About eight months ago I was in a period of mental overload unable to enjoy my family life and exhausted by the daily grind. I felt that life was happening to me and that I only had limited say.
I struggled to be a good mother and girlfriend and all in all was at a low point. It was at this point that I decided to take back control - not any easy thing to do when you are struggling to stay in a growth mindset. I took it upon myself to interrogate all my lovely friends and find out how they make the daily juggle work. I also spent hours googling time management and life hacks. Through this process I found my golden three things that helped me to find my almost balance;
1. Daily prioritization - I start each morning by doing my morning writing which comes from Julia Cameron's book The Artists Way This allows me to do a brain dump and clear my mind ready to start planning my day. I make a list of everything I would like to and then prioritise it into two separate categories; need and want. A 'need to do' can only be done today while a 'want to do' would be great to be done today but can wait.
2. Chunk my day - In order to reduce my mental energy shifts during the day I then plan my tasks into energy chunks that require a similar mental state. That reduces my mental shifting and thereby increases my overall potential energy for the day. For more on this see my blog 'Find more time by re-evaluating your calendar'.
3. Accept breaks are important and necessary - This is one that is still a work in progress for me. I'm terribly guilty of being the person grabbing a sandwich and working through lunch to get one last thing done. In reality by not allowing myself time to recharge during the day I find my performance substantially declines over the day. On days when I give myself time to go outside and recharge, for even 15 minutes, I find my productivity increases substantially.
By doing these three things I find that when I return to my home life at the end of day the groutchy and mean parent/partner has been substantially reduced as I still have mental energy left to enjoy my time with my loved ones. What are your three golden things that help you to find your almost balance?
If you enjoyed learning how to find more time please check out my other blog posts on the topic; do your best work and re-evaluate your calendar.
All opinions are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.
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