You do you this Mother's Day
You do you this Mother’s Day …
If you’re a Mum, we’re sure you’ll agree that finding ‘you’ time to look after yourself comes at the end of a very long list of other more important tasks and people to care for. Perhaps even finding time to go to the bathroom without interruption feels like a luxury! With the added pressure of now having to balance household duties, changed work commitments (WFH) and home schooling, maintaining your health and wellbeing is so important to ensure you can maintain all the competing commitments of a busy lifestyle. We’re not suggesting your regular duties need to fall by the wayside, but instead want to help you achieve some balance of both. Here are some health & lifestyle tips which will hopefully allow you a little extra ‘you’ time in the long-term.
Plan to plan
Create a planner. It sounds simple but it does require some forward planning and time put aside to actually plan a plan. Creating a daily or weekly schedule is a great way to start each day fresh and focused. Try writing a ‘to do’ list of what you’d like to achieve each day and even assign a timeframe to do it. It will feel so good ticking it off once it’s complete, and you can move onto the next thing. Other tips to stay organised might be as simple as laying out your outfits and school uniforms ready for the next day, preparing lunchboxes in the evening, and even utilising online grocery shopping and home delivery – this is a great way to stick to your list and your budget while allowing you to do other things at home. While it doesn’t sound like much, adding a small amount of structure to your routine not only helps make you aware of where your day goes, but can help keep you focused on the important things. It might even free up some extra ‘you’ time when your tasks are complete.
Meal plans & simple recipes
Few things are as frustrating as getting to the supermarket after the end of a long day, and not knowing what to get for dinner. Worse still when you rush through it and end up back at home missing vital ingredients. Eating healthy takes planning, and many busy people find writing out a meal plan at the beginning of a week helps. There’s also no need to overcomplicate what you cook. Keep meals simple, quick and easy. You’re not competing on MasterChef, and as the saying goes, “simple pleasures are life’s treasures”. Planning out exactly what to cook in advance removes the stress of having to decide daily, running out of ingredients unexpectedly, and allows you to make a comprehensive shopping list you can stick to – it’s also likely to free up some extra ‘you’ time. Another tip for smart shopping is to do it on a full stomach, which may help avoid giving into temptations of the snack variety. If you need a weight loss plan, try the Tony Ferguson 12-Week Plan or linked tasty recipes.
Make time to exercise
With most of us leading very busy lives – particularly those juggling family responsibilities in the mix - there often doesn’t seem like enough time to get dinner on the table, let alone exercise. But exercise has many benefits, both mentally and physically, that it’s well worth finding the time. How? Plan it into your daily calendar like an appointment and stick to it. Try setting your alarm an hour earlier in the morning if you’re short on time. This can be one of the best times to exercise and gets the endorphins pumping early to set you up for a positive start to the day.
Get the kids involved!
Do you have fussy children and partners to cater for when cooking, or find yourself making multiple meals for separate family members? Giving in to these kinds of pressures will not only eat up any spare time you might have had for yourself, but can set in motion unreasonable expectations for meal times. Understandably, there are things that kids just won’t eat, but by involving them more in the cooking process and making it fun and educational, this may help them start becoming a little more adventurous with their taste buds. Get them to select the veggies you are adding into the meal, and try cutting the veggies into shapes they like (specialty stores often carry veggie slicers to assist in speeding up this process). If you have the space, try getting them to even grow some veggies in a small garden – kids will be so proud of their harvest that they will likely want to eat it.
It’s certainly challenging to balance so many competing parts of a busy lifestyle, but Mothers more than anyone deserve some quality downtime for themselves, and this can often mean finding clever and more efficient ways to complete tasks. We hope this list of tips and tricks can help assist in this, and ultimately free up extra time in your calendar for you time.
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