It’s January and while I don’t do the whole new year new me malarkey, I feel it’s pretty normal to start new projects or look at refreshing old ones when the festive season is gone and routine finally starts to kick in.
This week I am working on planning - marketing, working hours, my child’s schedule, weekly menus, you name it.
To me, planning doesn’t meant I’ll write my days down all at once then follow them ( even because that kind of behavior for me, normally leads to frustration because life isn’t black and white and sticking with a rigid long term plan is often impossible )
In marketing for example, I am going back to basics, thinking of the tools I used last year, did they work for me? Did I enjoy using them? Is there anything I’d like/need to do differently?
In all of that I also found time to think about the self-care I currently have in place.
Working parents often struggle to find time for themselves…self-employed parents almost always find themselves working crazy hours and eventually fall into the vicious cycle of feeling too tired to do anything for themselves even though they know self-care is more likely to keep them ticking for longer.
As a therapist I know how dangerous that trap is, which is why over the years I have put a number of things into place to help me stick with my “me time”.
The most important action for me really was to set some strict boundaries. When you are the CEO and the receptionist at the same time, it can be hard to ignore a call that comes in after hours - even though in my experience, calls after 9pm are not after the kind of service I offer ( I might or might not tell that story one day)
So I got strict with myself, set some firm working hours and auto replies to let people know what those were. I also got myself a personal phone number so that I could “switch work off” when I was meant to be off duty.
I really feel that I started something and following that I found I had my free time to go to the gym, take the dog out and even meditate if I needed to.
All of that started with a very small plan that highlighted my need for hours where I would not worry about my working phone or checking the business’s inbox.
Last year the “plan” was to invest in my health - I had a streak of 6 Christmases
where I was ill through the 2 weeks break I used to take so I was determined to change that…and now I am proud to announce that my planning led me to spend a very healthy and enjoyable Christmas with my family and some friends.
I had time for myself and made rest my priority.
How about you? What would you like 2025 to bring you? And how are you going to go get it?
…do you have a plan yet?
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