Make Time For Me Time (Or Y'know - YOU Time!)

'Me Time'. Sounds lovely doesn't it? Maybe a spa style bubble bath with candles and your favourite chillout mix playing... or binge watching a boxset with all the snacks... hiking up a hill and embracing the beauty of nature... indulging your creative urges... yoga... sweating it out in the gym? (I dunno, apparently that's how some people relax, I'm not here to judge.) ANYWAY! However you choose to fill it up, I think we can all agree that 'Me Time' is pretty important, right? So then why do so many of us make so little time for it?!

I know, I know. We're busy, we have commitments, there's work to do and people to see and only so many hours in the day. Long story short, we can't find time. Which is exactly where we're going wrong. We shouldn't be finding time, we should be making it.


One of my goals this year, is to readdress my whole work/life balance. (Also known as: The Holy Grail of Time Management.) I mentioned before how my little business is growing - and let's just say that's not blind luck, it's a whole lot of work! (I'm not going to discuss right now those peeps thinking 'but you're self employed, you work at home, you can take breaks whenever you like!' - technically, yes I can, but that wouldn't result in much business growth! But yes, misconceptions of self employed life is another blog post for another day. Moving on!)

Last year, I had very little structure going on, timewise. Monday to Friday, my 'work day' was around 9am - 3pm, while Shorty was at school, but rather than focus on just business stuff, I'd do a bit, then do some laundry. Do a bit more, prep dinner. Tick off another box on my to do list, then do the school run. I'd generally pack orders in the evenings, maybe answer a few emails while I was at it, scribble down an idea as it fleeted randomly through my brain... Even when I consciously made the effort to sit down with the Tall One and watch the tellybox, I'd often be carding pins or cutting stickers at the same time. You get the idea - there was always something to do, and I got bits done as and when I could. It was a disorganised jumble, but I figured it was okay, I was building my dream and all that stuff; no hustle, no reward, right? Well yes, but there has to be balance too!

This year, I'm starting to make better use of my time and hold myself more accountable for it. To be honest, that's another blog post in itself, but in short, I'm doing my best to ONLY do business stuff during school hours plus two evenings a week and never ever at weekends. (Apart from updating Instagram ;)

Another part of 'the plan' is to give myself half an hour a day to just do nothing.
Well okay, not nothing (I'm really not good at that), but at least only do things for me; read a book and drink a cup of tea, watch some trashy telly, have a nap... The theory is that at 2.30pm everyday, Monday - Friday, I down tools and indulge in 'Me Time' until the school run at 3pm. It's by no means an exact science just yet, but by deliberately 'scheduling' the time for myself, I find I'm much more likely to actually take it and it's making a massive difference to my productivity levels and my mood! (Doing the school run after a half hour chillout is way less stressful than stomping along the road after leaving a job half finished with a million other things still whirling round my head!)

So, the moral of the story, if you've made it this far (I've rambled a bit, sorry!), is do yourself a favour and put YOU time on your to do list, because really and truly, it is just as important (if not moreso) than everything else on there.

Have you got your own work/life balance cracked? I would love to hear your top tips!