t have much luxury anymore to do what I want, or to go where I want, when I want. I even asked a respected teacher of ours in regards to voluntary worship – I told him that I am not able to perform as much voluntary worship as I did prior to having a baby. He advised me that raising a child is worship in itself, and that I should be in a state of remembrance of God in all times.
One evening while chatting with my husband I told him that, while it’s true I am not as ‘free’ as I used to be before, the real problem was different. I just spend way too much time on my mobile phone. I underestimate how much of my time it takes. I realized the gravity of this issue even further when I stumbled upon Dallas Hartwig’s More Social Less Media program. I did very well for a while. I avoided using it while in the presence of people, including my baby daughter because she’s an individual too! I didn’t browse the internet or text with friends while nursing her, and I didn’t look at my notifications first thing in the morning. I keep my wifi off while sleeping anyway, so I avoided turning my wifi on until after I was done with my morning errands in the house. I avoided looking at FB on my phone, and only made some time for that to be done on my laptop at some point in the day. Actually in this way I was able to answer more messages and focus on important notifications in a more attentive manner.
Then I lost some discipline and so some days I’m good, some days I’m bad. But I would really like to start again. I definitely noticed that I had more time in my hands, I connected with my daughter even more and I also felt like she received the respect she deserves as an individual. Our babies grow in a blink of an eye; we don’t want to miss those precious, fleeting moments while scrolling down useless feeds.
What are some distractions that take up your time?
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