Simplify Your Life
Life can get very complicated and stressful what with all of the ‘hats’ we wear.
How many hats are you wearing?
These roles and responsibilities can make our life feel out of balance.
We sometimes let others control our activities and determine our priorities. And sometimes it is out of balance due to a lack of clearly defined goals and the determination to maintain those goals at the forefront of our decision making process. Our work life interferes with our personal life. Family transitions, parenting issues, or caregiving strain interferes with our work life or our enjoyment of our various roles. Social obligations and holidays make us feel frazzled and stressed out.
So how do we simplify it so that our life is more manageable and enjoyable and we are more resilient?
Realization and acceptance can be the first steps to gaining control. Accept that it’s impossible to do it all and it’s all right if you don’t, in fact, it’s much better if you don’t. Planning allows us to anticipate and get excited. It gives us a sense of accomplishment from having designed our life.
Beverly’s Hot Tips For Building Resilience By Celebrating Simplify Your Life Week:
- Avoid blaming others and situations – WE have the ultimate decision on how OUR time will be spent.
- Develop and set your priorities and say ‘No’ to those things which are not your priority.
- Planning and time management are essential skills. Planning should include not just career tasks, but home, family, leisure, social, and self.
- Treat your household like your own small business. If daily tasks are organized and routine, everything is easier. 30% of our time is spent doing ‘pile-up’ items such as chores and maintenance activities – By being aware of this time we can begin to plan more effectively. Organization will help you to finish your chores in less time.
- Organize your weeknight and weekends in the same way you do other work-related tasks.
- Prepare for the transition from work to home by planning your work-related activities for the next day before you leave the office. Try, as best as you can, to complete your work-related tasks on Friday, so that you can concentrate on other items over the weekend, and start with a clean slate on Monday.
- Do not over-program yourself or your family.
More Tips On How To Simplify Your Life
- Most behavioural problems occur upon first arriving at home. Take 10 minutes when you first get home to get reconnected and rebuild the family bond.
- Make the morning routine as simple as possible, leaving yourself more than enough time for ‘emergencies’.
- Piggyback activities – spend time talking to your children while making dinner, read a good book or plan out your grocery list while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, listen to your favourite music while doing chores.
- Develop a menu for 1-2 weeks that you can easily follow.Ensure that you always have these items on hand when grocery shopping. Have a list on fridge with running shopping list.
- Get rid of clutter-keep only the essential items in kitchen drawers, do not use closets and garage as storage space, weed out clothes that do not fit, purge unused files, give away ‘knick knacks’, and if it’s broke – repair it or get rid of it. Let go of mementos if they have lost their meaning -pictures, old cards, programs. Touch flyers, junk mail, newspapers, and magazines only once.Pull out relevant material and recycle the rest.
How Does Stress Impact Our Lives
Our stress can be negatively impacted by the way in which we organize our daily activities and routines, and by the organization or lack there of in our physical environment. Simplifying routines and de-junking physical space can increase our efficiency, our effectiveness and can add to a sense of control which can help us create a calm and peaceful presence.
Contact Beverly about hosting a mental health workshop for your teams on work life balance. Discover tips to deal with stress and how to build resilience!
If you have some strategies to share – comment on this posting!
Additional Resources:
Do It Day – Fight Procrastination
Simplifying Life and Regaining A Rhythm