How to Find Time to Crochet with Crochet Planner

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Crochet is an amazingly creative way to spend time. It is also very relaxing and can help you unwind after a stressful day. Nothing like getting lost in those stitches, their repetitive motion like a meditation for your fingers.

Crochet also gives such a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment, and let’s face it – not many things give us the feeling of accomplishment these days.

Knowing how great crochet it, you would think we would spend all the time in the world with the hook and yarn in our hands. Yet we don’t. Why is that?

When it comes to doing more crochet in our lives, the biggest complaint I hear is lack of time.

Work, home responsibilities, kids, family, chores, and on the list goes. Those are some serious reasons to never have any time for anything.

Here is the deal though. Crochet is not just a craft. Crochet is self-care. It’s a way to slow down, take a breather and give yourself a break, a real break you deserve.

Yes, your household runs on you. But if you never take time for what you love, soon there wouldn’t be much of you left to give. When you take time to crochet and relax, everyone wins.

How to find time to crochet

We all have the same 24 hours a day, so how’s that some of us seem to do a ton of things a day and some of us don’t?

It all comes down to priorities. How important is your well-being to you? You might have been putting it on a back burner for ages, so, it’s time to find time for you.

Make what you love a priority and find time to work on it.

I work full-time, have two kids, husband, elder parents and a household to take care of. Any of these responsibilities can consume my whole day and I wouldn’t even know where it went. I could excuse my lack of crochet time with these or a number of any other reasons. And I used to.

But, after crochet literally saved my sanity during the hardest times of my life, I understood, really understood how important and often underestimated this great craft is. And I made a decision to always find time for crochet, even if it’s just a row a two a day.

I want to share with you how I used a crochet planner to find time for me.

How to find free time to crochet

Grab a blank weekly calendar, with all the 7 days divided into time slots, and look through every day and every time slot in it.
Try to find the openings in your days, no matter how small they are. Trust me, every little thing adds up.
To make the task easier, first, cross out all the times that are unavailable in advance. Go through the week and mark all your non-negotiable time slots:
- Cross out the time slots where you know you won’t be able to do any crochet. Those would be times like the commute to and from work, being at work, regular times to shop for food, etc.
- Then cross out time slots that are dedicated to standing family traditions, things like Friday night dinner or Saturday visit with in-laws.
After this, you’re left with all the time that’s available to you.
- Choose which of these time slots you will dedicate to crochet and mark them on your calendar

Of course, it’s understandable that the time left after all of the non-negotiable tasks are considered is also the time when we take care of the family, cook dinner or clean, or simply spend time with those we love.

Please understand, we are not trying to eliminate things that we do for our family, we are trying to find ways to use our available time wisely and consider our needs as well.

Relaxing blanket designs by Kind Of Knit

I think one of the reasons we think that we don’t have any spare time to crochet is because we think in terms of big blocks of time.

We think: it’s 3 solid hours to crochet or nothing. And, when we try to imagine finding 3 hours in a row, it’s simply overwhelming.

So, instead of looking for huge chunks of time, think of finding smaller, more doable pockets of time. Look for them all throughout the day and you will be surprised how much time you can find.

Let me give an example from my life:

During the weekdays, when I work a full-time job, I decided to wake up just 30 min earlier in the morning while the house is super quiet.

I could crochet in peace and it gives a great start to my day. That gave me 2.5 hours a week of found time.

I have an hour for lunch at my day job. I take 30 min of it to warm up my food and eat, and the other 30 min I spend on my crochet project.

Not only does this give my brain a nice break in the middle of the day, but it also brightens up my afternoon, a win-win. This way I find another 2.5 hours a week of found time.

After I come home from work, it’s a whirl of cooking, cleaning, and dinner time. Everyone wants to share their day and talk to me (we, moms, are popular, right?).

It’s easy to get lost in all of it and forget about myself, so I made an agreement with my hubby and kids that after 9 pm mom is doing her crochet thing and is not to be interrupted.

Yes, of course, they try, but I always remind them how important this is for me and how it helps me stay relaxed and happy. Everyone appreciates happy mom. So, from 9 pm to 10:30 pm is my time to really get lost in my craft. My evening time adds up to an amazing 7.5 hours during the weekdays.

I don’t know if you have your calculator handy like I do, but all of that adds up to 12.5 hours to work on crochet, and that’s just during the week!

On weekends I catch up on cleaning and errands, but also try to get bigger chunks of crochet time since the days are more open.

I can crochet anywhere between 2 to 4 hours a day during the weekend, so even if I say it’s just 2 hours on Saturday and 2 hours on Sunday, the whole week adds up to 16.5 hours of pure crochet bliss!

If I have a big crochet project, like one of my blankets, and I want to finish it in time for pattern release, I can spend more time on weekends, ending up crocheting 20-22 hours a week.

I do try not to have too many of these super crochet marathons though since I do want to dedicate my attention to my family and also be gentle on my wrists.

Plan your week to have a dedicated time just for you and your crochet

What I’m trying to show here is that it’s totally possible to find a good amount of time to crochet. I crochet often because it’s part of my self-care but also a part of my business.

You don’t have to crochet 15-16 hours a week, but having even 30 minutes of dedicated time every day, will make such a difference because it won’t be just a crochet time. It will be time just for YOU, a time to look forward to.

We often waste time in our day and don’t even notice it. Start keeping an eye on where your time goes and you will be surprised.

If a thought of changing your daily and weekly routine just like that seems scary, start small. Dedicate just the morning time to your crochet passion. Or your lunch hour. See how it brightens up your day. Add more time as you go.

To help you find more time to crochet, I’ve created Crochet Zen: journal, planner, and organizer. Part of Crochet Zen is dedicated to creating your perfect crochet week and has printable templates (like the weekly calendar I mentioned above) that can help you find the time to do what you love.