say yes to your priorities

"I wish I had time for that." I hear that often from people when I talk about how much time I invest in self-care or how often I go out with my friends, or when I say I don't do meetings on Mondays....

I once wished I had time for the things I wanted to do, too. So guess what... I made the time.

If it's important to you and you want to do it, you'll make time. It's as simple as that.

Making this shift for myself required me to really examine all that was on my plate, and to release everything that wasn't mine to do or that was no longer in alignment with my priorities and goals. I had to make a lot of choices - some of them were incredibly difficult and others were actually pretty easy once I committed to the process.

We ALLLLL have lots of things to do, and I'm no different. I'm a single self-employed mother. I run my own businesses and I have a part-time job. I don't have a partner so all the parenting, household management, personal errands, cleaning, shopping, and all the other necessities are my responsibility.

When I realized I had too much on my plate, I made myself sit down and get really clear on what my top priorities were - what I wanted to make time for. They are:

*my health, wellbeing and self-care
*my daughter
*my business and clients
*my friends and other personal relationships, + fun, play, and adventure

I have learned the ways that work best for me to manage all my responsibilities and priorities. I work less on the weeks I have my daughter and more on the weeks I don't. When I leave the house for meetings, I take work with me in case a meeting ends early, starts late, or is canceled so I can make the most of my time. I have certain days I block for meetings, and other days I refuse to do meetings. I group my errands together. I do laundry while I work or workout. I say no to the requests that are not aligned.

And now...

I make time for self-care EVERY DAY. Yes, I said every day. In fact, I schedule that on my calendar FIRST. Because it's a priority and if I don't schedule it in, then I can't find the time to do it. And if I don't do it, then I don't have the energy or the presence I need for everything else.

I block the time that I want to reserve for my daughter and the time I want to reserve for my work.

After all that, I see what's left for friends and other fun activities. On the weeks I don't have my daughter, I usually see friends multiple times. Sometimes it's an early morning hike. Sometimes it's coffee or lunch. And sometimes, it's going out for the evening.

Since these are my priorities, I make time for them, no matter how busy my life feels. These get scheduled first and everything else gets scheduled around them.

What works for you? How do you make time for all the things that are important to you and the fun things you want to do?
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Say yes to your priorities. Say no to everything else.
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