Who controls your time?

Interesting thing happened here today. I have been fighting a doctor’s bill from an emergency room visit last spring. The insurance company said I owed one amount, which I paid. The billing company claimed a higher amount was owed because they did not recognize our insurance companies’ pricing.

Through this, my husband kept saying he thought we should keep fighting it because of the principle of the thing. In reality, it was just me fighting it because I deal with all the paperwork in our family. (It’s OK, he does all the cooking!) Finally, my stress level was beginning to rise over this, so he took over to “continue the fight.” Within 30 minutes, he decided it was better to just pay the disputed amount and move on with life! Apparently it was no longer worth the effort when it was his time being spent on all the phone calls.

Looking back, I realize I should have been more direct with him when explaining all the time and effort this was really taking. He would have been fine with just paying from the first IF he had known how much time this was taking.

The lesson I learned from this? I don’t let most people determine how I spend my time, so why do I let family and close friends add big projects to my to-do-list? Whenever I explain the time and effort actually required from some huge request one of two things happen. The requester either takes back the request (because they really didn’t understand the scope when they ask) or they offer to help with other things to free up extra time. So, it is my own fault if I let others overburden me. Communication – It really works!