The Working Girl's Guide, Week #3- Create a Routine

Thanks so much for your patience as I had to postpone this post until today. My plan was to pack, organize all the food for camping, clean my house, and then sit and blog until it was ready to go camping. (And then later, even create a post about how to efficiently pack for camping! Ha!) The reality was that I was still cutting up and bagging chicken breast 10 minutes before it was time to pull out, with my hair still wet and dishes in the sink. Which smelled very bad when I got back. That's reality. :)

So, a few days late, here is The Working Girl's Guide, week #3. Thanks to all who have faithfully read along!

Create a routine.

When you are overwhelmed, and your house looks nothing like how you want it, and you have ordered pizza twice this week because you worked late, and you have no more clean underwear....take a deep breath, and rely on your routine. When I feel like I'm making no progress, this is the only way for me. I can count on the fact that if Monday is a night I can clean and do laundry uninterrupted, then at least some cleaning and laundry is getting done. I can count on the fact that if I just give myself one hour to clean the kitchen in the morning before I fall back into bed, I will wake up to a clean(er) kitchen. Sometimes, when you have a home, and a family, and job, it is vital to know how to put one foot in front of the other, and to know that you will get some results from that.

It probably sounds like I am describing a depressed or struggling woman sometimes as I talk about the difficulty of achieving balance between work and home. Sometimes I am. I think when you want both things- really, when you want balance in anything at at all- it is disheartening when you feel like you aren't achieving it. But that's perfectionism talking, not balance. The search for perfection will only bring more burden; the pursuit of balance will bring joy and freedom. I'm not there yet, by the way.

#1- Time management is everything.
In high school, we did an exercise in during a Life Management class. We were all given a notebook with these print outs scheduling our entire day in half hour blocks. All we had to do was write in everything we did during the day, and then evaluate our time. For me, this tapped into a love of organizing and scheduling that I didn't know I had. When I was able to look back and observe what I had done with my hours and minutes, I suddenly realized that I was in control of them. I told my minutes what to do. Some things, like going to school, were not optional. But otherwise, for the most part, I could choose. I could use my time like currency on things I found most important.

Are you unsure of where your time goes? Do you plan to do so many things, and instead get overwhelmed and do nothing at all? I do that at times. But take a few days, and log your hours and minutes. This will tell you the truth about what you do with your time, and how much you really do have. You may find you have more than you thought. Or, you may find that you are expecting too much out of yourself in the time you have on your hands.

#2- Be organized.
It is easy to be caught off guard, and continually be off schedule when you have a lack of organization in your life. Now, organization is not everyone's gift. That's okay, but it's not an excuse to live in chaos. If it's not your gift, you will have to work harder to make your life more organized and less stressful. And if it is your gift, you will have to work harder to show grace to others for not moving at your speed all the time. Part of planning your time should be to address areas of your life that cause you stress and work toward organizing them. Perhaps your morning routine is a lot of trouble for you. (I know I can relate to that one!!) Try giving up ten minutes of your time in the evening to lay out your clothes for the next day. Maybe you can never find anything in your cabinets. Make it a priority in your time to focus on cleaning up and organizing this area. Whatever it is that causes you stress and slows you down, tackle it. The transition between work and home will flow much better with organization. There are so many ideas out there for simplifying life! You can't log onto Pinterest without seeing some. :)

#3- Make time for yourself.
You can have your schedule down to a science, and be as organized as a girl can be, and still be stressed and overwhelmed. Why? Because once you get on a roll, that pull toward perfection is strong. You have to fight it! We all want to be admired, to be really great at things, to be the one other women whisper about...."How does she do it all, and have such great hair at the same time?" (My secret desire is to be someone with great hair all the time. Too bad I hate spending time on my hair.) But honestly, that is just fake. If that's your pursuit, you're missing the point. It's something we all get sucked into, some more often than others. I think I get sucked in weekly- but that is a slippery slope, ladies! This really isn't about keeping all of the balls up in the air at the same time. I can't stress that enough- to you, or to myself. That's why you have to stop and make time for yourself. For your sanity. For your mental, emotional, and physical health. By all means, get into a routine! Plan your day, prioritize your time, organize your life. But don't forget to take care of yourself. To reward your hard work. To step back and remind yourself that this is not about being perfect. It is about being balanced. It is about building up your home. Creating a place of peace and joy. You cannot do that without peace and joy in your own heart. I encourage you to set time aside to do things you love, and that rejuvenate you.

That's it for today...thank you for joining me! Don't forget that a comment below is an extra entry into the Scentsy giveaway! Take a moment to share what you do to create a routine or make time for yourself!