Seven Ways to Find Balance

"Finding balance" is not a solid, never-ending state of being. We may often have many days that feel like we’ve figured it out, all is peaceful in our minds and things feel good. But then the unexpected illness, money concerns or that “one more thing” falls into our lives and suddenly, we cry out, “Where’s the balance? What happened?”

Once you can accept that every day will be different, that every day will feel different and that every day will bring about different challenges from the day before, you will start to look at your life with a changed heart. Instead of focusing on what you cannot control, you will find peace in what you mindfully did, even when it was hard and you wished you could have been doing anything else.

With that said, there are things you can do to set yourself up for success.

First, Pray and read your scriptures. If you feel you are drowning, this will help. To help you feel on top of things, this will help. To help you in troubled times, this will help. Heavenly Father knows what you should be focusing on. Tune in and listen. Wake up BEFORE children and have this time – even if it’s only 5 minutes because the baby kept you up all night. 

Second, Get your sleep; eat healthy food; exercise. Get up on time/Go to bed on time. I have an alarm on my phone that goes off routinely at 9pm. It’s my reminder to go get in bed. Is it hard to not get to everything or feel like I could be so productive if I just stayed up past when the kids are in bed? Yes! Sometimes it is hard. If you feel like you cannot give up that time, take a look at how things are now. Can you afford to be rundown and tired all the time? What kind of quality of life is that for you or your family when they cannot expect the best from you? I have always thought of myself as a night owl. But when I changed this behavior and actually got a full night’s rest, I saw an incredible difference in many areas of my life: I felt happier and stopped resenting (even a little) my children who needed me in the middle of the night; I woke up the first time and often before my alarm went off; I made good exercise and food choices throughout the day; I could be easier on myself and cheer myself on for the good things I was doing; and I found myself being able to focus more, connect with family deeper, and have way less guilt about the things I left undone at night because I was getting so much more done during the day. Sleep. Make a good choice for yourself today.

Third, Set up Simple Routines – Night & Morning – Remember: Routines Make the Hard work of Organizing Stick! http://createthelifeyoucrave.blogspot.com/2016/03/routines-make-hard-work-of-organizing.html

Fourth, Lay out your week – list everything you do in a week and find a place for it – plug it in. You need less time than you think.

Organize your weekly activities into days, grouped into categories. My week looks like this:

Sunday – Church/Family/Renew my Spirit

Monday – Heavy Cleaning/Laundry/FHE

Tuesday – Computer/Phone Calls/Paper Day

Wednesday – Errands/Appointments/Car

Thursday – Light Cleaning/Ready for Weekend (home and me)/Baking

Friday – Free Day/Play Day

Saturday – Family/Work Outside/Big House Projects/Play Together

This break up for days is easy for my brain to anticipate what’s coming next and to help plan things with friends and family. I generally try and keep the bulk of my day in the morning. * Race a timer as you clean and listen to a good book on tape or music. * Promise yourself to only clean or sit at the computer for a few hours – my normal cut off is 11am.

BONUS! Your children will begin to anticipate and be more willing to help because you won't be freaking out as much or springing crazy cleaning days on them out of the blue. 

A few years ago one day, my 2^nd son asked me ‘how many days until laundry day’. I figured out he was running out of socks and was calculating if he had enough to make it until then. I only buy white socks (and a few pairs of black for church) so when the socks get holes in them we just throw them out and the socks just wait in their drawers until there’s another misfit to match up with again. I don’t put their clothes away so I hadn’t been paying attention to how many socks he had left. But it was easy for HIM to anticipate what he needed to have between now and laundry day because I’m very consistent. (He had enough to make it, but we still fixed the problem by buying more socks so he’d have more than four pairs.)

Fifth, find a great organizing tool for you. Whatever it is that will help you remember to use your tool is the thing you should do. Have it front and center in your life and lean on it intensely. Why should you use all your precious creative brain to remember mundane things like ‘buy milk’ or ‘soccer practice schedules’?

Organizing tool ideas – phone, apps, planner, wall calendar, lists, online calendars, tickler file (3x5s in a file box – see book Sidetracked Home Executives), Excel spreadsheet to name a few. 

·         * I’m an advocate for using an electronic device. Before you start throwing all the reasons why this won’t work for you at me (I’ve heard them all), hear me out: you have to work 10 times harder to make routines and schedules sink in when you use a regular planner or sticky note system. Why? Because YOU have to do the work of remembering to do all those things you do every day. You have to rewrite them down day after day or try to remember them and I guarantee that you feel lost and overwhelmed when your brain is doing all that work to remember things that a simple reoccurring task app could do for you. Do yourself a favor and stop putting this undue stress on your brain. Write it down once and stop reinventing the wheel.

Sixth, begin grouping ideas, lists, dreams, things you hope to do someday in like categories. 

Set up folders and files in your organizing system to begin to have a place to put all those things floating around in your head. You have a list of errands that need to be run at some point but you’re not sure when it will ever happen? You have ideas for a book or a blog? Ideas for your calling or internet searches you want to do when you have a minute? Write all those things that your brain holds on to down. Grocery lists, shopping list, errands to run, calls to make/searches online-products to research/school/projects – start writing down the things that come to your mind. You don’t have to have a lot of time for this – just start writing.

Seventh, start. Start today. Right now. If you wait until everything is “perfect” before you begin to write things down and clear out the clutter in your mind, you are going to be waiting for the rest of your life. You can always change what isn’t working, but begin today to make it a positive change.

So, while "finding balance" may not be a hard and fast state of life, living each day in a purposeful manner with a plan and a direction will bring to your life more often those days where you feel it has been a "good day". You will feel like you can honestly look at what matters most in your life and mindfully make choices about what you have time for on a daily basis. "Finding balance" will become a way of looking at your life as a whole.