It is important that you set a realistic schedule for yourself during the week if you would like to have a healthy amount of life balance as well. No one wants to spend all of their time at work and they do not want to run around all the time, driving kids from one location to another and never having a chance to be at home. Learning how to set a realistic schedule can be key to helping you out.
According to Calender.com, most Americans want to spend more time with their families, have more free time for their hobbies, and get more work done. When you do not have a good schedule in place, you may feel like you are running around all the time, without getting anything done by the end. But how can you set a realistic schedule for the best results?
Prioritize Your Activities
The first step here is to pick out which activities are going to be the most important for you to finish each day. You do not have time to fit in all activities, so you need to split them up based on what is most important, what needs to get done but can wait if you do not have time, and what can’t wait until later.
Take all of the activities that you need to get done for the day and list them out in these three categories. You should only have maybe five activities in the most important column. Include things like projects that need to get done that day, appointments for you and the kids, and other options. Also, make sure that you actually spend some time on yourself and with your family.
Once those important tasks are done, you can move onto the rest, if you have time. If there is no time, then let them go until the next day.
Remove the Unnecessary Activities
As you take a look at all of the activities that you need to get done during the day, take a look and see if there are some activities that are not that important at all. Not every item on your calendar is going to contribute to a well-balanced schedule and some of them need to be removed.
In some cases, you may need to outsource them. Other times, you may need to cut out some activities that just aren’t going to fit into the schedule. For example, if your kids are in five activities each and you feel like you are never getting a moment at home, ask them to pick two and then the rest need to be dropped.
Schedule the Downtime
In our current busy world, it is a good idea to schedule some of the downtime that you would like to use. For many people, this may be the only way that they actually get some time to themselves. Try to schedule a bit of down time, into each day, even if it is just half an hour reading or watching a show with the family.
You should also schedule some longer down time sessions into the calendar too. These can be weekends where you will not do any work, or longer vacations where you can get away and let the stress leave your mind and body. Once the down time is added into your schedule, do not take it off. It can be easy to see that big chunk of time with nothing scheduled and try to fill it up, but this can ruin the whole purpose of having some down time added into your day.
