Why You’re Too Busy & 3 Ways You Can Create More Time

How many times have you felt like there is not enough time in the day or like you’re flying by the seat of your pants and you're late to everything, business appointments, calls, family moments, and picking your kids up from school?

I’ve been there and know what it feels like to be one step behind time. It feels stressful and kinda depleting. Depleting my energy and my soul. 

That's the perfect way to explain it, soul-sucking.

The worst part is, most of the things we are doing. Don’t light us up inside. It's not what we really want to be doing. 

It’s not what we’re passionate about. 

So how did we get here? Well, for one thing, society praises people who are “too busy” as being important and worthy, and it's kinda a badge of honor to say when someone asks you what you’ve been up to. You say “Oh, sooo busy”. 

We, as women are also raised to be giving and caring, and to ask for nothing in return. This is also like a badge of honor. How many times have you heard, “Oh, she’s such a good mother, so selfless”? In another scenario, the mom who works is labeled as selfish sometimes. 

Also as women, we are put into so many situations that make it impossible to achieve these expectations. 

• Be there for your kids, make sure you're home enough,  but also make sure you're doing your part and earning a living at the same time with no help from the other partner with the kids or household duties... some of the time.
• Make sure you look pretty, you stay young and fit, and don't age now, at the same time you also have to take care of those kids and also at the same time have a career and be successful.
• Don't be too demanding or you'll be considered b***** and make sure you speak up for yourself, don't let people walk all over you, don’t be a doormat.
• Be everything to everyone all the time and make sure you look good doing it and be sure to be quiet and don't have too many opinions about anything.

It’s really impossible to live up to all the expectations and not feel torn and so so stressed. 

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are impossible expectations for men also. Like, Be strong and the protector, but also be able to show your feelings and then judge him for doing both.

So this is how women get to this point. There is an expectation for us to do all the stuff and be “all that” at the same time and we try to do it. 

The first thing I can say if you want to reclaim your time is to change your mindset. Ignore what society wants you to do. Disengage from this impossible expectation and love yourself exactly the way you are and how you do things right now, no matter how imperfect. Your imperfections are what make you, you.

Secondly, and also very helpful, is to stop comparing yourself to other women. Your situations are different and always will be. Some people have help, some don’t. Some people have support, some don’t. It’s just never the same situation so stop treating it like it is.

These two things do take time and some reprogramming but are very possible to do. I also have 3 other action steps you can start to implement that can actually help you create more time for yourself and shift the way you spend your time. It takes some guts to do though. So if you got what it takes, which I bet you do if you’re reading this, then let’s get into it. 

1. Decluttering - I always say we should declutter the mind, space, and processes (The SOP of life). When we declutter our minds, space, and processes to remove all the friction from our lives we help things flow better. This helps you save lots of time but also reduces your stress load.  Decluttering your life just makes everything easier. 
2. Setting and maintaining boundaries that support the things you love in your life, and how you spend your time. I’m sure you’ve heard the term no, is a complete sentence. When you say no to the things that don’t serve you, you are then saying yes to the things that do. You’re creating the time and space for you to do the things that are important to you. 
3. Have a “ Not To Do List”. This is kinda a fun activity and I’ll share a way that you can get a copy of the one I use so you can make your own. Basically what your doing is doing an audit of the way you spend your time and deciding your 3 D’s. What you want to ditch, delegate, and do. Yes, you make an actual list! 

By making a couple of mindset shifts and doing these 3 actions you can slowly shift the way you spend your time and create more of it to do the things in life that are not just important to you but bring you and your loved ones closer to the life experience you want to have!

I go cover all these topics in Section One of the Soul Aligned Self Care Method, Expanding Your Mind. 

As a lot of you who know me well, I love to declutter so much, I’m a bit passionate about it!

I’ll be discussing this topic on the Soul Aligned Self Care Podcast this week and I almost always have a free handout for you. This week it will be the Not-To Do-List. 

Grab your copy here, it will be under episode 025 Not-To-Do List: https://www.tinastinson.com/opt-in-for-sasc-podcast

Remember to always add deep-level self-care into your life every day!

Xo, T