Do You Make Time for YOU?
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who say:
*I’d love to [read more, relax more, travel more, etc.], but I don’t have time.
*I really need to carve out some time for myself.
*Me time? What’s that?!?
*I can’t take time for myself because I need to care for [enter person’s name].
*Yeah, I should exercise, but there’s no room in my schedule.
If you’ve read my third book, The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer (New World Library), you might have noticed that before I shared recommendations for how to regain control of the workday, I discussed the importance of administering self-care. I preach that “Time management is all about mind management,” so taking care of the body and soul that house your most important time management tool – your brain – is absolutely critical. When you are well rested and in better mental and physical condition, you’ll have a clearer mind, which will allow you to be more effective and efficient when it comes to decision-making, completing tasks and caring for others.
If you’ve ever found yourself saying something similar to what I listed above, and you want things to be different, consider doing these three things:
- Sit down with your calendar.
- Look at what events you already have on your calendar for next week.
- Find 15 minutes of open time and make an appointment with yourself for “me time.”
When you’re ready to take an even bolder step toward taking care of yourself and investing in your well-being, consider from here on out scheduling your self-care time first, and then scheduling everything else around it.
If you’ve never done it before, it might feel odd at first. Perhaps you usually first schedule all of the kids’ practices (carpool, anyone?), networking events, errands you need to run, “wait time” for somebody to call you back, placeholders for meetings that might happen, household tasks…you get the idea. Do you schedule everything else first, fill up your week as much as possible, and then shrug your shoulders and say there’s no time for you?
What if you instead scheduled YOU TIME first and then everything else around it?
Make time for YOU. Try it. It will rock your world.
For more tips on how to create time for self care, check out The Inefficiency Assassin: Time Management Tactics for Working Smarter, Not Longer.