Greetings and Salutations, my dearest Blog Readers!

Today, when this blog goes up, it will be Friday, and I will be concluding my work week of Time Balancing.

All week I have been tweaking my schedule to fit more into my days and I think, *knock on wood* I have discovered a flow that works for me.

I need to fine tune some things, still, but, as far as efforts go, this has been wonderful.

So, what have I been doing to make it work?

As you all may or may not know, between working full time, trying to have good physical health, keep a clean apartment, cook regularly, write, blog, and game….I never seem to have time to do it all.

This week I opted to make sure I had time for everything, by implementing new ideas.

What new ideas? First, since I tend to work through my lunch anyways, I opted to use that time to do a quick 30-minute workout. Each day I have done either thirty minutes of cardio or yoga, and while I like to do more cardio, I am much happier to at least get a workout in FOR SURE versus “I’ll get a longer one in later” and then not do it for months.

So, I have been getting up as close to 6:00 AM every day…more like 6:30 AM every day, and drink my water, do some basic stretching, and prepare for my day. I have been starting work at 7:00 AM, and trying to get done as close to 4:00 PM as possible. For my lunch break I work out, the last two days I did cardio, today I did yoga, and I plan on doing some sort of work out for the remainder of the work week on my lunch- It seems to be just such an easy way to get a work out in, and since I work from home, no one notices if I’m sitting there all sweaty in a jogging bra after doing a work out.

Which is cool.

I have also been using any spare time, like the other half of my lunch break, to get some writing done. It isn’t much, but I am able to get a few words on the page, organize my thoughts, and be prepared to knock my word count out of the park when I do sit down for a longer writing session.

Which, speaking of, the second I finish at work, I have been knocking out as much writing as I can, at very least trying to get a blog started, finished, or scheduled. This normally doesn’t take too long, which is good as I tend to get hit with random phone calls or messages I need to return from people, so I can get caught up. I then go ahead and jump in the shower, which makes me feel more prepared for my evening.

The shower after work helps me wash any gross work feelings off of me and prepare for the other half of my day. I sometimes will save the writing for after the shower, if the day was tricky (Looking at you, Monday), but overall, the shower helps me signal to my brain that it is time for the relaxing fun part of my evening. I will also try to do any cleaning I have missed during the day, to make sure the apartment is in decent shape.

I use random five-minute windows during the day to do cleaning stuff, like the dishes, litter box, laundry, sweeping, dusting, etc, and this helps me free up more time. I am so thankful that I have a job that is work from home so when I spend time waiting for an answer or something, I can do a quick chore.

Once I finish my shower, I grab some food, tidy up after that, and then hop onto some gaming or some writing, for an hour or more, normally not more than two, to save time for evening wind down time.

This is where some of my efforts aren’t working as well, I need to work on my late evening wind down time and not spend so much time on my phone and computer, but, I am at least pleased with how much work I have been able to get squeezed into my day.

This method isn’t perfect, and I still have work to do, but, the newest changes to my schedule seem to be working for me, and once I figure out shortening my evening, and getting to bed at the time I want, I will be very pleased with my weekday routine. My weekends tend to be very full, socializing with the few friends I have opted to keep in my circle, and playing Dungeons and Dragons…I end up very busy and rarely even get my relax day to chill, so having my week schedule sorted out in a way that allows me to get my work done, and not have to spend all weekend catching up, makes for not only improved mental health, but an improved life all around.

As I move forward, I want to keep working on my time balancing and improving the quality of my life, and this weeks experiments have been good for that goal. As I finish this blog up, it is end of day Thursday, and I am launching into the weekend with awesome fun plans that I can actually enjoy.

I am pretty excited for my life right now, the small things I do have been paying off more and more, and as I learn more and more about myself, what I want, and where I want my life to move, i get happier about the future.

There are things I don’t like, that I have to address, but the more I work on my goals, the more I work on me, the more I actually listen to my therapist and implement strategies for better mental health…the happier I am overall.

Shout out to everyone who has noticed my improvements, and extra special shout out to anyone who is doing similar stuff to make themselves happy. We are worth this effort.

Thanks for reading,

Abbi