I’m a mum. I’m a fiancé. I own two businesses. I take care of myself (physically and mentally). I am always enrolled in some kind of study, whether that is for business or for self-development. All while dealing with my own mental health. My life would seem pretty chaotic, right? But don’t get me wrong, I may wear a lot of hats, I’m always doing things and always have a huge to-do list but I have my shit sorted. I know what I’m doing each day and it really isn’t as chaotic as it would seem.
I totally know that you’re wondering how the hell I do it all, so let me share my secrets with you so you can live a non-chaotic life too.
♡ Schedule in your self-care
When we're living in chaos, we tend to put everything before ourselves. We put other people first. We put our to-do list first. We put work first. We put cleaning first. Literally everything is put before ourselves which is actually the worst thing we can do.
When we stop caring for ourselves, we stop caring for the people around us and the lives we’re creating for ourselves.
Whether you’re busy or literally have all of the time in the world because you’re in between jobs, commit to your self-care. Schedule it into your diary and don’t let it go because you don’t have time because trust me, you have time.
As a Mum, I used to find it hard to have time for myself, so I started waking up one hour before my son usually would, I call it my hour of power. In that hour, I journal, meditate and practise yoga or stretch.
♡ To-do lists
I would be no-where without my lists. I have to-do lists for everything. A personal to-do list, a home to-do list, a to-do list for every day (literally), a to-do list for each business. I love my to-do lists!
♡ Declutter
Where there is clutter, there is chaos.
Declutter your spaces! Your home, your car, your office, your backyard, your wardrobe. Start somewhere small but where you will notice a difference, like your bathroom cabinet. Throw out, donate or sell the things you don’t want or need anymore and you’ll notice extremely quickly how relaxing it is.
♡ Delegate and ask for help
I am a recovering do-it-all-er (I'm not sure if that's a thing but it is now!). I honestly used to live my life thinking that I was the ONLY person who could do certain things and certain tasks.
Living like that was draining, mentally and physically. It was stressful and I don’t know why I did it for so long.
When we begin to delegate, we allow more space in our lives for the things we enjoy doing and for the things we’re actually good at.
You can delegate by hiring a cleaner or taking your laundry to the dry cleaner but remember, delegating doesn’t always have to be hiring somebody to do something. I don’t know about you, but there are some tasks which I do for my family simply because I’m good at them and I get them done quickly (and usually I do them quicker than my partner, Karl). BUT, that doesn’t mean Karl, can’t do them.
If I need more time in my day or week, I delegate by asking Karl to do things that I usually would. For example, picking our son up from daycare or calling our financial advisor to give the information they asked for.
It can also mean asking your family or friends if they can watch the kids for an hour while you quickly clean the house.
There is no shame in asking for help and delegating.
♡ Do one thing at a time
I am actually a pretty good multitasker and when I say that I mean that I can focus on multiple things at once and I usually get them done properly and well, but multitasking, usually isn’t time-efficient.
By focusing on one task or one set of similar tasks at a time, you will find that you get things done faster than if you were to do multiple things at once.
Imagine this, you’re cleaning the house but you’re also replying to work emails. Sure, you can do them both at the same time, but switching between the two tasks wastes time and your brain will never fully focus on either.
Now compare this to if you were replying to all of your emails at once. You would sit down, focus on the emails, get in the hang of it and smash them out quickly. Understand what I mean?
♡ Say no
For the love of the universe, say no to things. You do not have to accept every single invitation or opportunity sent your way. You can say no and that’s okay.
It’s okay to choose to stay at home and watch TV instead of going out partying with your friends. It’s okay to choose to keep your spare day of freedom instead of picking up more work.
Learn to be comfortable saying no and notice your entire energy shift.
♡ Social media
We’re all on social media. Most of us jump on each day and scroll through friends (or maybe even strangers) posts. I want to ask you something. When you get a notification pop up on your phone for social media, what do you do? Do you jump straight on and check it? Does it sit there until you're finished what you're doing?
There’s nothing at all wrong with checking social media daily or when a notification pops up but I think it’s important we realise and actually notice how much time we are spending on social media.
What tasks are we not doing during the day because we’re looking at somebody’s Instagram account who we went to primary school with? What moments are we missing because we’re watching a video on Facebook about ducks?
I started monitoring my social media usage by using the Screen Time feature on my iPhone, I noticed that I was spending A LOT of time on social media and then complaining that I had no time or that my business wasn’t growing as I wanted it too.
The next step was to change my phone habits. I turned off all of my notifications (except for phone calls and text messages). This stopped the random pop-up notifications that used to easily distract me.
Lastly, I set night-mode up on my iPhone. Between 8pm-7am, I don’t get any notifications at all, so no text messages or phone calls come through.
These few things have cut my screen time by more than HALF.
Which means I have gained hours back each day to work on my to-do lists, my businesses and to play with my son.
♡ Work
Keeping my work organised was a skill I had to learn extremely quickly if I wanted to run two businesses from home successfully. Thankfully I figured it out quick-smart!
I’ll definitely write about this specifically in another post, but here are a few quick and actionable things to organise your work:
- Take your lunch break outside in the sunshine and fresh air. This may not seem very important but remember my first point – you need to take care of yourself so that everything else can be taken care of too
- Create a daily, weekly and monthly to-do list to keep on top of what you need to get done
- Prioritise your to-do list to ensure the most important tasks are done on time
- Outsource the things you don’t like doing or aren’t very good at
- Clock off and leave the work at work. This is extremely important for a healthy work-life balance.
♡ Joint calendars and to-do lists
This is a bonus tip for anybody out there with families (or unorganised partners!). Link a calendar and to-do list with your partner and add everything into it when you schedule it or think of it.
This avoids any double booking and you both know exactly what needs to be done, when it needs to be done and who needs to do it.
I really hope this has helped you! Even if you only take away one of these sections, it will make a HUGE difference to organising your life.
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With love
Shorina xo
Counsellor + Wellness & Mental Health Coach
Hi, I'm Shorina and I'm an Australian Counsellor + Wellness & Mental Health Coach. I'm here to support you to redefine your relationship to self and life! I incorporate a mind, body and soul wellness approach to my work with a focus on healing and mindfulness ♡