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| Image courtesy of nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
I’m not kidding. If you’re like me, you’re flat-out busy. You’re overbooked, under-slept, and de-energized. Your schedule is packed with all sorts of honorable, godly things, but you’re at your limit. You’ve heard the standard rules for being effective: get eight hours of sleep, drink lots of water, exercise, pare down your expectations, take a break, etc.
While all of those things may be healthy and very wise approaches to being a balanced person, I have my own set of rules.
- Lose the laundry! Pick the household chores that weigh you down and assign them to a teenager. I’m serious. Your teenagers should be supporting the day-to-day functioning of your household. My teens know that if they’re too busy to keep up with their chores, they have to cut out an extra-curricular activity. Their chores include keeping up with their rooms, doing their own laundry, and rotating responsibility for daily kitchen clean-up. They also surrender a few hours each Saturday for the major cleaning tasks.
- Waste some time. This one is hard for me, but it’s so necessary. Take thirty minutes to troll Pinterest, search for an old friend on FB, shop on eBay, or whatever provides an escape for you. The key to this one is that you can’t double up your time-waster with work stuff. It defeats the whole purpose.
- Say thank you. Sometimes busy people also develop a sense of resentment toward the people closest to them who have managed NOT to create an existence of stress and panic for themselves. It becomes a balance sheet of who did what, but that’s not fair because the other person—OK, my hubby, lol—didn’t sign up to live the kind of schedule I’ve chosen for myself. So it’s not fair to base my expectations on my own habits. Instead of allowing resentment to take hold, just say thank you. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for working so hard. Thank you for doing all you do.
- Treat the day like a business. Step back from your schedule and examine what works and whether or not the return on your time investment is worth the effort. Realize that your time belongs to you and to your family. Everyone deserves the best version of you which means sorting through it all to figure out what’s really necessary and beneficial to your family.
- Invest in expensive chocolate. Just for you. Yes, I said invest. It pays out in dividends, trust me! And no sharing!
Nicole O’Dell, founder of Choose NOW Ministries and host of Choose NOW Radio: Parent Talk and Teen Talk, is a youth culture expert who writes and speaks to preteens, teenagers, and parents on preparing for life’s tough choices. The mother of six, including toddler triplets, she’s author of YA fiction, including the popular Scenarios for Girls interactive fiction series and the Diamond Estates Series, and non-fiction for teens including Girl Talk, 2/1/12, based on the popular advice column she writes with her two daughters. Hot Buttons, O’Dell’s non-fiction series for parents, pre-empts peer pressure by tackling tough issues and was recently endorsed by Focus on the Family. Visit www.nicoleodell.com for access to her bustling blog network and other resources.
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