{Friendship Friday} How do you make time for friends?

Edited to add a very crucial bit in RED below!

First off, thanks so much to all of you for sharing so honestly on the friendship posts - I truly do love reading your comments.

I'm going to be posting on friendship every Friday til I run out of ideas (comment and tell me what you want to discuss!).

 

I love this pic of D & C, two old friends

   

Tower Bridge




Timoleague


The time thing has come up again and again so I thought it might be a good time (haha) to talk about it.

The fact that there isn't enough time to nurture existing friendships, let alone create new ones.

I get it.

I really do.

After all, I coach time management so I've honestly heard all the time challenges under the sun.

And so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the subject and all of you can chime in too.

I say this often and if I do sound like a broken record, that's okay - it's that important.

You make time for the things that are important to you.

There are things I do (like blog every day) that take tons of time.

It's important to me so I make the time.

There are also other things that I'd like to do (like watch TV) that are not as important to me so I don't make the time.

In fact, that's probably how I have the time to blog.

So, onto friendship.

I wasn't always like this (so I totally get it if you don't feel the same) but I do value my friendships and because of that, I try to set aside some dedicated time to connect with them.

Like 1 - 3 lunch-time dates and about 2 socials at night or on weekends.

Aside from emailing and so on.

I also have a friend spreadsheet which is very nerdy but helps me to see who I haven't spent any time with recently and be intentional about getting together.

As an aside, I saw on my spreadsheet that I see some friends who live in LONDON (as in the UK!) more often than some that are right here in Jhb.

!

So what's that about?

I think it's because our friendship is important to both of us so we prioritise spending time together. They let us know when they're coming and we immediately set up a time and block it out.

It also helps that we both never flake!

Except I will admit... we were due to see them one day when K was in hospital so we moved it out and that was fine. My rule is to do all things possible if out-of-town people are in town so I was prepared to have them come visit in the hospital coffee shop if the time didn't work out.

I think what I'm trying to say in a very roundabout way is that if your friendships are important, you'll set aside some time to see those friends.

I do think if the friendships are very superficial and you never really connect deeply then it's difficult to sacrifice the time, especially if you're time-starved.

Do you agree or disagree?


I'm not saying that my way is the way to do it. I am saying that if you have other priorities, then own it. (psychospeak :))

Admit to yourself that you only have X amount of time per week/ month/ quarter to "spend" on friends and that you're okay with that.

I do feel that there's a disconnect because we don't admit (out loud) to ourselves that these are our current realities and then we feel torn, guilty or disconnected.

How does this play out for me?

I've admitted to myself that I really don't like to meet friends on weekends if my husband and kids are not invited. In fact, just this week I told a potential friend date this very thing :)

So either we all go or I meet those people at other times.

But the result is I feel freer (sp?) within my self-imposed boundaries.

Does this make sense?

What are your thoughts on making time for friends?

And what if only one party has to keep prioritising the friendship and the other doesn't hold it in as high esteem?

Next time I want to talk about taking a friendship from superficial to deeper :)