Time Management For The Busy Body

Like I had talked about in my very first post, I’m a busy mom of teenagers, I run a small company out of my home, I started this blog, and I even started to crochet! So, with all of this going on I had to come up with some way to manage my time a bit better. Of course, I did my research and tried to come up with the tips or strategies that would help me.

I knew, being as busy as I am, I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I could see the bags under my eyes becoming worse, and I even began to think that maybe I should take a step back and drop something that I had worked so hard to get started. I spoke with my husband about it, yep I asked him his opinion, I wish you could have seen the look on his face when I did. Obviously, he encouraged me to manage my time better and get some actual sleep. This is where Tip One comes in.

• Spend enough time sleeping. If you do nothing else, prioritize your sleep needs so you can thrive. You’ll drag around all day and ultimately just waste your time if you’re under-rested. Schedule sleep like you would any other activity and go to bed at bedtime so you can function properly the next day. Enforce your kids’ bedtime as well. It’s good for them too, even my kids have noticed a massive difference in themselves.

Now, for those of us that work outside of the home, we don’t always have control of our work hours, in which can make it difficult to keep them sane, or even yourself. But here’s where Tip Two comes along.

• Establish Sane Work Hours. Before you commit yourself to taking on a new role in the workplace or even starting a new venture, validate3 your alignment of expectations for your work hours with your potential employer or yourself. Life commitments and your job projects will ebb and flow, so make sure to periodically to make suer that your own expectations have not changed. Working mothers reserve night and the weekends exclusively for family.

For the longest time, I had the hardest time is saying the magic two letter word to anyone but my kids. “No.” And like always, I ended up taking on to much that I overwhelmed myself. This only ended up making the completed work that I had done, basically, half-assed, so to speak, and that brings up to Tip Three.

• Embrace The Power of “No.” You don’t have to attend every PTA meeting, chaperone all the field trips or take on additional work projects, this is the pure definition of overload [I know, I’ve been there many MANY times]. Saying no can be tough but in the end, it’s liberating as well, but it is a skill that will free time up from you that you wouldn’t have access to any other way. Not only will this benefit you, but your kids as well, them watching you enforce certain limits will teach them the value of boundaries.

I remember when my first child was a baby, and my eldest brother sat me down and had a very important conversation with me. He wanted me to write down my goals, things that I wanted to accomplish within a certain timeframe. Now, at the time, I had no clue what those goals would be, it wasn’t until many years later that I had finally got it. Sadly, my brother passed before I was able to show him just how much he had helped me, I now had short and long term goals! On to Tip Four!

• Set Attainable Daily Goals. A to-do list is really useless if it’s way to ambitious. What really is the point of writing down unachievable tasks? We’re not superheroes, even if we portray that we are, the Super Mom, but we shouldn’t try to be. Make your daily goals more realistic, enoug to complete and remember you can always do more if you have the time.

Even when I was working outside the home, I always had this really bad habit of multitasking, taking on way to much at once, mainly because I knew that I could get it done. When I left the workforce, I still had the same problem. Even though I have three teenagers and a husband, I would still do it all myself, just because I knew that I would get it done right the first time. This became a true problem for me, and brings us to Tip Five.

• Don’t even try to multitask. It’s been proven that people perform much better when they give focused attention to the task at hand. When you’re at work, stop trying to worry about what you will be fixing for dinner; when you’re helping your kid with homework don’t also be texting your husband with a grocery list [I tried this a few times, but learned quite quickly that I couldn’t send the husband to do the grocery shopping, he always came back with WAY MORE then was needed].

Growing up, I was told that anything less than perfection was unacceptable, from working on the ranch, to grades at school, rodeos and whatnot. I forced myself to believe that anything less was a failure on my part. I’m just thankful that I learned differently before I had kids, it was tough on me to think that everything that I knew I accomplished was deemed as a failure, at least in my eyes. Tip Six!

• Let go of perfection. It truly does not exist, and therefor you can’t achieve it. Instead of obsessively cleaning an already clean-enough house, or toiling towards intangible ideals [like the “super mom” or having the “perfect” figure]. figure out a more pratical use for your time.

I can’t stress this enough, and I know that I’m not the only one that has fallen into this phase. The internet is a massive distraction from everything that you could be focusing one, and a massive waste of precious time. I know, it’s ironic that I would say anything like that considering that I have this blog, and other things that I focus on from time to time that’s on the internet. Tip Seven!

• Step away from the Internet. Surfing the web is a huge waste of time for parents and kids. An innocent little break can turn into hours of wasted time that you will never get back. Establishing limits on just how much time you and your kids get, and then just unplug everything once you reach that limit.

With work barreling down on me and the stress of home life, I quickly became overstressed, and it showed, my blood pressure had risen to the point that I was being put on medications along with baby asprin. This was an eye opener, I can’t say that I’ve never had any medical conditions, because well, let’s face it, I do [I’ll talk about that in another post]. But I had lost the concept of what fun truly was. Tip Eight!

• Have some fun along the way! Stressed-out people aren’t all that productive, proven fact. Everyone needs some form of relaxation to avoid burnout at home and work. Make time for vacations, long weekends, family fun, camping trips, things that will keep you grounded and joyful.

Even though I felt that I was being productive, I quickly learned that what I was doing was mindless, I lacked the focus that drives productivity and it was really starting to show, but when I finally noticed it, I was out of control, so I took up meditation. Tip Nine.

• Get present so you can truly be productive. Mindfulness allows you to tune into the task you have at hand. You need some form of relaxation techniques like yoga or meditation, it can help you focus and having focus drives the productivity you are lacking. Embrace the method that speaks loudest to you, and tune back in when you catch yourself drifting.

I’ve always had an issue with taking on all the responsibility of everyone, and I’ll have to admit that I still sometimes do it, especially with my husband, “Never mind, I’ll do it myself” and of course, until this day, I believe that muy husband does it intentionally to get out of his ‘honey-do’s’ Tip Ten.

• Stop owning other people’s stuff. Just how often do you hear yourself saying that, “Never mind, I’ll do it myself” ? And if you’re like me, more that you would like. We all tend to take on more than our share of responsibility and it’s a true time waster. The solution you ask? Let others manage their responsibilities themselves. This includes your kids, spouse and colleagues. I know that this is truly difficult and I still have some problems accomplishing this.

I can’t stress this enough, delegating. Like I had said this before, I have this huge problem of taking on to much, and that always seems to be the issue, “I’ll do it myself” always leaves my mouth and in the middle of the extra task I’ve taken on I’m mentally smacking myself because I had just broken a rule of mine. Tip Eleven.

• Let go and delegate. This is one of the toughest tips to follow, learn to know when to let someone else handle the task. Relinquishing control is one of the hardest things to do, but it’s also nexessary to allow others to pitch in. Delegating is not admitting defeat, rather, it’s about maximizing the potential of your entire network.

I know this sounds like a lot to try and implement into your daily routine, and it seems like you’ll never be able to incorporate it all, but believe me, you can “get it all done” in the time that you have and have sweet sweet moments of freedom left over. Start off small, one rule at a time, and when that becomes habit, add another, this way you won’t feel overwhelmed with all your changes. And when you do find that you have created some leftover time for something new, be sure to do something wonderful and kind for yourself, you truly deserve it.