Finding Balance and Productivity: Time Management in Recovery
As an entrepreneur coach, I help business owners improve their personal and professional lives. This is especially important if you’re learning to find a new, healthier way of living after dealing with trauma or addiction. Good time management in recovery is key for your overall health and well-being.
In this article, I’m not giving a list of strict rules. Instead, I’ll help you cut through the noise and focus on how to best use your time and energy. We’ll explore why we often misuse our time and how to manage it better from a recovery perspective. Let’s start by understanding why time management is important.
Managing Time, Embracing Seasons: Lessons from Ecclesiastes
Managing time well is crucial because it helps us follow the natural rhythms of life and make the most of every moment. The song “Turn, Turn, Turn,” based on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV), beautifully describes this idea:
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
This passage reminds us that time is not just a straight line but a series of cycles. Each stage of our lives brings its own challenges and opportunities. Learning to manage our time well helps us align with these natural changes, and all changes have beginnings and ends. Next, let’s talk about why people struggle with that.
Navigating Beginnings and Ends
I once heard someone say, “Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” How true that is. We crave the good parts of life but shy away from the unknown and scary. However, like death, everything follows a cycle of beginning, middle, and end, marking the start or conclusion of something significant.
Starting something new can be daunting and overwhelming for some. Concerns about performance and fear of failure often hinder our ability to begin. Similarly, endings can be challenging, bringing confusion and a sense of loss, whether it’s completing a project or ending a relationship. These transitions can leave us feeling disoriented. However, to lead a fulfilling life and manage time effectively during recovery, we must embrace both the challenges and opportunities that each season of life presents.
Balancing Life’s Seasons
Effective time management requires balancing the initiation of new ventures and the resolution of existing commitments. For instance, you might find yourself single after an unhappy marriage of over 25 years, knowing that separation from your spouse is a step towards healing. However, venturing into the dating scene in your 50s can be daunting. Alternatively, adjusting to sobriety after years of self-medication with drugs and work presents its own challenges. Life often compels us to reassess and alter habits and patterns that no longer serve us well.
Life’s seasons often reveal our true selves, liberating us from limiting or misguided beliefs. It’s about finding a rhythm that propels us forward, free from fear and resistant to overwhelming change.
Spiritual and Emotional Impact
Our spiritual and emotional states affect how we manage time. For example, if we feel spiritually disconnected or emotionally drained, we might rush through tasks to escape discomfort or avoid them due to lack of motivation. Good time management helps us stay steady, no matter how we feel.
By understanding and respecting the natural cycles of life, we can manage our time better and make the most of each phase. In the next section, we will talk about why some of us struggle with time management in recovery. Often, it started in our home. In the post below, I discuss how some of us stay stuck in time because of things that happened to us in childhood. In the next section, I will talk about that impact in greater detail.
Too many of us are stuck in a permanent pause, both spiritually and emotionally.
— Denise G. Lee (@DeniseGLee) July 18, 2024
And it makes sense if you came from a home environment where thinking and feeling certain things were considered unacceptable.
So, you let the people around you (who were also stunted emotionally…
How Childhood Experiences Influence How We Use Time As Adults
Mismanaging Time Due to a Confusing Home Environment
Imagine growing up in a home where routines are always changing and expectations are unclear. For instance, Sarah’s childhood was filled with unpredictability. Her parents had irregular work schedules, and family rules seemed to change without notice. One day, her parents might insist on early bedtimes, and the next, they would let her stay up late for no clear reason. Meals were often at odd hours, and there were frequent arguments that disrupted any semblance of routine.
As Sarah grew up, she carried this confusion into her adult life. Her time management issues were influenced by several factors rooted in her early environment:
Fears: Sarah often felt stuck, afraid of not meeting expectations or making mistakes. Her childhood home was chaotic, leaving her unsure about what was expected of her. In her business, she spent too much time worrying about pleasing clients or making the wrong decisions. This fear of failure often made her put off tasks, making it hard for her to manage her time well.
Expectations of Others: In her confusing upbringing, Sarah learned to deal with inconsistent demands from her parents. As a business owner, she still struggled to set clear boundaries and decide what tasks were most important. She often felt pressured to meet others’ expectations without clear guidelines, which made it hard for her to focus on her business goals and get things done efficiently.
Goals: Sarah’s childhood confusion also affected how she set goals. She would often set very high, unrealistic goals for her business, wanting to prove herself in a competitive market. For example, she might set goals for making a lot of money without considering what was realistic for her business. This habit of chasing after unrealistic goals made it hard for her to use her time and resources effectively, causing her to switch focus often and not make much progress.
Activities: Sarah also got into the habit of staying busy all the time to avoid dealing with deeper issues from her childhood. In her business, she would take on too many projects and tasks, trying to look productive without actually getting much done. This habit of trying to do too much at once came from her childhood, where she learned to keep herself busy when there wasn’t much structure at home. It made it hard for her to prioritize tasks and manage her time well, often leaving her feeling exhausted and not accomplishing as much as she wanted in her business.
Sarah’s confusing home environment taught her to adapt to chaos, but it left her without the skills to create a stable routine for herself. Now, as an adult, she finds herself repeating these patterns of mismanagement. She struggles to break free from the habits she learned as a child, affecting her ability to manage time effectively and achieve her goals.
Maybe you don’t have a history like Sarah’s, but perhaps you know the fears that come from not knowing how to use your time effectively. With that in mind, I have five tips to help you create a time management system that will not only support your recovery but also help you understand yourself at a deeper level.
5 Tips To Maximizing Your Time in Recovery
I have five tips to help you make the most of your life. Here is the overview, and we will talk about each one separately:
- Don’t Regret the Past
- Understand Who You Really Are
- Prepare Today, Secure Tomorrow
- Focus on What Is Within Your Control
- Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
First, let’s talk about not regretting your past.
Tip #1: Don't Regret Your Past
In the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) promises, there is a common line that says, “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” What does that mean? Well, if you are a recovering addict like me, you have done and said a lot of crappy things. Or perhaps you dropped the ball on some stuff and let things fester into health problems, financial problems, shattered dreams, and broken relationships. When you are out of your mind, these things tend to happen.
In recovery, as we get our grounding back in order, we look around the wreckage of our lives and think, “Where do I start?” Or you start a self-pity campaign listing all the things you wish you could have done differently.
Stop that. It is what it is. You did the best you could given the mental state and resources you had at the time. Next, let’s talk about ways you can right past wrongs.
Make wise decisions and amends whenever possible
If possible, make your amends (Steps Eight and Nine of AA). This involves trying to right wrongs, such as sending letters, repaying debts, or any action to correct past mistakes. We can’t fix everything due to time, money, or other restrictions, but we do what we can.
Making amends is a crucial part of your time management system in recovery because it helps you avoid constantly worrying about the consequences of your past actions.
Part of this process is to make sure you do things that would not harm yourself or others. For example, unless you know them, don’t go to the spouse of the person you cheated on to ask for forgiveness for your infidelity. That only opens up further pain and confusion. Your job is simply to ask yourself what you learned, why the lesson was important, and how to do better with yourself and others next time.
God is not a terrible God that makes you stumble and fumble around making mistakes along the way. He will give you signs, roadposts, various resources, and even people to come alongside and help you.
Tip #2: Understand Who You Really Are
In my 20s, I was desperate to figure out who I was after the breakup with my ex-fiancé Jason. At that point, I thought that I was completely unlovable and there was nobody who was sane enough to want to marry me. Before Jason, I never had a relationship with anyone that lasted beyond three months. Combined with the fact that I struggled with work life, my life was in utter confusion. As I recall that, during that time my alcoholism fully bloomed, and I made a nightly ritual of drinking myself to sleep.
Anyway, during that time, I attempted to read the book What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles and Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. I wish I could tell you that I discovered who I was. But the fact of the matter is that I could not. Alcohol, bad co-worker interactions, and later promiscuous sexual encounters clouded my judgment.
But as a sober person now, over 20 years later, I can confidently tell you that understanding yourself will never be found in a book or even in this article. Sorry, but I must keep it real and tell you the truth.
So, you may be asking yourself, ‘How does knowing myself help me with my time management in recovery?’ Great question! Let’s talk about the reasons why self-awareness is important.
Mastering Time in Recovery: How Self-Awareness Supercharges Your Productivity
Understanding yourself is really important for managing your time, especially during recovery. Here’s why it matters:
Knowing Your Triggers and Challenges: When you know what things might make it harder for you to stay on track, you can plan ahead. This helps you schedule time for self-care and adjust tasks to fit how you’re feeling.
Setting Goals You Can Reach: Being aware of yourself helps you set goals that make sense for where you are in your recovery. It lets you focus on what’s most important and avoid feeling overwhelmed.
Finding Your Best Times to Work: Whether you work better in the morning or later in the day, knowing yourself helps you plan when to do important tasks. This makes you more efficient and gets things done faster.
Building Healthy Habits: Knowing yourself means you can create routines that support your recovery. This might include things like taking breaks, doing mindfulness exercises, or staying active, which all help reduce stress and keep you balanced.
Checking How You’re Doing and Making Changes: By knowing yourself well, you can see how you’re doing with your goals and adjust your plans if needed. This helps you keep improving and learning as you go through recovery.
Overall, understanding yourself helps you make smart choices about how you spend your time. It makes you more productive, happier, and healthier while you work on getting better. And productive people have a sense of purpose and direction in their life.
Being a Person of Purpose
The answer to knowing you is knowing you at a deeper level. Dr. Myles Monroe often wrote about how to find purpose and discover who you are from a Christian viewpoint. He outlined it in the following steps:
- God is a god of purpose.
- Everything God creates has a purpose.
- Not every purpose is known by us.
- Where purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable.
- If you want to know the purpose, don’t ask the created; ask the creator. The creator knows the purpose.
- Knowing your purpose is key to fulfillment.
And God is not a terrible God that makes you stumble and fumble around making mistakes along the way. He will give you signs, roadposts, various resources, and even people to come alongside and help you. Next, let’s talk about how to identify those signs that will help you gain greater clarity about yourself.
Clues to Help You Better Identify Your Priorities
Here are four clues to help you:
- Examine what burdens you. What causes, organizations, or things really weigh on your heart? Are you thinking about the welfare of animals, do you want to improve the water in your community, or are you hoping to make more activities accessible for children with special needs?
- Where does your money go? I dare you to open up your checking or credit card statement and look at where your money has been going for the past 6 months to two years. Beyond the utilities, how do you spend your money? Are you charitable with certain causes? Are you focused on certain types of entertainment? Ask yourself why this stuff matters to you.
- Examine how you use your free time. This is hard because, when we are active in our addiction, all the things we did supported it. For example, if you have an unchecked codependency issue, you may be spending all your time spying and sneaking around to see what your person of interest is doing. Maybe you spend lots of time going to bars, places where we acted out or acted in. But now it’s different. Are you an exercise buff? Are you spending your time reading about politics? And as you examine these activities, ask yourself if you are spending your time trying to escape from yourself or lean into your natural abilities and affinities. Now that you are sober, what things give you pleasure as well as help others?
- What are you good at? Are you a math wiz? Perhaps you can sing better than Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, or Dolly Parton? I don’t know. All of us are not going to be great a multiple things. We are usually good at one thing and have others things that we like. For example, don’t ask me to audit your taxes. I will almost prophesy you will go to jail or be fined if I try to submit your financial information to the Internal Revenue Service without the assistance of TurboTax. That is why I stay in my lane and write articles like this.
Now that you know the secret to your time depends on understanding who you are, your interests, and your talents, let’s move on to the next time management tool: helping your future self.
Tip #3: Prepare Today, Secure Tomorrow
The other day, I listened to a really good podcast episode from Charles Schwab about how to budget for important items like vacations, weddings, or other big-ticket items. They outlined prioritizing one’s needs, wants, and desires and understanding that all of these things can and will shift through time.
For example, you may think that you really need to travel around the world by age 55, but you realize that at 50, what matters most is having funds to help support your aging parents. Or you may have thought that having a second car was totally unneeded in your 20s, but now that you are in your 30s and have a family with four children, relying on one minivan is not the best.
How can you set yourself up for success when things can and will change? Well, the way you do that is by making sure you have overall governing priorities that support your day-to-day experiences. So, what does that look like? For example, if you have an overall priority that you don’t want financial surprises, you may have a system set up where you have 5-10% of your money automatically sent to a savings account. That way, when the stuff of life happens—car breaks down, health issues, or whatever—you have money to tap into.
Always think about what you need to do so that you can set yourself up to comfortably deal with unplanned and often unpleasant surprises.
Resist the Thrill of Drama
This may be hard because, again, if you are a recovering addict or deal with compulsive issues, you may have the Carpe Diem lifestyle, seize the day.
You may have been living for the thrill of right now with no thought of what the consequences were going to be later on. You may be addicted to that level of drama. No wonder why you may have felt like time was moving faster than lightning before you began recovery.
Now that all changes.
Shift your mind to think about what kind of support you need in place to help you think beyond right now. Some people, like me, have support systems with friends and professionals. We ask them, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking of doing. What do you think?” You need to put those guardrails in place so you don’t veer off track.
Tip #4: Focus on What is Within Your Control
Let’s face it, we are powerless over many things. People, places, and things will not be under our direct control. But this is not a doom-and-gloom story. You can only focus on what is within your direct control. Here are some examples:
- You can take care of yourself.
- You can practice habits that nurture your body, mind, and spirit.
- You can make sure you are doing your best within your resources and abilities.
Take Small Steps to Improve Your Life and Let Go of People-Pleasing
Maybe we cannot move away from a dangerous home. But perhaps we can make things safer by installing better locks, getting a dog, or taking other measures to improve home security. Maybe you cannot undo the damages from your addiction, but perhaps you can make changes to improve the quality of your life, such as improving your diet and starting a fitness routine. Making small changes can improve your overall outlook on life.
And a special note for my people-pleasers: You can’t make anyone love you, respect you, hire you, or approve of you. If they do, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s fine too. In Al-Anon, we have the slogan “Let Go and Let God.” So, we let go of the things that don’t matter, the things we can’t control, and the things that don’t directly affect us.
And we let God handle it.
That’s hard because some of us have control issues, which may have stemmed from feeling completely out of control as children. But as adults, we need to understand that not everything needs to go our way. Our way may not be the best way anyway. Appreciation and gratitude help you slow down and manage not just your time, but everything else you have while in recovery.
Lastly, let’s discuss the importance of stop comparing.
Tip #5: Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” We are too unique and special to waste time looking over the fence and checking out what the neighbors are doing.
As humans, we tend to glamorize others while downplaying the good we have in our own lives. Even if you think you want what someone else has, do you really want all the worries, upkeep, and maintenance that come with it?
The Cost of Ownership May Be Too High
For instance, you might envy your friend’s beautiful vacation home near the lake. But do you know they had to pay a hefty bill to redo their septic system? What about the extra taxes for maintaining multiple properties? Do you really want that too? I bet you don’t. The cost of ownership may be higher than what you’re willing to bear. This same theme holds true in many other areas. Consider someone who earns $100k a month but is pressured by a publisher to produce a book every year—that lifestyle may be incredibly stressful. Remember, not all that glitters is gold.
So when you compare, don’t lose sight of the bigger picture and your own circumstances. Moreover, comparison is a trap that leads to self-pity, shame, and low self-confidence—qualities that waste incredible amounts of time, in my opinion. Stay focused on yourself.
In Recovery, Focus on Your Own Path, Not Everyone Else's
Therefore, please stop wasting time coveting your neighbors’, friends’, or family members’ success. And please stop trying to spy on them in the real world or online. Appreciate what you have. Above all, this is the most important time management tip for those in recovery.
Focus on nurturing your own strengths and don’t worry about what others are doing. Concentrate on what you need to do to move forward in your life. I assure you, comparing yourself to others will not help, only harm. When you stop dwelling on others’ actions, past events, and what should happen, you will begin to appreciate the present moment.
To summarize, these are the five things you need to consider for better time management in recovery:
- Don’t Regret the Past
- Understand Who You Really Are
- Prepare Today, Secure Tomorrow
- Focus on What Is Within Your Control
- Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
I hope these tips help. The image below summarizes these ideas. Next, I will share my final thoughts.
Final Thoughts
As you work on time management in recovery, remember that your priorities will change as you gain clarity about yourself and what matters most. Be patient with yourself as you navigate this journey.
The various seasons of life are not designed to punish you, but rather to help you understand yourself and your world at a deeper level. Each experience, however painful or difficult, is maturing you for new and more challenging experiences.
If you need help learning how to slow down and find joy, check out my podcast where I discuss ways to overcome anxiety and find inner peace. Also, don’t hesitate to contact me. Together, we can discover what truly matters to you and make the most of every moment.
