5 Ways to Take Charge of Your Day
Introduction
Our schedules are often packed with work, family, and other commitments in today’s fast-paced world. It can be hard to find time to relax and unwind, and it may feel like there is always something that needs to be done at home.
To help you focus on your tasks, try visualizing the relief and relaxation you’ll feel once they are completed.
5 Ways to Take Charge of Your Day
Let us look at five proven ways that you can use to begin taking charge of your day and simplifying your life:
Clean one room per day.
After a long day, household duties can appear intimidating. But there is nothing more overwhelming than a dirty home.
Prioritize. Instead of observing the disorderly home as a whole, divide it into rooms. The kitchen and living room are the most frequented rooms in a home. Monday, attend to the kitchen, and Tuesday, the living room. Use the remaining days of the week to clean the bedrooms and bathrooms. Before retiring for the night, begin a load of laundry. On your walk out the door after waking up, chuck it in the dryer.
Limit your options.
This tip is particularly helpful when it comes to food. Cooking can be mentally and physically draining when running a home with a spouse and children.
Once a week, create a weekly menu with your family. Instead of giving people different ways to cook their tacos, give each person two recipes. Let them choose their preferred one. Continue this throughout the week.
By including the kids in the decision-making process, you take some pressure off yourself to make the best choice.
Allow yourself one cooking day off per week. It may be a night out on the town or a pizza delivery.
Stop and take a break.
People often say there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything because there are so many things to do. Gallup.com did a study and found that 61% of working Americans say they don’t have enough time to do what they want, while only 32% of those who don’t work say the same.
Taking a break can be as easy as spending 20 minutes on the patio with your favorite crossword book. Put on your headphones with your favorite music and take a short walk around your neighborhood if you want to do more.
Put down the phones.
With today’s technology, phones offer us links to the rest of the world. You can order your coffee online and call your friend in Europe simultaneously.
Texting has become the new style of communication in relationships. Multiple researchers have shown that texting is the most popular feature instead of calling. According to TextMagic.com, “U.S. smartphone users send and receive five times more texts than they make and receive calls.” “On average, Americans spend 26 minutes per day texting compared to 21 minutes per day calling.”
A simple way to adjust to this is at night. Instead of crawling into bed and catching up on all your messages or watching YouTube videos, try plugging the phone in on the other side of the room.
Flip the phone over so the light does not disrupt your sleep. Instead, cuddle up to that novel you have been wanting to catch up on. Before you know it, you will be off to a restless sleep. Those messages will still be there tomorrow.
Prep the night before.
Completing small but time-consuming tasks the night before will ease up your schedule in the morning. Lay your clothes out for yourself, and have your children do the same if they can. Limit choices again. Keep your bags and coats by the door for a simple exit.
When packing lunches, put everything they need in a bag with their name in the refrigerator the night before. Bag any snacks and fresh produce in individual baggies for a quick bite after school or work.
Conclusion
Life may be busy, but simplifying things within your control can improve your mental well-being. Start with what you can do today and take on the world tomorrow. As famed artist Hans Hofmann once quoted, “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
