5 Ways To Have A Better Day
My least favorite days are the ones where I feel listless, unfocused, and unproductive. These are the days I snap at my family and feel disgusting inside. I feel angry, anxious, stressed out, disappointed, frustrated, sad, panicked… pretty much every negative feeling there is, I feel those all at the same time. Disgusting.
These days are not made because I do nothing but rather they are the days that I have no plan OR I focus all of my time and effort on one aspect of my life and the other areas of life suffer.
If I sit down in the morning to work before I’ve done anything else I tend to be angry. There are things I want to accomplish and the interruptions from the kids who need food and clothes are frustrating. By the time I pull myself away from work the day is usually three-quarters of the way over and I still have all the other aspects of my life to deal with. There’s laundry to do, dishes to wash and I have no clue what I am making for dinner. The kids have activities to go to and I haven’t spent any quality time with them. My husband will soon be home and he will sigh heavily at every aspect of the house that he disapproves of my cleaning (or lack thereof). He can’t understand why the house isn’t spotless, after all, I am a stay-at-home mom who sits around watching tv and eating bonbons all day, can’t I clean a little? He thinks what I am doing is a waste of time and effort. I know this and so every day around the time he gets off work, I get anxiety. I am tired of feeling like I have to prove myself. And no one can see how much work I actually did that day. If I wasn’t a SAHM and I had a full-time job I would be commended for the work that I just completed. But because I am home and my progress is not yet visible to my family, I feel like I have accomplished nothing.
These are the day’s I hate. These are the days that I want to avoid. So I identified the triggers that cause these types days and made a plan to avoid them.
#1. Wake up before the kids.
This I struggle with because I often work late into the night (or next morning) and my kids get up early. SO I am working on changing this. But LISTEN, if you wake up earlier than your kids you can take care of yourself and be prepared for when they wake and need you to care for them. The days I don’t wake up before the kids I am immediately frazzled. I have 3 kiddos who all wake up starving but are unhappy with all breakfast options. I understand they are low on blood sugar that is making them whinny and cranky but I am low on caffiene and can’t handle the negative noise. Mornings like this automatically put me in a sour mood and we all suffer.
In contrast, when I wake before the kiddos, even just30 minutes, I can get coffee, go to the bathroom, get dressed, make the bed and if nothing else be mentally prepared for the hungry little monsters who I sometimes give snickers to because it is going to be awhile before breakfast is ready and the sugar will put them in a better mood for when I hand them eggs or oatmeal when they really want doughnuts, cookies or cereal.
#2. Listen to something positive. While I make my little monsters breakfast I listen to a positive podcast or music that puts my soul in a positive mood. It makes me feel like I can conquer anything and when a negative vibe comes my way it seems to bounce off of me rather then me absorbing it.
#3. Do the chores that you absolutely need to have done to make you feel like you have accomplished something in your home. For me, I throw a load of laundry in the wash, do any dishes that are laying around from the night before, and tidy up enough so that when I look around the house I do not feel overwhelmed by the mess I need to deal with. Now I can look around the kitchen and not freak while feeling ok about doing something else during the hour my washing machine/dryer is running.
At this point, I am ready to dive into our day.
#4. Have a plan! Just hoping that your day will go well and you will accomplish everything you need to is silly. You will stand there, staring at the wall trying to figure out where to start, while the kids cause chaos and mess because their energy is undirected. You will also probably start several projects, jump around between them and never finish any of them. Sound familiar?
Plan your day. Either that morning before the kids wake, the night before, or a week before, just have a plan! Even if I get through the first 3 steps to put me in the mindset for a good day, if I don’t have a plan, that mindset quickly fades into the negative feelings I stated at the beginning of this long post.
So here we go, in your plan figure out what you want for your children. Maybe your kids go to school and you just need to make sure they have what they need to go out the door. I homeschool my children so I need to know what I want them to accomplish and when. We usually do school in the morning because that is when they can focus the best. For me, I need to make sure I am present for school and not trying to accomplish other things while teaching. This is when multi-tasking is not a good idea. I know that I need to give my kids my full attention and I view it as quality time with them. Yes, they have work to do but I also incorporate fun activities to do together.
When school is finished, I have my own set of goals. The kids can play while I focus on work. I have the tendency to try and do everything on my “to do” list and we all know that means NOTHING actually gets done. So I write small steps/goals that work towards completing a larger task. Maybe my goal is to do some research, write an article, work on finances, plan an event, reply to emails, etc. Pick 1-2 things that are a priority and a 3rd for if you find yourself with extra time. If you don’t get to the 3rd thing, it becomes your first priority for the next day. I allot an amount of time for work and set an alarm for 30 minutes before to signal that I need to wrap things up.
Plan dinner! The thing I hate the most is figuring out what to make for dinner each day. I am the WORST at this. I know I need to sit down, plan meals for the week, grocery shop and execute. Sounds simple but who has time for this? I love to cook. I just hate to spend time on the task of figuring out what to cook. Someday, I may pay for one of those services that delivers meal prep to your door but at the current time that doesn’t fit into the budget so I will suck it up, make time to meal plan (maybe coax myself with a glass of wine for this event) and I will be happier the rest of the week knowing I don’t have to stress out about dinner.
#5. Wind down. I find I am a workaholic. If I didn’t have children that I had to feed, I would forget to eat and work all day, every day. I love productivity and progress. It’s like a drug to me. I need to make a point of not going back to work after dinner. Instead, my kids have started choosing a board game for the family to play after dinner and we have family time. We play games, legos, read stories or watch a movie as a family between dinner and bed. This is something that is so important. Do not go back to work and sacrifice family time! Now, as soon as the kids are in bed I am working again but that is ok. To me, that is using my time wisely and frees up more time for them during the day.
I hope the 5 things above help you to have days that are more joy-filled and productive and fewer days where you feel overwhelmed, anxious, disgusting and defeated.
If there is something you do to make sure you have a good day that is not on the list PLEASE SHARE IT WITH US! Join the conversation on our FACEBOOK page!
