How To Take Time For Yourself (Even When You Have None To Spare)
Do you struggle to put time aside for yourself because you’re busy spending it on everyone else? Wish you could find the time to take care of yourself and work on your own needs?
You’re not alone. With so many things to do on our daily to-do list, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But there are ways that you can take time for yourself, even if you think you have none to spare.
How To Take Time For Yourself
Break it down into small chunks
Very few people can find 60 or even 30 minutes in their day to focus on self-care. But what you might find easier is finding 2-3 chunks of 10-15 minutes throughout your day.
Even having 10 minutes in the morning to sip your coffee before the kids wake up can be a form of self-care!
Say no more often!
People are not very good at saying no to the requests of others. This is particularly true for us women! We say yes, even when we don’t really want to.
But every time you say ‘yes’ to someone else’s request, you’re saying ‘no’ to yourself. To free up time for yourself, you need to flip that dialogue around.
This means you need to say no more frequently than you probably do right now. We give you permission to say no to commitments that don’t fulfil you, or events that will leave you drained.
You don’t have to volunteer at the bake stall or go to a distant friend’s birthday 45 minutes away if you haven’t had time to take care of yourself first!
Pick 3 things to do each day
You won’t always have oodles of time every single day to tick off all of your self-care methods. That’s why it can be handy to have an essential 3 list.
Pick 3 forms of self-care that you can practice daily - ideally in 15 minutes or less. Make sure they are the ones that the biggest bang for your buck - so when you do them consistently, you feel amazing.
For example, you might pick:
Stand up every 90 minutes at work and stretch your body for 60 seconds
Have at least 2 serves of veggies at dinner
Do 5 minutes of deep breathing before bed
As long as you tick off these 3 self-care tasks, you can officially say you had a good day of self-care. Anything else you do is just a bonus!
Review your to-do list
Do you look at your chore list or schedule and feel overwhelmed? Think there is no chance of you finding even 10 minutes over the next few days?
Let’s have a look at your to-do list for the day, or your schedule for the week.
How many of the appointments, events and tasks are things that must be done today or this week, with hard deadlines?
How many are just you putting pressure on yourself to be the perfect person - the perfect mum, daughter, friend, employee or business owner?
Anything that falls under the latter can be rescheduled or even crossed off. Use one of those chunks of time to do something nice for yourself instead!
Schedule your time in advance
The best way to make sure you have time set aside for yourself? Schedule it as far in advance as you can!
It’s easy to say each week that you don’t have time, because we will always find tasks that take up time. The dishes will always need washing, the laundry always needs to be put away, and your in-laws will always want to have dinner with you over the weekend!
But if you schedule slots of self-care in advance, it’s easier to say that you’re already booked up.
Want to schedule your physical care in advance? You’re in luck! At The Wellness Nest, we offer long-term booking dates - so you can schedule your June or even December appointments today.