Reclaiming Lost Time: Making the Most of Life’s In-Between Moments

Do you ever feel like time has slipped through your fingers?
 Between grief, starting over, caretaking, work, and everyday responsibilities, many women feel like they don’t have enough time — or that the time they do have is fragmented and unproductive.

In this episode, we’re talking about reclaiming lost time — not by cramming more into our schedules, but by rethinking how we use the small, overlooked moments of our day.

Those minutes spent waiting in line, sitting in school pickup, driving to work, or scrolling on our phones add up. When we learn how to use those moments intentionally, they can become powerful opportunities for growth, learning, and progress.

Transcript

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. This is the podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

If you're somebody who is starting over in the middle of your life, this is the podcast for you. Welcome, I'm so glad that you're here. Now, in today's episode, we're gonna be talking about reclaiming lost time.

And just to clarify that, is it time from your past that you wasted on something?

But currently, today, the lost time we have in making the most of those in-between moments where we're waiting or doing something else, I don't know about you, but there are definitely days that it feels like time has just slipped through my fingers.

Sometimes, we're so busy. If you're a mom, if you're a caretaker, if you have a job, if you work, if you're starting over, all these things pile up. So many everyday responsibilities, and it feels oftentimes like you don't have enough time.

And I remember that well. I know it, that feels like I can still struggle with that sometimes. So that's what I want to talk about today.

I want to reclaim the lost time, not by cramming more into our calendar or schedule, but rethinking how we use those small overlooked moments during our day. All right?

The minutes we spend waiting in line, sitting in school pickup, driving to work, scrolling through our phone, right? All those moments add up to a big kind of decent chunk of time.

And when we learn how to use those moments intentionally, then they can become powerful opportunities for growth, learning, and progress. All right?

So it's just taking some of that time back in repurposing it, in being focused and intentional with how we spend our time.

2:12

Where Time is Lost

Now, I don't know about you, but for me, I always felt like there was this myth, this idea that I needed to have a big chunk of time, a big window of time to do a meaningful project. And if I didn't have a big chunk of time, it was pointless.

So I scrolled through my phone, I did something, you know, whatever. And we can waste a lot of time that way. And I just think we might need to shift the way we view time, because the reality is those little bitty moments can become very powerful.

Waiting for the perfect time often means that nothing ever gets done, right? If we reframe those small moments as valuable, then everything can change, all right?

So where we're losing time without realizing it, where are these pieces of sand that fall through the cracks, these pieces of time? Well, when you're in the grocery store, you're running an errand and you wait in line to check out.

That's time that maybe you could reclaim and do something with. What about the school pick up line? Are just waiting on your kid at practice.

Sometimes we can't drop them off. Sometimes we have to wait on them while they're doing their activity, because it's pointless to drop them off and then turn around and come back. We live just far enough away that that doesn't make sense, right?

So the time waiting and pick up lines or waiting on them to do your kids, to do their activities and their things, we could reclaim some of that time. What about the time we're in waiting rooms?

If you do have kids or you're a caretaker, you might be in a doctor's office and waiting with a loved one or your child. You might be at a doctor's office or somewhere waiting for yourself. What about your commute, driving to work?

How long of a commute do you have? I've had different commutes throughout my life. I've had really, really short commutes and I enjoyed that.

But I've had over an hour long commute before too. If you have a longer commute, that's time that you could reclaim. What about standing in line while running errands?

I already kind of said that with the grocery store, right? Or how often do we just pick up our phone and scroll? All of this represents a good chunk of time that we could reclaim.

None of these moments, it's not wrong just to sit there and scroll through your phone. But these moments could be seen as opportunities, okay?

4:59

Microtask Concept

I think that what I am challenging myself to do is reclaim this time with microtask. Little bitty task, small low effort activities that can be done in short burst without mental overload.

And this is so important if you're in a season of transition and change, if you're in the middle of a divorce, if you're in the middle of the loss of a loved one, if you're in the middle of a major season of just everything being topsy turvy, you

might not have the emotional and mental capacity for big, big task, but low effort, small task are right up your alley. This is what you can do, okay? So, microtask, where can we fit these in in everyday moments?

And this is what the meat of this podcast is about. I wanna brainstorm ideas with you for microtask and where you can fit them in. I don't recommend by any means that you do all of these.

That would be ridiculous. I'm just trying to brainstorm with you, and hopefully, you'll get ideas as you hear my ideas, and you'll think, hey, that's something that I could do, okay?

6:18

Commute Microtasks

So, let's break it down like this to begin with. What about when you're driving or you're commute, okay? Generally, you're in the car by yourself.

So, what can you do when you're driving to work? Do you have half an hour one way? So, if it's half an hour one way, 40 minutes one way, then it's an hour, an hour and 20 minutes of your day.

What could you do during that time? Well, you could listen to an audiobook. What if you learned a new language?

Do you know that there are audiobooks that could teach you languages? There are podcasts that can teach you languages. Maybe you could spend the time of your commute learning a new skill.

So it could be a new, you know, a foreign language. Maybe you want to learn more about finance. Maybe you're like, I want to get on track financially.

Maybe you want to learn about something totally different. But you could listen to an audiobook or a podcast, and you could listen to be encouraged. I listen to podcasts for encouragement.

I listen to a lot of sermons. I do spiritual, like faith-based podcasts. A lot of times.

But you could do a podcast or an audiobook that was learning a new skill, too. There's so, so, so many options. So while you're driving, you could listen to something and learn a new skill or be encouraged.

And then that time is dual purpose. You're driving to work, and you're doing something that is productive and encouraging, all right? You could take the time to list what you're grateful for.

And you could just say it out loud. You're in the car by yourself, who's going to hear you? So you could list that.

I used to do my affirmations when I was in the car by myself. So gratitude and affirmations, remember how important it is to retrain our mind. Neuroplasticity, that is so important.

You can reshape and retrain your mind to see positive things and be more positive by putting it on positive neural pathways. And that's gratitude and that's affirmations. You could take the time in your car to pray.

That's why I did that a lot. That was a lot of times my prayer time during the day. I had a 30 minute or an hour commute.

And I would just pray. I would just talk to God like, Hey, God, this is what's going on. You could do that.

There's a lot of things you could do during that time. So think about it. If you have a commute, maybe you could repurpose that time and make it positive.

Make it something that's going to benefit you, whether it's spiritually, whether it's mentally, or whether you're learning a new skill. All those things could be extremely positive.

9:05

Waiting Room Microtasks

All right. Now, if you're in the school pickup line or a waiting room, what's something that you could do there? What are different micro tasks?

Well, you could read a book, or a devotional fiction, non-fiction. You could read scripture. Maybe you're going through the Bible app.

So maybe while you're waiting on the kids, that's when you open up the Bible app and read that day section of the Bible. You could catch up on an article you've saved. I save articles on my phone.

I bookmark them. And then sometimes I'm busy and I can't read the whole article, but then I'll go back later on. I've got a little window of time.

I'm waiting on something, and I can pull up the article and I can read it. So if you're in the school pickup line or you're in a waiting room, that might be a good time to go back and look at an article.

The other thing you could do is now we all have phones, right, that are smart. So you could open up an app in journal or write notes on your phone. You could kind of do the brain dump thing where you just let all your thoughts out.

You could write ideas you have for a different project you're working on. You could write your emotions and thoughts and feelings down. You could pull out your phone and review your goals.

What goals did I set? Am I on track for those? Am I not?

Another scenario, you're in the grocery store or you're running errands and you're waiting in line. We do this a lot, right? So what can you do when you're waiting in line?

Well, we have a smartphone, so you could start making lists. You could make a list of what you need to do when you get home, or what you need to do tomorrow, or what you need to fix around the house, or your meal plan.

What do I want to eat next week? I've been thinking about lasagna. I'm going to put that on that list.

You know, you could start, there are all kinds of different types of lists you can make. And lists are bullet points, so they're kind of easy and quick. And if you're standing in line, that's a shorter period of time, generally, depending.

And so you could just kind of bullet point different lists. Something, you know, simple. You could, once again, open up the journal app and put some things there.

You could make notes for any upcoming appointments or conversations that you're going to have. So like, if you know you're going to take your kid to the doctor, or you've got a doctor's appointment, and what do you want to say?

You always have such a narrow window of time with a doctor, the specialist, or the nurse practitioner. It's really good to go ahead and think about, okay, what do I want to ask? Do I have a question about a medication?

Am I whatever? Start kind of putting those thoughts together. If you're standing in line at the grocery store, you could jot a few quick notes down about an upcoming appointment or a conversation you want to have with somebody.

You know, just write some bullet points down.

Now, if you're at home, and we have gaps of time, I know there were times I'm like, well, I don't want to start a big project, I don't want to work on my podcast, I don't want to sit down and do this or that.

That takes a little bit more time, but we're going to leave in half an hour. Are my kids going to come home from work in half an hour? And I want to talk to them and interact with them when they get home.

So, what do you do when you have windows of time in your at home? Well, you could send an email or text that you've been avoiding. Sometimes I really avoid making or canceling appointments.

I don't know why I put that off. I need to get my hair done. I will say, I need to get my hair done three, four, five times before I finally break down and make the call for the appointment.

I know not everybody has this hold up. I think, you know, it's a quirk that I have. But sit down and making an appointment or canceling appointment.

If I already have an appointment on the books and I realize there's a conflict, I might realize that two weeks out, but it takes me sometimes until like right then, and then I've got to go ahead and I've got to cancel that.

Well, if you have a little bit of time, go ahead and get that done and out of the way. If you need to send an email like, I need to cancel my subscription, I need to do this. If you have a window of time, those don't take that long.

And that's a good little task to handle. You could fold a load of laundry in a short little gap of time. You could prep ingredients for tonight's meal or tomorrow night's meal.

Sometimes some ingredients you can prep even a day ahead of time, all right? So maybe there's something like that you could do. You could do a tiny chore like cleaning out one drawer, like organizing something tiny and simple.

One dresser top or one drawer or something little.

14:02

Personal Microtask Ideas

There are other microtasks. Now, these are more like things that are on my list. Now, everything I read are things that I have done, but these are much more unique to me in the lists that I made of microtasks.

And once again, these aren't necessarily tasks that you will want to do, but the idea is to write down a bunch of things, because when you're in the school pick-up line, if you don't already have something that you know you're going to do, you're

going to scroll through your phone. If you're on your commute to work, if you haven't already said, hey, I'm going to listen to this podcast, I'm going to listen to this audiobook, and have it queued up, then you're probably not going to do it,

right? So having a bunch of ideas, so when you do have that moment and that window of time, you have something to pull from, okay? So some of the things on my list are face yoga.

So I've been watching these face videos that help strengthen the muscles under the skin in your face. I really have gotten concerned about my jawline. I'll be real with you.

And so I've been looking at these face yoga, face exercises. So when I have a window of time and I think about it, I start doing some of the face yoga, okay? What's another thing?

Well, definitely I've mentioned it in the other windows of time, but journaling, brain dumping, writing down ideas for projects. I have a book I want to write, I have this I want to do.

If I have a podcast idea, I need to go ahead and write that down. Another thing that I have picked up, that I really enjoy, is sketching or drawing.

I'm not necessarily good at it, but I have found it is one of the best things for my mental health, because when I draw, my mind can't overthink. My mind doesn't race, it doesn't... All I do is I'm thinking about where to put the next pencil mark.

And it's such a mind clearing task for me to do, and I really enjoy it. And it really doesn't take that long. I'll pick out a flower, I want to draw this flower, and I'll draw it.

And I really could do that in a pretty short period of time, a simple little sketch. That is something I want to do more.

Another thing that I can do in a short window of time, if I've got a little bit of time, I can do simple exercises, like leg raises that like work out your calf muscle.

Because I'm not getting down on the floor, I'm not doing some big workout routine, I can just stand up and do leg raises, and that's a simple thing. Or I could do squats, right? That doesn't require getting out a yoga mat and all this other stuff.

I could do simple exercises in my in-between time, all right? I also really want to learn to paint with watercolors.

So I've been sketching, but when I started sketching and drawing, the idea was to paint with watercolors, you know, like sketch it and then do the painting. And so I'm still, there's still a work in progress.

So I feel like I can take windows of time and maybe watch a video about how to do watercolor. Take some time to learn a little bit more, keep, you know, doing. And I could do that in little chunks of time.

If I have a chunk of time, I could work on my gratitude list. I always need to fold in gratitude anytime I can. Gratitude is so important in focusing on the positive and redirecting my mind towards positive things that I am grateful for.

That is always something that can be on my micro task list. Learn something new, which we already talked about the audiobooks, and I've got Duolingo on my phone.

Just take in a little bit of time, a small break, to learn something new that I don't know. I always think it's good to keep learning, right? I definitely could take the time to read.

So I do like fiction, love fiction sometimes. I just want a good story, right? And there are books that I could go back and read.

I've got books downloaded on my phone. The Lord of the Rings, stuff like that I really enjoy. Or non-fiction, because that is under learn something new.

I feel like a lot of times, I really enjoy non-fiction a lot. Or scripture, I could read the Bible. So that's definitely reading is a multi-pronged microtask that could hit different notes depending on the mood you're in, right?

So you could read. I need to do more deep breathing exercises. So if I have a few moments, I could work on deep breathing.

That's supposed to be so helpful. And I used to know all the deep breathing exercises because I did theater and we needed to project, and projection was so important, right? And so we would practice breathing exercises.

And I've gotten away from that. That was 30 years ago. So taking the time to do some deep breathing, I think, would be healthy and helpful.

I could take the time to jot down questions that I have, especially if it's a really short period of time, like I'm in line at the grocery store. Jotting down, I have questions about everything.

I have questions about, you know, our little ideas that need more in-depth follow-up, right? So, it might be an idea for a podcast, or an idea about a book, or an idea about something I want to cook. I've heard about sourdough, or this or that.

So, jot those down. And then, when I have more time, but maybe not tons of time, I've got this list and I could say, hey, let me research it.

So, this is a two-pronged thing when you have a really short window of time, you could jot down your ideas, your questions, your thoughts about what you need to research more.

And then, when you've got like half an hour that you really don't know what to do with, or 15 minutes, then you have this list that you could sit down and start working with to research and find out more about.

20:13

Purpose Empowerment

There are a lot of different micro-tasks. All I'm trying to do is help shift the way you view time and help you understand that there are things we can do in those little in-between times.

And I want you to understand, and I want to be really clear about this, reclaiming time isn't about doing more. This isn't, that's not the purpose of doing this. It's about using what you already have more intentionally.

I want you to understand that when you do micro-tasks, it helps reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed, and it builds momentum. So when you feel overwhelmed just by life in general, right?

And so much is going on, and it feels topsy-turvy, and maybe events happen that were beyond your control. When you do little micro-tasks, when you reclaim little moments of your day, that builds positive forward momentum. And that's so important.

It also creates a sense of control and stability. I am taking the time to learn something new. I'm taking the time to do something for my mental health.

I'm prioritizing this, that, or the other. And it does, it builds a confidence in yourself. It's not about doing more.

We don't need to do more. It's about creating the confidence within yourself. It's about being intentional with how you spend your time.

That's the purpose. It's not about doing more. It's about being intentional and creating momentum, positive, forward momentum, all right?

If you are in a season of life where your energy is limited or your life feels scattered, this isn't about productivity pressure. I mean, I just really want to be clear about that. This is about empowerment.

Small, intentional choices repeated daily can help you rebuild confidence, clarity, and a sense of forward motion. And that is what you need right now, okay? You don't need a whole new schedule.

You just need to use your time maybe differently. And you don't have to do every moment a micro task. But just pick one thing.

That's my challenge for you today. Pick one thing. Maybe it's your commute to work.

Maybe it's the car pick up line at school. Pick one thing and say, what is a micro task I could put in this slot? What could I do here?

I have this chunk of time. And just start with one chunk of time. One area that you're scrolling through your phone, you're just waiting, you're not really using it intentionally.

Just pick one area. And what is one micro task that you can swap out? Remember, it's not about productivity.

This is about positive forward momentum. This is about building confidence, knowing that you can take ownership of the time you have. That's what it's about.

This is really more of a mental health task than anything. Okay? I would love for you to reach out to me.

I would love to know what micro task you're using, what time slot you're filling with a micro task instead of scrolling. Please reach out to me. You can find me online, www.workingonamazing.com.

But you could also find me on social media. I'm on Facebook the most. That's where I hang out.

And that's just a page, Working on Amazing. Drop me a line, send me a message, a messenger. I would love, love, love to hear from you.

Thank you so much for joining me today. I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.