How To Work Toward That Pesky Work-Life Balance!
Plus, a motherhood update!
Hello classic crew! How’s everyone doing this week? Over in Florida, we have been working, unpacking, spending time with family, and settling in - but boy is it difficult to get things done when you have the full-time job of taking care of your baby!
That brings me to today’s article. Lately, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed trying to achieve that elusive work-life balance. Now, when I say work-life balance, what I really mean is work-housework-exercise-cooking-mothering-unpacking balance! I know it sounds funny, but truthfully, that’s where I’ve been struggling. It’s not simply motherhood and work. It’s wanting to continue creating good content for you all; cleaning my home and caring for it, taking care of my body by exercising regularly, cooking food for myself during the day to eat healthily, as well as cooking tasty dinners for my husband, taking care of my baby and attending to his needs, and unpacking our new home so we can actually settle in.
It’s a LOT.
I’m sure many of you have felt similarly frazzled trying to get everything done. It feels impossible, like there’s no realistic way to take on the challenge of fitting it all into your schedule. Before becoming a mother, I thought my time was limited. But after having a baby, I look back on those days and realize I really had all the time in the world!
So after this week, when I’m not dealing with the stress of unpacking and instead am settled back into some semblance of a routine, I plan on attacking this problem head on. I want to find a way to get a handle on all the tasks I have to work on, rather than feeling like I’m drowning underneath a pile of to-dos. Of course, I say this with the understanding that there will always be moments of stress. But I don’t think I have to live to a constant state of tension, and neither do you. So I thought I’d share a list of six ideas I have to combat the pressure I’ve been under. Here we go!
Instead of looking for blocks of time, look for small moments to accomplish tasks. When I realized how overwhelmed I was feeling, I asked my husband to help me come up with a game plan to organize my day. He knows that I’m a Type A personality and that I thrive off of having a schedule. Well, try having a regular schedule with a baby! Sometimes everything goes off without a hitch…but other times, not so much. So my husband suggested that instead of trying to get everything done in full blocks of time, which are surely going to get interrupted and stop my train of thought, I try and view windows of time as opportunities to get a little done. If that means I only work on something for five minutes, that’s better than nothing! And it gives me more opportunities to accomplish tasks on my to-do list since there’s always little pockets of time available throughout the day.
Make a list of top 3 priorities for each day. This has been super helpful to me in the past and I’d like to continue it in the future. Each day, I write down my top 3 priorities: if I only got these three things done today, would I feel like I accomplished something? If not, then I better rejigger my priority list. Making this list forces you to figure out what is the most important thing on your to-do list, which puts the rest of the things you have to do into perspective.
Treat certain things as foundational parts of your day. This one is specifically tailored for me and my bad habits! I have a habit of treating exercise as optional, especially now that I haven’t exercised regularly in quite some time. After I gave birth, I needed to give my body time to recover, but I’ve now waited so long to get back in the gym that everything hurts every time I weight lift! I haven’t reached the point quite yet where it feels worse not to exercise than it feels to exercise. With that in mind, I have often treated exercise as optional, and when it’s optional it does not make my top 3 priorities for the day. Instead of treating it as optional, though, I really need to treat it as a foundational part of my day. It’s something that I always do, every morning at the same time. And it’s not something I can do, or will do if I’m not busy with something else. It’s something I must do for my physical health. If you find that you are struggling with giving priority to something that’s important for you, begin viewing it as a foundational part of your day rather than as a task you might be able to fit in to your schedule.
Prepare ingredients for healthy meals. Eating healthy requires time and energy. That’s just the truth of it. I want to start being better about batch preparing my ingredients. For example, if I’m making myself an omelet, instead of chopping just enough onions for that day, I would like to chop enough to last me the next few days. If those vegetables are waiting and ready for me in the fridge, I’m so much more likely to throw them in the pan and cook up something delicious than I would if I had to chop them from scratch. Get in the habit of chopping a little extra when you’re cooking so you have easy access to those delicious healthy foods our bodies crave.
Ask for help when you can. Lean on the people you care about. This is a lesson I’m learning but one that is so very important. We can’t do all this alone, and we weren’t meant to. Reach out to those who can support you, whether that be friends or family, and allow them to give you a hand so that you can do what you need to do. And you’ll find that people want to help you more than you give them credit for - at least, that’s been my experience!
Try to embrace a slow living mentality on those days when things aren’t getting done. And, of course, there will always be days when nothing on your to-do list gets checked off, when the house is a mess, when you didn’t get to exercise, when you ate whatever was easiest. And on those days, throw up your hands and say, “This was what today was meant to be. There ain’t nothing I can do about it. Might as well embrace it!” That mentality has been so freeing for me and so important. I often beat myself up if at the end of the day if I feel I have nothing to show for it. But I’ve been working on shaking myself out of that feeling so that I can simply enjoy the moment. I didn’t get any work done? Well, I got to see my son smile at me all day long. That’s a pretty worthwhile trade off.
What do you think of these tips? How do you deal trying to accomplish work-life balance? Share all of your thoughts in the comments below!
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I'm a wife, mama, opera singer, entrepreneur, YouTuber, and your guide to becoming the classic woman you've always wanted to be! Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter to see how! And together, let's be classic.
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Why in the only male here. 🫥