6 TIPS TO GET YOUR TIME BACK

Do you need more time? Do you need more space for yourself? Then, you need to be REAL about what you NEED. 
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Your personal and professional lives can get hectic at times. We tend to forget our priorities and feel like we are pushed to the extreme. This doesn’t need to happen.

Here are SIX tips how you can get your time back:

1. Set your priorities.

The first thing to do is to set your priorities in ALL areas of your life. Is it spending time with your children? Is it getting a partner, husband, or boyfriend? Is it having a beautiful home? Is it your business?

Then put yourself on the top of your priority list! This is very crucial. 

We’ve all heard that saying that you need to put your own oxygen mask on first. For myself, I have been snippy lately. I wasn't as loving to my family because I haven't been giving MYSELF enough time. I haven't been giving myself enough sleep.  I haven’t given myself enough time away from everybody. So I was then trying to support others from an empty cup and doing poorly at it. And so I got back into reading again and walking in the forest before I start my work day. You are a priority, too!

2. Talk about your balancing act.

Share with others about how hard it is to balance your life: tell your partner, your friends, and your co-workers. You have to be honest about what you can realistically accomplish. In sharing with someone else, you might start hearing things like, “This isn't the best idea anymore” or “Maybe I can't do all these things.”

Also, it can help you decide which has to be done by you and which can be done by others. For instance, in terms of the cleanliness of my home, my standards have come down since having two kids, my own business, and other priorities. It's not a priority anymore. But the priority is I don't step on stuff on my floor! It's a priority that we have groceries in the fridge. It's a priority we have clean dishes and clean clothes. Do the clothes always get folded on time? No, they don't! This leads us to the third tip.

3. Delegate or Hire help.

Please delegate or hire help. The benefits of a house cleaner far outweigh the costs. It can reduce fights in the family. It can help lower your stress levels, not just because you don't have to do it, but also because your house is going to be clean, and it's going to be lovely. And that just makes you feel less stressed. 

I hired someone to do my marketing and social media, which takes the stress and the guilt off of my shoulders in my business. You can hire people for your personal life, and you can hire people for your business. You can even hire camps for the summer. That's delegating childcare to someone else to free up your time. If you feel like, “No, I want to be with my kids all the time.” That’s cool. Then get someone else to fold your laundry, to book things for you, or to run your errands. ​

4. Let go of Perfectionism. ​

Let it go! Let it go! Give yourself permission to just do stuff without it having to be absolutely perfect. It's okay to have things be less than perfect. Just do everything as well as you can.

When my mom was asking about my report card, a project or a sports game I had played, she'd say, “Did you do your best? And if you've done your best, that's all I can ask for.” So if you did your best (this is not perfection best, this is just DO your best), then that's all that you can ask for. 

You don't also have to be perfect at every single role you take on. Allow imperfections. It’s what makes us unique. Then, make adjustments as your day goes on.

5. Make better choices.

Let go of things that cost you too much energy. It’s just not worth it. Sadly, this might include people or tasks. I’m not saying to give up exercising because it takes energy. Maybe you have to adapt to what you do. 

Can another mom or your partner do the pickup or drop off on certain days? Can someone else go and pick up your dry cleaning? Can you decide on the outlines for your blogs or articles and then have someone else write them? Can you write them but have someone else post them? Could you post them but have someone else do the social media?

Make better choices so that you won’t tire yourself out.

​6. Take Time for Yourself

Schedule in some “Me time,” take up a new hobby, take a class at school, go to the gym, take 15 minutes to meditate - whatever you enjoy, start integrating it into your life so that you have some time to relax and take stock in what's really important to you. It could be getting back to priorities, putting some time in for education, adding in things you love to do - that re-energize you, and having time for the maintenance of your health.

These are six things that I do to just get real with where I'm at. I do these often. I have to go back through and ask myself again, “What I can delegate? Where do I need to make better choices? Where do I need to let go of perfectionism? Where do I need to talk to someone else about the balancing act that I'm in? Where do I need to delegate or hire help?” Key thing though, set your priorities, know exactly what you need to be focusing on and when you need to be focusing on it so that you can get everything fit in.

Which of these things are you doing already? Which will you try to do? Let me know in the comments section!