What is the importance of being able to schedule time for you when you work outside the home?
I have heard many times, ‘Of course you can take ten minutes during the day, you work from home.’ Truth be told, I actually found more ways to take a few minutes for myself when I worked outside the home. Working outside the home was a faster pace work day, yet, I didn’t have the distractions of everything at home I also needed to do. I could take a few minutes to just breathe without looking at toys strewn about. I could take a few minutes to make a cup of tea in the afternoon without looking at the dishes in the sink that have piled up during the day. I would use my lunch hour to pick up a few things from the store, instead of waiting until the end of the day when I would be more tired and the stores would be busier.
It’s important to schedule time for you when you work outside the home. Time is the one resource that we can’t buy, but we often waste it or use ineffectively, when we are balancing our lives. When we use time effectively, it can help us do so much more. It is essential to schedule time and set goals for ourselves, as well as organize our lives with a calendar or planner. Therefore, it is important to take time for yourself and plan out your day. Start by scheduling some personal activities during the day, even if it’s just five minutes, to focus on yourself. Scheduling these types of things will prevent you from taking on more than what one can handle while still staying productive at work.
How To Schedule Time For You When You Work Outside The Home
What type of schedule will help your productivity the most?
Include your morning/evening schedule and routine
In order to make time work, it’s important to give yourself some kind of routine. Create a morning or evening routine that includes self-care. Things to make a priority in creating your routine should be exercise, your creative pursuits, planning out your goals, etc. This is the time to focus on yourself, to fill up your tank.
A morning or evening routine can help you be more productive. Scheduling these routines allows for self-care and personal time before or after going to your place of work where you are constantly giving to others all day. Timing this in your calendar to practice self-care will help make it a priority. This is the time during the day to focus on you, not your co-workers, clients, customers, vendors, etc. Just as with a bank account, the more you make a withdrawal without making a deposit, the quicker you will end up with a 0 balance.
Make time for breaks each day
Taking breaks can be challenging when we feel like we’re churning out great content or are working on a deadline. I know the feeling all to well, ‘I really need to step away, but I also really need to get this done.’ I often find, when I don’t stop for just a moment I often make more mistakes, or I am less efficient in how I complete a task.
Take your breaks occasionally during the day. Taking your breaks does not make a person a weak employee. Your self-care should not only be during your morning/evening routine, it should also be practiced at the work place. Even more so, when you are working around other people all day long, you are constantly giving your time and attention.
If you’re a very organized person, it can be hard to avoid scheduling every second of your day. Start by scheduling 5-10 minutes both in the morning and the afternoon of your day. Put it on your calendar, just like it’s a meeting. It could feel like an enormous amount of time when starting out. However, you will begin to feel the difference in your productivity the more you embrace this time.
Block your non-work hours
Whether you work a strict office schedule, or you have a flexible work schedule, the biggest challenge is blocking off your non-working hours and holding firm to that time. It may be difficult in maintaining that strict schedule since most people don’t want to work outside the home and everyone wants more time for themselves. However, it is important that family and personal needs become a priority over working hours so that you can balance all aspects of your life.
Setting boundaries for yourself and having a routine scheduled will help you find where exactly you need to schedule your time during the time, to make your time at your place of work the most productive and rewarding. This should be held not only on your working days, but also on your days off.
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