Scheduling Time for Self-Care

This is part 6 in a 10-part series on Taking Care of Yourself

How many times, when you’ve really wanted to do something for yourself, have you told yourself that you don’t have time. Maybe later become pretty much never. Your days are filled with activities including work, child care, school activities, after-school activities, community commitments, and social outings. You barely have enough time to maintain a relationship with your spouse or partner, let alone a relationship with yourself.

Sound familiar?

It may seem impossible to take care of yourself while taking care of a full family and keeping up with the house, or while running a business, or working a job, but there is a way to solve this through scheduling and calendaring.

Start adding self-care to your calendar

If you are not someone who usually uses a planner or calendar start now. Your health and happiness depend on it. Plus, you’ll seriously be shocked at how much more freedom you have when you do schedule everything. You can grab a printable 30-day daily planner here.

Every day, or at the beginning of each week, sit down and find areas that you can fill in your calendar with some self-care activities. If you can put those things in your calendar first after right after your required work schedule, you’ll become even more successful at meeting your self-care goals.

Try to schedule these as early in the day as possible. Schedule everything even if it feels silly. This can include phone calls with your family and friends, a bath, or even a short nap. Once you have it scheduled stick to it and make it just as important as the rest of your tasks.

You would never overlook something on your calendar if it pertained to work or your family so why do that to yourself?

unplug for a few minutes quote anne lamott

You are just as important as anything else in your life. Your overall health affects everything that happens in your daily life. Neglecting self-care can cause horrible moods, depression, and even affect your work in a negative way. In other words, self-care is just as important as work and your family.

Adding these activities to your calendar avoids the repeated and all too familiar excuse of not having enough time or saying, "I'll just do it later." There is no pushing something under the rug when it's on your calendar and the time is blocked out. You already took the time out to make time so there really is no excuse. Your work or family doesn't need more of your time… you need it.

Make sure you schedule in enough time for each activity so you can fully enjoy it. Don't rush these activities or you will quickly turn something that is supposed to release stress, into just another chore to be done. If you only have a certain amount of time choose your self-care interests wisely. If you only have ten minutes to spare only do something that takes ten minutes and stick to it.

You may feel a little self-conscious, even silly, when you first start doing this but over time it will become second nature. You will experience so many benefits that skipping over your self-care will seem unnatural. Self-care is just as, if not more, important than your work and family because it determines exactly how each day will develop and set the stage for your future days as well.