Why do people assume that single people have loads of free time on their hand, and that organizing and managing a single life is not hard, while a married life is harder to coordinate, and a married person with kids has absolutely no time whatsoever to do anything other than barely get by?

I have run into this mistaken assumption many of times over the years.

As a Relief Society president there were people who assumed that I had plenty of time for the hours upon hours that calling required at times because I was single.

I had someone once even suggest to me that I needed to stop having married friends because they wouldn’t have time for me the way single friends would. I was the one in the friendship who was hard to get a hold of though because I was always busy doing something. I decided that person had no idea what they were talking about, but it’s still a touchy subject for me.

And just recently I heard that married women with lots of children would know how to teach other women how to organize a house and life by default because of their children. I’m sure they know a lot. But I’m just as sure that women with a lot of kids do not have a monopoly on time management and household organization.

Yes, I can organize my time a little bit more freely than most, but that doesn’t mean I have loads of free time all the time. My life actually goes in spurts where I’ll be busy as all get-up for a few weeks and then I’ll have a lull for a few weeks where I catch my breath and sanity before going at it all again.

In 2006-2007 my life was spent working as a teacher, a tutor, a substitute, a house cleaner, and at a fabric store. I also was working full-time on a Masters degree. And 2006 was my second year as the Relief Society president of my ward. I still look back at that some times and wonder how I did it. But somehow, despite my single status, I managed to organize my house and time.

We are all busy. We all find ways to manage our time. And we can all share with others just how we do it.