When Life Gets Busy, Make a New Plan!

Found on Chris Pino via Pinterest

I terribly miss reading your blogs. So dramatic. It's not like I can no longer read. And it's not like I'm SO busy and SO important that I don't have time. hehe It's true that I worry my life is unbalanced right now and I recognize it and I'm doing something about it starting today. I think for me, when things get busy I completely remove something from my plate. This time, work was taking over. I kept workouts in, cooking new recipes, blogging, and audio books (and of course spending time with my family and friends - that CAN'T fall off) but reading just fell off. And not just your blogs, my books! I've found that BOTH of these things make me very happy. I knew that. But so happy, in fact, that I was honestly  in a funk due to the lack of blog reading/reading in my life. TRUE STORY.

Yesterday I picked up Water for Elephants (book club book). I had pretty much told myself there's no way you can read Water for Elephants by book club next Wednesday so I just won't read it. Yes, all or nothing! But Shana was like Kel - just try it, you''ll love it. I trust her. I was like maybe i'll just read 3 chapters. 100 pages later I felt better! I felt relaxed! I vowed to read blogs following that  and it didn't happen... :(

Today I looked at my reader. 1,000+. Efffffff. Instead of being totally unreasonable and saying I'll read all 1,000 or not at all, I just started clicking through one. at. a. time. Each of your posts, for different reasons, made me think, smile, pin it on pinterest, copy/save into my recipe file, or exercise-move-to-try file, etc. I've been wanting to start tracking calories again to REALLY lose this extra 5 pounds and Janetha's post was just what I needed to read. I left my reader (with still a lot of unreads, mind you) but I felt BETTER. I feel better when I read your blogs, thoughts, ideas. You inspire me and motivate me to NOT let my healthy lifestyle be put on the backburner when life gets in the way. I HAVE to make it a priority - no one else is going to do that for me.

So what does this mean? There's still only 24 hours in a day. I think, for me, when I get stressed I don't sleep as much. I'm stressed because I know i'm unbalanced, I'm not reading before bed (which puts me to sleep!), I'm not taking my lunch break and/or breaks at work which is when I read blogs or read i.e., take the break! It's a cycle, friends, and it's not making me happy. SO here are things I want to remind myself of, let's call it 5 To-Dos Until Things Slow Down. 

1. Take a lunch break. It's a break for a reason. You need it. Use it to work out. Or to read. Or to read blogs. Or to run errands. Or to see a dentist/doctor. WHATEVER. But do. not. work. It makes the day somewhat miserable and I feel stressed out/exhausted. I enjoy my work, but that makes me feel burned out.

2. Continue morning workouts. Sometimes it's the only way to get one in. Instead of packing a bag every night, decide all of my work outfits and gym outfits on Sunday and load the car up to keep it simple. (WAY too much work to do this every night - that 30 minutes a night could be reading time!).

3. Pre-cook on Sundays. Yes, trying new recipes is awesome. I love it. BUT I have a ton of recipes I can pre-cook to keep it more simple (no figuring out macros, buying new ingredients, not knowing how long it's really going to take, etc.). So, back to pre-cooking my tried and true "easy" recipes on Sundays until things slow down.

4. No two-a-days. Keep the heavy cardio in the a.m., but no walking at lunch if there are other things I need to do during lunch that DON'T involve working (i.e. errands, doctor's appointments, etc.). Use a weekend workout for heavy ST. Basically, work out smarter to get things in, but still allow time for other things!

5. Establish adult bed time. hehe It's TRUE though. I'm like I need to be asleep by 10, 10:30 at latest. I just DO. This doesn't mean race around the house packing the car, doing laundry, working, etc., until 10:30 then trying to go to sleep while my brain is still active/stressed. I'm setting a 9:30 p.m. cut off time. In bed, TV off! LOL If I sleep, great. If I read, great. But no working. No, no, no.

I think this is just my way of saying, "It's okay to not do it all. BUT, it's not okay to just completely cut out things that make you happy. Fit it in. Make it work." Ideally, when things slow down I can add back in two-a-days, whip up new recipes at the pace I was before, and focus more on my other goals. But for now I'm on a 'keep the lights on' strategy FOR SURE and that means all of the lights are dim... rather than totally shutting off some!

Q: When your life gets busy, do you make a new plan? I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Instead I was driving myself crazy still trying to do it all. Time to adjust instead of feeling guilty/funky/sorry for myself. LOL


Q: What time do you go to bed? 


Q: How do you make time to do what makes you happy?


Back to normal programming tomorrow, which thanks to my new plan, involves a review of Water for Elephants. :)