Time management 1

I don't know how people manage to have any time at all with their equines. When I took lessons at various barns, I would often hear people say that by the time they got done with their chores, they had no time and/or energy left to ride.

Boy, is that ever true! Once you commute to and from a full time job, manage your household chores (with your spouse's help - crucial!), make 2 meals a week (with your spouse making the majority of meals, also crucial!), and commute to your barn, you probably have enough time to groom your horse, pick up one day's worth of manure, tack up the horse, warm her up, and ride for a half hour to an hour, and then put her and her tack safely away, two or three days a week.

Tacking up Sweet Pea in about 2010

I read somewhere that we typically invest two or three hours of maintenance for every hour of riding. If you grew up with horses, you already knew that. If on the other hand you started in midlife with riding lessons, as I did, then it dawned upon you slowly and fearsomely.

My admiration increases many times over for people who have children and still manage to ride.

As I've noted in a previous post, having spare disposable income means that some of the schedule components can be outsourced. However this post is for those of us who can't buy extra time. The schedule becomes so snug that neglecting any component of it squeezes the rest. If you have to work overtime, take the car for servicing, or get anything in the house repaired, then that week's riding time can dwindle rapidly. And this is true for me, even though my spouse shares household chores.

This feeling isn't mine alone. And it isn't experienced only by horse people. I'm going to try to read "Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time", by Brigid Schulte.