A few months ago, I documented a day in my life where I noted that “my favorite day is an ordinary one”. Fast-forward to 2024 and I’m decidedly in a season of life where most days are not ordinary.
Case in point: We’re halfway through January and I still have a candy cane painted on my ring finger. (Shout-out to my neighborhood nail salon. That’s some real staying power).
Life pulls me in many directions.
The things that pull at me may be different than the things that pull at you. What many of us have in common is the PULL.
Sometimes, the solution to feeling stretched too thin is more complex and nuanced than simply saying yes to some things and no to others. What are you supposed to you do when current circumstances insist that you to show up for all of it, and perhaps, you actually want to show up for all of it?
How do you hold everything at once?
This past week, I reached out to several lovely and well-organized friends for support. These are women who get stuff done, set healthy boundaries, and have a certain ease about them. How do you do it? I asked. I’ll take all the tips and pep talks. Please, wise ones, tell me your ways.
They responded immediately with practical, simple and sustainable tips that I was able to implement right away. These ideas aren’t radical or even brand-new. The key is that they actually do these things, and I wanted to share them in case you also need a refresher on how to create breathing room in your days.
Choose simple meals during the busiest parts of your day. Choose foods that are healthy and can be thrown together quickly. Eat them on repeat or pick a few of your favorites and rotate them. You’re still fueling your body and enjoying your meal, but you’re cutting out the prep and clean-up time, which is critical when you need to keep things simple.
Create a simple “get ready for the day” routine. People who get stuff done (with ease) have figured out how to get ready for the day—and look great—in 15 minutes or less.
I knew this was possible. I just didn’t know it was possible for me. My daily look tends to be all-or-nothing: ready for my close-up or just rolled out of bed. But when I took a few minutes to think it through, I was able to take my get-ready routine and bust it down to something less elaborate. I still feel put together and not like I just woke up, which is like a magic wand for my energy level.
Create super-focused work sessions. At the end of a current work day, make a list of the top 5 or fewer things that have to get done the following day. Keep that list visible on your desk. This frees up your brain so you can shift into other parts of your life and don’t waste time at the beginning of the next work session trying to figure out where to begin.
Bonus tip: After each work session, take a moment to review how you spent that time. Did you go down rabbit holes or shift your focus to something that could have waited?
Another bonus tip: Keep track of the wins, too.
Establish morning, afternoon and evening routines and stick to them. This is the big picture routine that holds all of the others. These routines don’t have to involve elaborate multi-step rituals; you’re simply making a decision about how to get going each morning and transition into other parts of your day.
Here’s a short list of things that slow me down and clog my brain: picking out what to wear, determining the day’s priorities after the day has already started, trying to decide when to squeeze in a workout, deciding at dinnertime what to make for dinner, and crashing into the end of the day instead of winding down.
This week, I made a list of what I do every single day and put it in an order that works for me. I’m reviewing the list frequently and making adjustments when needed, and I’m moving towards committing these routines to memory until they run on autopilot.
A word about running on autopilot: I think it’s important to make sure we’re not living on autopilot in every area of our life. We want to think and feel and live vibrant lives!
I’ve heard from countless people who confidentally confirm that sticking to simple daily routines is better for their mental and emotional health. It gives them space and time to move through the rest of our days—out in the wild, where the random fires pop up—with a clearer head.
It’s worth repeating: We put certain things on autopilot so that we don’t end up numbing out and living our entire lives on autopilot.
The quest for work-life balance is what sent me on this decades-long writing and healing journey and has led me to where I am today. I had reached a breaking point. It was only after I left TV news that I began to discover the underlying issues that drive my inner overachiever.
I talk about that in The Seacoast Podcast: Things You Won’t Hear On Sunday.
I’ll have much more to say about this deep and vulnerable conversation with host Joey Svendsen. But for now, here's the link to listen.
I’m Angie Mizzell, I’m the author of the coming-of-age memoir “Girl in the Spotlight”. Thank you for reading my weekly newsletter “Hello Friday”.
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