How To Take Time For Yourself If You’re On a Busy Schedule

Yes, you can have that precious “ME” time, even if you’re crazy busy.

Researched, written by Amber & The Team
Updated on January 26, 2023

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Tired Woman Turninf Off Alarm To Take Time For Herself

Taking time for yourself is extremely important to maintain your sanity. It is the first step towards loving and accepting yourself, and taking the best care of your mental wellness.

When you are tired and overworked, you tend to become unproductive and grumpy. You make decisions in a hurry, and sometimes you mess up… That’s when you know you need to take time for yourself.

Now, there’s no one size that fits all, everyone needs a different amount of time to recharge, but there’s one thing for sure – when you’re crazy busy with your life, it can be really hard to fit everything in. If you want to know how to take time for yourself even on the busiest schedule, keep reading!

How To Take Time For Yourself If You’re On a Busy Schedule

1) Mark your calendar

Mark your calendar with the things you want to do for your self care just like you would mark your meetings and deadlines. Then, treat them like you would handle your work-related stuff.

Go on a lunch date with yourself, plan a shopping spree with your friends or treat yourself with a spa day at home. Prioritise self-care and try to look at your wellbeing like it is just as important as your work schedule (hint – it is!).

It doesn’t matter how little time you have for yourself, what matters is how you want to spend it. Make it count. Do something that makes you happy.

2) Turn your phone off

In this day and age, where your cellphone is the most important thing and checking your social media or emails are necessary, this tip may sound impossible (I know!). However, if you want to take time for yourself, it would help immensely if you could put your phone aside for a while.

When you come back from work, you do not want to have even more work and being active on social platforms is not as important as your mental wellness is. Believe it or not, posting and scrolling on social media can be just as exhausting. A simple ‘phone detox’ will help you to feel more relaxed and clear your mind after work.

3) Take a day off

Continually working hard through the week (or month…) can quickly drain your energy. Take a pre-planned day off once in a while to calm yourself and forget all that crazy workload (at least for a while).

On this day, focus on yourself and your body. Take a hot bath and scrub that exhaustion off. Read a good book, have your friends over for a movie night, get a new haircut or sleep in. Trust me, you will be more energetic and focused on your work after a day off.

4) Pre-cook a healthy and hearty meal for yourself

When you have a hectic and jam-packed schedule, and you live alone, you do not get enough time to have proper meals. Of course, you can prep your meals for a few days so you can both eat healthily and have more time for yourself on weekdays. But that just means you‘ll have to cook a ton of meals on Sundays!

To eat healthy, warm meals whenever you come home, I recommend investing in a high-quality slow cooker. With it, you can add the ingredients in the morning and set the preparation time so the meal is ready just on time you get home.

Tip: while eating, allow yourself to watch your favorite shows that you have been missing out on!

5) To take time for yourself, learn to say NO

Time is limited, so you need to set healthy boundaries in your life. This is probably a very challenging thing to do, but it is also one of the essential things to do when it comes to physically having enough time for self-care.

If you are saying “yes” to everyone, you are saying “no” to yourself and denying yourself that precious ME time.

So if someone asks you to do something, but you have already planned to go to the gym or to relax at home, politely say “no” and do not feel guilty about it.

6) Declutter

When you don’t have time and are crazy-busy in your work life, it’s easy to get unorganized in various areas of your life. This is a dangerous situation because the more clutter you have, the more time it takes for you to do the simplest tasks.

It can be really fruitful to take time for yourself and declutter your room, bathroom, wardrobe or desk.

Okay, but how exactly does this help to take time for yourself?

While organizing and decluttering will soak some time initially, you’ll have more free time later. You’ll get ready faster in the morning, and you won’t need to clean as often.

Also, organizing is helpful for your mental health because it takes your focus away from your busy life and allows you to slow down and just scrub away. Just like taking negative thoughts out of our mind is good, getting rid of things that you no longer use can do wonders. It will give you peace of mind, happiness and a feeling of freedom.

– – –

Never feel guilty for doing what’s best for you. Next time you’re planning that busy schedule, remind yourself that you are just as important and you deserve to take time for yourself too. Reserve some spots just for yourself and enjoy them! It’s never selfish to self care.

“Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort. ” – Deborah Day

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