3 Ideas For Busy Women Who Don't Have Any Time
“I don’t have any time for myself.”
Sound familiar? It’s commonplace for high-achieving women to have many thoughts about time that do not serve us.
I have no time.
There's never enough time.
I’m so busy.
These limiting thoughts about time keep us disconnected from ourselves. They allow us to prioritize everyone else's needs above our own. The more we do this, the further away we get from knowing ourselves: what brings us joy, how we feel rested, what makes us feel fulfilled.
I have a student who is a brand new mom. She also has a toddler at home. Here's what she said about prioritizing her needs (I'm paraphrasing):
If I don't take the time for myself now, I worry that my life will pass me by in a blur and I'll never get around to prioritizing myself.
If I asked you the question, “What if you never get around to prioritizing your own needs?” how would you respond?
How To Start Making Time For Yourself
Ok, so you are on board with the idea that you may need to reexamine your thoughts around time. I'm going to push you a little bit here and, I have to warn you, it might sting a bit. Like all things, this is a practice. Some days you will fail and others you will be flying high from that walk alone in nature.
1.Acknowledge that you are in charge of your time.
We need to work on shifting our mindset around time. We feel time happens to us, when indeed, we are the ones who choose how to fill our time. (Let me pause for a minute here and recognize that systems of oppression are real. Some women are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to freedom of time that is not in their control.)
Let's use me as an example. Pre-pandemic, I commuted 2-3 days a week, 55 miles each way. A monster commute in the Washington, DC area. Did anyone force me to take this job? Did I know about said commute before I started? You get the picture. A big one I often hear from moms is about kids' activities ruling the calendar. This is your gentle reminder that, as the parent, you get the power to decide your kids' activities.
2.Account for your time.
Where does all the time go? We need to account for our time, just like we account for our money. Take all the emotions out of it and write down what you do in each hour of the day. Just like a food diary. Then ask yourself questions about it: Do I want to be spending 3 hours a day on email? Does 45 minutes on Instagram make me feel good? Eventually we will need to set up systems to figure some of this out, but first you need to know where your time goes.
3.Practice saying no in order to open up time.
I know!! It's SO hard!! 😱 Saying no is even harder if we’ve been caught up in a cycle of shoulds. If saying no is a challenge for you, start with new requests coming in. Let’s take an invite to a Zoom gathering of old high school friends. At first you might be inclined to just say yes, it’s only an hour of your time anyway. Before you do, I encourage you to consider the ask from all angles:
How will the gathering leave you feeling (in a comparison trap, uplifted, drained)?
What will you have to do to make it happen (get help with the kids at bedtime, lose an hour of sleep, take a shower on a no-shower day)?
How am I feeling this week (exhausted, energized, major screen fatigue)?
It takes practice, and even after several years of being intentional about what I say yes to, I will still get off course. Life will remind you that you’ve said yes to something that you wanted to say no to and you will remember for the next time. Make it simple, you’ve seen the quote: “No” is a complete sentence. I tend to say something like, “Thanks for asking, but I’m not interested.”
The True Cost Of No Time For Yourself
When we go through life putting others first, we become exhausted and resentful. We feel disappointed by life. We lose connections with people we love and, more importantly, with ourselves. We wonder where all the time has gone and what we’ve done with it. I am asking you to shift your focus from the outside world to the internal one. What will feed your soul? We know that our time here on earth is a precious gift and we also know that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Given that: what will you do to start to make time for yourself?
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