Stealing time is an interesting concept. I found a definition of this phrase that said “when you grab a chunk of time that would normally be used for something else and you steal it for your own purposes.“

Saying life has been a little nuts lately would be putting it lightly. The nice part about getting older is you start to recognize crazy before it smacks you in the face. When schedules are crazy, I always think of the phrase “stealin’ time.” It is kind of like glorified multitasking – sometimes doing too many things at once makes life more complicated, but this is the opposite. It’s impossible for me to explain exactly what it means, but I’ll give you a couple examples of my interpretation.

Ditching yoga to walk to the frozen yogurt shop on an 85 degree evening.
Taking a breakfast break to make eggs and sit at the table and read the news.
Using my mindless trips through the aisles of the grocery store to catch up with mom or dad on the phone.
Keeping a book in my purse to make all the mindless “waiting” time interesting by diving in to the latest story.
Take a break from Facebook. I don’t know if that really counts, but I feel like I’m taking back time by deactivating my account for a little bit. That might be over today… who knows.
Deciding against the movie in the park in the city and having our own movie night with the dogs at home – no ferry or bus ride or getting their early to hold our spot saves us at least 90 minutes.
Catching up with neighbors while letting the dogs run wild in the park – sometimes even practicing my Spanish skills.

And my newest discovery of planning bus rides with friends & neighbors so you can use those 30 minutes to have a cup of coffee and catch up instead of staring out the window and dreading those dark minutes in the Lincoln Tunnel. It does wonders.

What does that phrase mean to you? Do you have any little secrets to make crazy days seem a little more in your control? I’m begging you to share 🙂