Balance

Balancing life to tailor to your needs can be so difficult! Maybe you have work, school, kids, pets, livestock, needy friends etc. Balancing these things as well as making time for you is hard. In my case I work on balancing kids, school, housework, helping my husband with his bookkeeping for his business, blogging, and working on starting my own business, a bookkeeping business. This summer we will have all 8 kiddos with us, which will only make that balancing thing a little easier as I will have more help with the baby! He certainly makes balance hard haha. I said in an earlier post that I didn’t have my life totally together right? LOL. Anyways, on to the helpful part of this! One of my first classes at SNHU was basically a course designed to help you succeed as an online student, a strategy class of sorts and that first class helped me in so many aspects of my life. I am a lot better with time management now than I was before and I owe a lot of it to that class. Logically speaking everything in the class were things I knew, a to-do list, a timetable you know logical things to help you manage life. I love logic, and even though I knew these were things I hadn’t ever made myself really try to attempt them until that class. I am incredibly satisfied with the tools it gave me to try and balance things. I am often listed in the honor roll; I made the Dean’s list for 2021 in the fall, and I just made the President’s list for winter of 2022. I was also mailed a blanket for my hard work, good grades, and determination. I was able to do this even with all of the other things I have going on in my life.

With a mental illness practicing time management can be even harder than the average, it is hard to stick to a schedule because your depression gets the better of you or your anxiety is haywire anything like that really. It just gets in the way. One of the most effective tools I have for this is actually a to-do list. As someone constantly under attack from anxiety I find that when I make these lists and cross off my accomplishments throughout the day (and absolutely brushing my teeth is one of them, simple and mundane but it sure feels good to cross something off the list) I am able to keep a perspective on what I have been able to do. It helps you see what you are doing throughout the day and being accountable. The more you do that, the easier it is to balance out when you should be doing other tasks. That is where a timetable comes in actually! I tried to stick to one of these, but I have a 1-year-old and let me tell you that sticking to any schedule with him is absolute fiction. However! I was able to successfully use one for an entire week (yay me!) and it was amazing. I had never been able to balance anything so well before, well I balance things fine now for the most part but without a timetable, I have wanted to start using it again, but you know, the baby LOL. Another aspect of both of these simple things you can do for balance is that by looking at them, you get to realize how much time there actually is to accomplish whatever it is you need to get done. Of course, there isn’t enough time in a day, but there is more than you think. When you are holding yourself accountable with a timetable or a to do list you find yourself doing more. For me, when I write it down, I get anxiety if I don’t do it because it is basically a promise I made to myself. I get so frustrated when I am unable to finish my tasks. And by making a to do list I realize that I can separate out my week tasks more because I get to see how much time there is. I am the type of person who wants to try and just get it all done immediately instead of separating out anything and this is a bad mistake I make that I am working on. And the to do list helps me do just that. So, if you are finding some issues in balancing your daily things I highly recommend creating a to do list to start with and easing into a timetable to set your day. It sounds incredibly simple and useless I know, but it truly helps me and maybe with an open mind it can help you too!

Here is how I set up a timetable!

Balancing life to tailor to your needs can be so difficult! Maybe you have work, school, kids, pets, livestock, needy friends etc. Balancing these things as well as making time for you is hard. In my case I work on balancing kids, school, housework, helping my husband with his bookkeeping for his business, blogging, and working on starting my own business, a bookkeeping business. This summer we will have all 8 kiddos with us, which will only make that balancing thing a little easier as I will have more help with the baby! He certainly makes balance hard haha. I said in an earlier post that I didn’t have my life totally together, right? LOL. Anyways, on to the helpful part of this! One of my first classes at SNHU was basically a course designed to help you succeed as an online student, a strategy class of sorts and that first class helped me in so many aspects of my life. I am a lot better with time management now than I was before and I owe a lot of it to that class. Logically speaking everything in the class were things I knew, a to-do list, a timetable you know logical things to help you manage life. I love logic, and even though I knew these were things I hadn’t ever made myself really try to attempt them until that class. I am incredibly satisfied with the tools it gave me to try and balance things. I am often listed in the honor roll; I made the Dean’s list for 2021 in the fall, and I just made the President’s list for winter of 2022. I was also mailed a blanket for my hard work, good grades, and determination. I was able to do this even with all of the other things I have going on in my life.

Here is how I set up my timetable when I make it!

Time	MON	TUES	WEDS	THURS	FRI
5-6
6-7
7-8
8-9
9-10
10-11
11-12
12-1
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
6-7

I stopped there because usually after 7 I am hanging out with my husband until we go to bed. And as a reward to myself I don't keep a schedule for the weekend, which can be changed based on whatever days are your "down" days. But look at how much time that is! 14 hours! Most people probably don’t get up at 5 but I do, I find that I am incredibly more effective throughout my day when I am up early and go to bed around like 9pm. Not to mention I get even more time in my day when I get up earlier. Finding balance in your life is easier if you know yourself well enough to know what type of person you are. I used to not be an early bird, I hated morning people! Then I became a morning people maybe it was karma haha, but I love it. And I know myself well enough to know that I do my best on my school in the morning because my kids are calmer and allow me to work. Let me know if you try it out and whether or not it helps!

Best regards,

~TKNott~