Are you mindful of your time? Do you know where you waste time? Our minds like to hide these from us, to keep us safe and comfortable. To find your time wasters, you need to keep tabs on where you spend your time. I know this is not something people love to do. I’ve heard so many excuses when it comes to tracking time.

Tracking your Time

As I mentioned above, I hear so many excuses from my client when I ask them to track their time. They do not want to shine a light on areas where they are not mindful of their time.

Why do I ask them to track their time? Because what you pay attention to improves.

Would you like to create more time in your day? Figuring out where you spend your time is the first step.

You guessed it, social media.

I know social media gets brought up a lot, and it should.

Social media is a massive time-waster.

Can you think of a time when you were mindful of your time when scrolling social media feeds?

Some people don't consider all-time wasted on these platforms. It should come as no surprise social media platforms do things to keep us engaged on their media because this is how they make money. With ads.

Generally, anything offered by a business for free has some way of making money. Know how much time you're giving away to social media. Where could that time be better to spend?

Create Time

If you genuinely want to create space to work on your goals and priorities, I encourage you to find the little sneak place where you’re not being mindful of your time.

Is keeping track of your time hard. It may be if you choose to think of it as hard. Or you may decide to come at it with an open-minded. You are excited to figure out where to be mindful of your time and stop the sneaky little time wasters. The choice is always up to you.

I know you’re ready to get out of your head and choose thoughts that create the future of your dreams. The link to my private coaching application is below.

Stop. Are you running around feeling stressed and busy all the time? After all, we love to add more and more to our day. Have you ever paused to pay attention to the actions that you do routinely? Do you find yourself doing the same steps in your day? Such as getting ready in the morning to what you do before you go to bed and everything in between. How do you clean your house? Also, my personal favorite is a meal planning routine. These are perfect areas to create mindful routines. If you’re thinking, heck no, Michele, I’m a hot mess, it’s time to consider adding a few mindful routines to your life.

Why I love to create routines

As a matter of fact, what I love about creating mindful routines is it cuts down on the number of decisions you need to make. You’ve invested the time upfront in creating the routine. All you have to do is repeat all the steps, so you’ve already done the planning and deciding ahead of time. I don’t know about you; it makes me happy to cut back on decisions.

You see, when you sit down to create a routine for cleaning, meals, any weekly or daily repeatable activities, you are no longer required to make decisions around this. Instead, you kind of go into auto-pilot. 

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Create A Sunday Routine

Sunday is a big routine day for me. This routine is when I set myself up for the whole week. To be honest, if I do not get this, my Monday doesn’t go very smoothly until I get organized. Of course, if I know my Sunday will be chaos, I’ll map out at least Monday, if not the whole week on Friday afternoon. 

Here is how I lay out my Sunday routine. 

Clean all the bathrooms.

Clean the kitchen.

Plan the meals for the week, and the grocery order is put in for my son to pick up on his way home from classes at the community college. 

I write out the week's schedule and meals on the kitchen chalkboard. You may agree with me; I do not have enough decision-making power for this dreaded question after making decisions all day. Mom, what’s for dinner? 

Review the work week and create a schedule and a list of to-do items. 

These routines create space in my mind, I know when it will get done, and I do not have to decide or think about it. 

Yes, preparing for the week ahead is what I consider Sunday Funday. 

After all, having an organized and clean home allows me to feel calm and at ease in my mind.

How about a laundry routine?

Let’s discuss creating a laundry routine. Without a system, this may cause the feeling of busyness. This laundry system works for me; it may not work for you. Create a strategy and routine that meets your needs.

My laundry routine:

Tuesday is for washing my clothes. Because I’m a work-for-home entrepreneur, this day works for me. Since I use the Pomodoro Method, I can fold and put things away during my five-minute breaks. I race to see how much I can get done in my five minutes.

Thursday is for washing towels.

Sunday is for washing bedding.

Everyone else in this household washes their laundry.

My husband always has washed his laundry.

Once our children were in fourth grade, I showed them wash laundry. My oldest daughter documented the process for washing laundry with photos the first time she washed her laundry. If you’re wondering, when my kids were younger, I traveled for work 50-75% of the time. When you’re only home two days a week, you figure out how to get things done. Basically, my husband was a single parent, and I looked for ways to make his life more manageable when I was gone.

I know that you’re ready right now to ditch your crappy thoughts of overwhelm and busyness. I can 100% help you! The link to apply for private coaching is below.

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In case you missed it, last week, the topic was waiting to start on a dream or goal for when you had more time and were less busy. This week begins a five-part series on how to be less busy. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with life, this series is for you. Do you find yourself in a loop of busyness? When we are trapped in busyness, it will clutter our minds and make everyday decisions difficult. A slower, quieter pace will give you more time and brain space to go after your dreams. If you’re ready to simplify your life, create more ease and stop being so busy, then join me for this series!

Psst. Don't miss a post subscribe here! 

Busyness Trap

Let’s look at the loop of busyness. If every day you go to bed exhausted with only a few things checked off the list and have no idea where your time went, you guessed it, you’re in the busyness trap. 

Our culture believes we should be putting more and more on our plates. Have you stopped to think about what we are sacrificing? What are you missing out on when caught in the busy trap? When life has you always hustling from one thing to another, causing the feeling of chaos. Have you stopped to think about what it would be like to feel less busy? 

How to be less busy

During this series, Overwhelmed? How to be less busy. We will look at ways to simplify your life to be less busy and prioritize meaningful things.

When we stop being so busy, it creates space to declutter our minds. It allows us to know what makes us happy. In the end, we all want to feel as if we are living a happy life.

I was curious about happiness, so I googled: What percentage of Americans are happy. This was the very first article that came up for me: Americans are the unhappiest they’ve been in 50 years; a poll finds Just 14% of U.S. adults say they’re happy. Here is the link.

14% of Americans are happy! Am I the only one that thinks something is wrong with that? A point to consider is the poll was done in 2020 around COVID. Since I’m a curious person, I wondered about it now. Thank goodness Google makes research simple.

Here is an article I read, in short: In 2021, happiness took a significant hit across the board.

Based on the numbers, we have a lot of room for improvement on the happiness front.

Leave you with this final thought.

Busy is actually just a thought. I know what you’re thinking; busy is not a thought. I have a to-do list to prove it to you. I get it; I wore my busy badge with pride. My thoughts told me that I would not progress towards my goals if I wasn't busy.

Before I became curious about personal development and how thoughts create your results, I said the same thing.

As a result, shifting my thinking opened up a new world of possibilities. What if it’s true? If you shift your thinking around busy and the thought of not having enough time for what brings you joy.

For what purpose are you stuck in the mindset of busy? How is it serving you? What would happen if you decided that being busy was a thought?

I know you’re ready right now to ditch your busy badge. If you’re interested in changing your thoughts, I have a spot with your name on it in my private coaching. Spots are limited. Apply Today.

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✁ Just a Snippet

Here is just a snippet of the essential points, you know, for the skimmer in you. 🤪

• Do you find yourself in a loop of busyness?
• Our culture believes we should be putting more and more on our plates.
• Have you stopped to think about what we are sacrificing?
• We pack more and more into our days.
• We know what is important; however, we do not always devote time to meaningful things.
• Just 14% of U.S. adults say they’re happy.
• Busy is actually just a thought.