Many women I work with struggle to enjoy downtime.
Whether it’s an hour of it at night or a week of it on vacation, downtime can get hijacked by worries about getting things done at work or at home.
So, while your body is technically going through the motions of doing something fun, your mind is somewhere else, buzzing with to-do’s and nagging concerns.
I’m on vacation this week, and I get it. Just because I’m on vacation doesn’t mean my brain stops thinking about work.
Plus, I’m having to work more than I’d wanted to because of the two-week stubborn-tummy-bug-plague (thankfully, not covid, but still) that hit our family before we left. We’re all good now, but it pushed more of my work plans into this week than I’d have liked.
And because I’m working a bit, thoughts of work come up more frequently than they would have otherwise.
But here’s the thing:
I’m still really enjoying my vacation.
Not because I’m so disciplined as to be able to push work thoughts away. (Hardly.)
I just have a system to deal with them that gets them out of my mind.
Here’s what I do:
▻ When I think of something I have to do for work, I capture the thought by writing it down.
▻ I ask whether I can punt it out to a later time (usually, the answer is yes).
▻ I schedule when I’ll do it in my calendar. This can be quick and dirty – just scheduling it for a random day around when I should do the thing. If it’s a more involved project, I plot out the steps to make sure I have time to get it all done by the deadline without working on it right now.
▻ DONE.
I can’t tell you how much this frees my mind to get back to enjoying time with my family or alone reading a book.
And this freeing magic applies to any part of your life. The same process lets you focus more at work and enjoy time at home.
When you schedule out when you’ll do EVERYTHING, you free your mind from the nagging questions on how/if you’ll get everything done in time and help yourself see that you don’t have to do it RIGHT NOW.
That mental freedom is life-changing.
If you want to learn my method to get you that life-changing magic, here’s a little heads up:
My next six-week program on time management starts on October 16. This will be the last one I offer this year.
Just letting you know now so you can start planning.
Enrollment is open for my next program, check it out here!
I hope to see you in there!
