Time for YOU
April 23, 2020
Life is a juggling act. As much as I pray every single for our world to get back on track, there is some truth to finding the silver lining in the world being put on pause right now.
I can honestly say that I love being mother and wife who owns a small business and is very involved with my kids’ school and various professional organizations. I love planning and seeing my kids flourish in their extracurricular activities. When I calculate the time that I am in my car or in a taxi taking kids to school , activities or myself to meetings, I have added it up to a good two hours per day. This lead me to think of, how can I turn that time that I previously used commuting somewhere into productive time now?
1) Exercise:
Regardless of my profession, I too struggle with fitting time to exercise in my busy schedule and prioritizing my health. I am LOVING virtual training. I am participating in one of our Kb Virtual Fit Club fitness classes everyday, whether the 45 minute class or the 15 minute class. There is something mental about committing to 45 minutes a day to exercise instead of 60-minutes. It’s less overwhelming, and with research, found to be more effective. I have even been enjoying not have to take the elevator down to our condo’s fitness center. I love being pushed by our KB Personal Trainers instead of relying on myself to motivate ME in my workouts.
2) Meal Planning:
How many times have you ordered food instead of cooking dinner because you were too busy and making a phone call or app order was just so much easier? Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. I cannot tell you HOW many time that I have done this in the Bobos house. It’s so easy to give our children something healthy and quick for dinner (i.e. green beans, black beans with Mexican cheese and a side of peaches was last night’s dinner.) Now that we are all home, I have been making our dinner menus and shopping list on Wednesday evenings. My husband does our grocery shopping on Thursdays. We only order out on Saturdays for our indoor “date nights.” Everything is planned and organized. We are eating healthier meals and at earlier times. Truthfully, I am feeling a little bloated and uncomfortable when we do order out, so I am making even healthier choices when we order from restaurants.
3) Journaling:
I have three journals, one for each of my children, that I have been writing in since the day I found out I was pregnant with each of them. Here’s the problem, I have very little time to write in them. I have been making a conscious effort to write in one of the journals each week. I am also catching up on organizing our family photos. I am so behind on this task. I was actually just about to hire someone to assist me.
4) Organizing:
I always feel better and more at ease with an organized home and office space. It allows me to be more productive in all areas of my life. Confession, my office is often a mess. My life is so busy that every two weeks, I have someone clean my office thoroughly, but then I just put the pile of papers right back where they were. I have so many piles of papers. Each week, I am making an effort to organize one of those piles. We also have personal piles of kids stuff and mail that I am working on organizing weekly now that I have time. Fridays has been designated as our organization day. Saturdays is our cleaning day ~ you know, since we moved the piles of stuff out of the way.
5) Meditation and Yoga:
Our mental health is even more important than our physical health because our mental health directly effects our physical health. As health professionals, we tell individuals to take 10 minutes a day to free their mind, whether with meditation or simple calmness. Stress impacts our heart, our mind, and our attitude. Use this time to take care of your mental health. Incorporate a mental health practice each day. This needs to be TOP priority on your quarantine survival list.
6) Catching Up with Old Friends:
One day, you will be retired. You’ll find yourself reminiscing on good times with friends that you have no idea why you stopped talking to other than work and family got in the way. You might even find yourself lonely wth only a handful of friends. This is the perfect time to make an effort to reconnect. Pick up the phone and give them a call. Get a good laugh on old times spent together. People need people. It’s what makes the world go around. Rekindle old friendships. You could even take time to write a handful of friends a “Thinking of You” card. Putting a smile on someone’s face feeds the soul.
7) Sleeping:
We use to get up every day at 4:30am. My husband was on the road at 5:00am. I would stay up and get some work done in my office because I was very limited on work time throughout the day. Then I would wake up my children at 6:30am for school. Sometimes my meetings wouldn’t end until 8:00pm. We would often eat dinner late and head to bed just before 11:00pm. Our income has been impacted, and it is scary. But the value to put on our sleep is priceless. I can definitely say that our sleep was weird and disturbed the first few weeks of this pandemic. While we are still stressed and scared, I am grateful for our sleep. Sleep impacts our health on so many levels. I know one day life will resume and the quality and quantity of our sleep will lessen. Until then, maybe our hormones will regulate, and we can put some years back onto our life but getting sufficient sleep for weeks on end.
There are so many things in this world that we have no control over right now. How we choose to use our time that was previously occupied prior to the pandemic is definitely one thing that we all have control over. Make your own list or choose mine, but make the choice to find ways to live a healthier life for you and your family.
