Our lives can be quite hectic. The older we get, the crazier life gets. We have more responsibilities, more chores, more worries – it can seem all too easy to never have any time for yourself. This is not the best way to live your best life. You need to make time for yourself to further your interests and talents on your own time. Just because you have a job that pays the bills doesn’t mean you have to give up your love of art, just that you have to make time to incorporate it into your life. To help you better manage your time and make more time for the things that you love, follow these steps:
Be More Productive
Your responsibilities won’t go away, but that doesn’t mean they have to take up as much time as they do. By being more productive, you can get what needs to be done in less time. To achieve this, you need to work in better cycles and, more importantly, you have to be healthy. Going into the office after a bad night’s sleep is going to make the entire day go by excruciatingly slow. By the time everything is done there is probably nothing more than you want to do than sit on the couch and not move until you have to.
In order to beat this feeling of exhaustion, you have to better your routines and find ways to eat better. Two of the best pieces of advice to accomplish this are to create healthy lunches and even dinners for the entire week on a day you have off. That way, just because you are tired, it does not mean you won’t be eating healthy. From there, work on improving your sleep cycles by bettering your routines. Stay away from the blue-white light from electronics after sunset, have a hot bath before bedtime, and go to sleep and wake up at the same time every night. These steps will help you master your sleep cycle so that you can wake up energized and ready to go.
Get Rid of Stress
Though healthy living will do wonders to help you combat stress, it isn’t the only method you should turn to. Getting a massage, treat yourself, and slowing down are all ways you can calm yourself down. In some cases, Healthworx CBD oil might be the best solution, as it allows you to relax without a high, in others all you might need is to disconnect from your phone after work. Find what works for you and stick with it. If you can relax, you can then master your daily routine so that you will have more time to do what you love.
Get Everyone to Help
Being a parent means that a lot of your time is spent taking care of your children, but you are not helping them by taking care of everything for them. You need your whole family on board, sharing in the chores because if you don’t your children will grow up without key life skills that will help them thrive on their own. Teach them how to cook, work together to clean the house, have them do the laundry, cut the grass, and so on. Chores that are done together offer great learning and bonding experiences for the whole family. Share in the responsibility, and teach responsibility. As a bonus, you’ll know that when your children move out they will be able to take care of themselves and stay healthy without you.
Make Boundaries
At work and home, you should always have boundaries. For work, this might mean something as simple as having office hours you adhere to. You can enforce this by setting up an automatic reply system for when you go home, thanking them for their email and letting them know that you will get back to you in the morning. By setting up these expectations from the start, you can help separate work from home, meaning you will have more time to do what you love.
Take a Class
Being healthy and less stressed will do wonders to help you get through what needs to be done. This means you can enjoy the rest of your time even more. In order to ensure that some of this extra time is spent on you and you alone, you might want to consider enrolling in a class. You could learn a new skill, work with your hands, make friends, and, as there is a financial commitment involved, you have that extra incentive to go out and do what you love to do. It’s a great way to get out there and spice up your life. Your children will understand if you leave them for a few hours once a week, and you will feel better having actually worked with your talent.
Have a Dedicated Workspace
If you have a place where you create or work on what you love to do, you can actually stay motivated to keep working on your projects. It is far too easy to get distracted when we are not used to doing something, which is why having a special place to create can do wonders to help you continue your projects until the end. Your workspace should be private, have everything that you need, and contain the right positive reinforcement. This means that when you are in this workspace, you create or you do what you love, and nothing else. That way, you can stay motivated and better your talent every day.
In order to make more time for the things that you love, you have to find ways to address your responsibilities more effectively and in less time. Being more productive and less stressed is key because once you on top of everything you can begin to set aside some time to work on what you love. To get started, you could take a class to further your skills, and then work up to creating your own workspace so that you can make your hobby into a habit.