Hello my friend, I hope you’re doing well today.

It’s been fun to hear your ideas and questions and experiences. Thank you for joining in the conversation!

Today’s self-care idea is about easing up the stress in your life by making decisions about what you do each day. {If you’re using the Lioness planner, you will have noticed the pages with a place to plan your “Time Blocking”!}

It’s a concept similar to time management, but in Lioness coaching we call it Time Blocking. It’s just a chunky, flexible way for mom’s to manage tasks and time.

I call it chunky because instead of managing yourself in small increments of time, such as, exercise at 6:00am, shower at 7:00am, start laundry at 7:30am, eat at 7:40am, have dishes done by 8:00am, etc., we make a list of things that need to be done on a given morning or day. This is because we mom’s generally are managing much more than just ourselves right?! And those other selves are kind of unpredictable, tend to mess-making, need to potty at inconvenient times, get hungry off schedule, etc.

So, if I say, “from 6:00am – 12:00pm I plan to have xy&z done on Monday’s” the chance that I will get those specific things done in that chunk of time is better than the tight version of scheduling yourself and your family in minute to minute frames.

If I schedule like I’m the only one that lives here, and I have a sick baby that needs to be rocked from 7:00am-8:30am, I might feel frustrated by the change or like an out-of-control-failure if things aren’t done exactly on time. {At that point you just throw the schedule out right?}

Keeping your life and household scheduled but loosely, usually means that things keep moving forward in some predictable way, even when the unpredictable happens.

I list this as a self-care idea because it gives so much peace!

When you Time Block, you don’t need to decide what you will do everyday, because you already have your work mapped out in chunks of time on certain days.

You don’t have to wait until things are so messy or unclean that they are screaming for attention. Your consistent attention to them means your work will be far easier and take less time and be less of a strain in the long run. {Think of the difference in cleaning a toilet once a week vs. once a month! Much faster and easier if it is done regularly, and it doesn’t sick you out during the time in between!}

The Lioness blog post, Flexible Structure (September 8, 2017) will give you more information on this topic, along with listing other blog posts on the subject if you’d like to read more!

Give yourself the gift of decision. It calms things down. Greatly.

Love and peace to you today!

“The mission of Lioness at the Door is to uplift, strengthen and encourage women of all ages to magnify health, hope and happiness at home. We do so boldly, with humility and gratitude for the opportunity.”