How to make time for yourself amidst everything

In this busy world when everything tries to catch our attention, finding the time and making time for yourself is an extremely challenging task.

With hectic job hours, work, home chores and our various relationships demanding time from us, it is almost revolutionary to make time for ourselves amidst everything.

Most of us feel that we don’t have this privilege.

When I shared my morning routine in one of my posts, many people commented that they don’t have this luxury of time as I did to be spending 2-3 hours on a morning routine.

But I’d say, if you can’t give 2-3 hours of time for yourself in the morning, then at least give one hour. And if not one hour, then at least half an hour before you get on with your day.

And if you absolutely cannot give time for yourself in the morning, then give time for yourself in the evening after you come from work.

As much as we think that it’s just impossible to make time for ourselves, it is actually possible if we learn to plan our day and prioritize our time with ourselves.

Not only it is possible, but it is also actually absolutely imperative that you make time for yourself.

And in this post, I want to give you tips on how you can make time for yourself amidst everything.

Is it okay to make time for yourself?

We might think we can’t make time for ourselves because of work pressure, family obligations and everything else that keeps falling into our shoulders, but actually, the biggest barrier that stops us from making time for ourselves is actually our own thinking.

Most of us think that by making time for ourselves we are being selfish.

We think that we should actually be prioritizing others’ needs like our partner’s, friends’, children, boss and others’ needs first before our own.

And if we make time for ourselves while they are also waiting for our time, we feel guilty.

We think that our time with ourselves can wait while we attend to other needs first.

This happens because we don’t think that our time with ourselves is as important as other things.

But please, I want to tell you here,

You deserve to have plenty of me-time in your life. You deserve to rest, to learn things you always wanted to learn. You deserve to make time for hobbies and do things just for fun.

Be it anything, you deserve to make time for yourself and it is absolutely okay to make time for yourself even if other things are demanding your time and attention and you should never feel guilty for making time for yourself.

Know that those other things can wait. But don’t keep your inner self waiting for so long.

It has been waiting already for a very long time for when you will come to her/him and tend to it.

Give that due time to yourself.

This is how we respect our inner self and how we nurture our inner child.

Why making time for yourself is important

We all know that making time for ourselves is important. But still, we keep it on the side track of our lives.

I could give you a thousand reasons why making time for ourselves is important, but here are the ones that are most true for me:

• To prioritize self-care
• To build a good bonding with me and see me as a friend who equally needs my time.
• To avoid getting burned out
• To be fully present when we are with others
• To stop being a people pleaser
• To become a person who has a strong sense of self and
• To know why we are here.

I truly believe that unless we give time to ourselves and spend time to ourselves in quiet self-reflection, we won’t find out our purpose and we will never think of why we are here born in this world.

And we’ll end up spending our life just going about being bothered with petty things.

We are all higher living beings. Making time for ourselves is what will help us be in touch with our higher purpose.

How to make time for yourself

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1. Prioritise making time for yourself

First of all, get rid of the belief that your time with yourself can wait while you get other things done.

Those other things will never get done completely.

And if you keep waiting for when you will feel completely organised, have all your things in your to-do list checked so that you can then come to give time to yourself, that day might never come.

It hasn’t happened so far, and it won’t happen ever.

So accept the messiness or whatever is pending in your, and prioritise giving time to yourself first. That’s how you get your life together.

Once you start making time for yourself, you will notice that you have much more energy to work on those other things and they actually start getting done more smoothly.

Whenever I lose sight of my goals and my focus, I find that it mostly happens when I am giving little time to myself.

So I stop everything and again shift my focus to myself and make sure that I am making time for myself and giving myself the much-needed time and space.

2. Eliminate time-wasting habits

For a day or two, track how you are spending your time from morning to night.

Don’t make any changes in your day, but simply notice how you are spending your day.

Notice what you do after waking up. Do you just lay in bed and spend good 30 minutes just scrolling the phone?

What do you do after coming from work? Do you have time for yourself or do you watch Netflix or do other chores and work?

Do you find yourself multitasking and replying to emails instantly?

Notice and track all of these and see where you might be wasting time and how you could actually eliminate them and instead replace them with time for yourself.

Here is a list of the greatest time-wasting habits we have.

Simply tracking them and then eliminating them will go a long way in making time for ourselves.

3. Make time for yourself in the morning

The first person you should meet in your day should be your own self.

Before your work, your tasks, your household chores, your kids, your husband or anything demands time from you, make time for yourself.

An essential way to get this time is by waking up a little early and giving time for yourself before the rest of the day’s obligations come up to take your time.

Don’t take this lightly. This is the most essential thing you need to do if you want to make time for yourself.

This is exactly how I make time for myself in my day.

I have a morning routine which I have been diligently following for many years now and that is how I have been able to give time to myself and make my relationship with myself strong.

You deserve to take out one hour from your day to yourself and spend it for your own personal growth.

Here is a practical and doable one-hour morning routine anybody can follow.

4. Schedule me-time

Understand that unless you schedule time for yourself in your daily routine and set it in your head saying, “this time is for me, and I must absolutely use it for me”, then you will never be able to make time for yourself.

As I said, those endless other things will always be there.

Stop waiting for when they will all be complete and organised so that you can then give time to yourself.

Know that it is by taking care of yourself, you take care of the world. You need to fill your own cup first before you try to fill another’s cup.

Don’t go through life only living for others. Live for yourself first and you can live for others more sincerely, wonderfully and by being more present.

So deliberately, schedule your me-time and take it as the most sacred thing in your day.

5. Know what you want to do

Often we don’t give or make time for ourselves because we don’t know what to do.

If we know what we need to be doing in our me-time, then we are much more likely to prioritize our time with ourselves.

But because we don’t know know what to do, even when we do get the time time, we unnecessarily end up wasting it by watching tv or just scrolling through social media.

Then we feel guilty for not making time for ourselves.

In order to tackle this, we actually need to know what we need to do when we make time for ourselves.

You can make a list of the things you want to give time for.

Usually, I give time for reading, writing, gardening, going for a walk, or just spending time with myself doing some hobbies and activities just for fun

Here is a post on how to spend me-time meaningfully with some great ideas.

6. Learn to say no

Making time for yourself becomes a lot harder if you are in the habit of saying yes to everything and everyone.

But more than finding how you can make more time for yourself, what is more important is finding all the things you actually need to cut back on and say no to.

It’s really hard, but we need to learn to say no.

Don’t say yes with your lips when your heart is saying no.

You’re not going to lose anything. And you’re not bad for it. You have the right to say no.

Also, say no to any commitment or project that is not absolutely important.

Be ruthless in eliminating things from your life to end up keeping only those that are close to your heart and your future vision.

7. Set boundaries around your time

Know the value of time and set boundaries around how you are using your time.

Don’t let your time, for one thing, spill over your time for yourself.

This might mean you deciding not to check your emails all through the day, and instead only allot a specific time in your day for checking your emails or not doing any of your work after 6 pm and only giving time for your recreation and time for yourself.

This might mean you not talking and bringing any of your work-related stuff after coming home from work.

This way you can actually focus and keep your energy stored for making time for yourself.

Know that you don’t have to go out just because someone is asking you to.

You don’t have to do something just because you are more efficient at doing it.

You don’t have to make small talk with people just because you think you’ll be looked at as rude.

Set proper boundaries around how you use your time.

8. Ask for help and delegate

Don’t forget to ask for help. You don’t have to do everything all by yourself.

Ask for help from your partner, your kids or your sisters or anyone if you feel they can help you with something.

Delegate what you can.

This is something I too need to learn.

I think part of why we don’t like to ask for help is also because of our perfectionist tendencies.

We want to do everything our way and so we end up stressing over more stuff which could have easily been done by someone else too.

If that’s the case, release the need to be perfect and trust others’ way of doing stuff and appreciate their help.

When we do this, I think there is a much better chance of building a good relationship rather than thinking that they might not like it.

Here is a podcast episode I shared about why I am no longer rooting for perfectionism

9. Let go

Lastly, let go of the need for your life to be together and for everything to fall in place before you decide to give time to yourself.

Instead, give time to yourself amidst it all- amidst the turbulence, the chaos, the uncertainty and all the messiness. Because that is the time when you need it the most.

Let go of the need for life to be perfect so that you can finally come back to yourself.

Instead, come back to yourself now. And you will find your life slowly coming together and falling into place.

Let go of the desire to get everything done and leave things pending without any guilt.

Take that rest. Take that vacation. Take that time for yourself to do things just for fun and enjoy your time with yourself.

You deserve this pleasure and abundance.

So this was it.

9 ways to makes to make time for yourself

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To sum up, this is how to make time for yourself:

1. Prioritise making time for yourself
2. Eliminate time-wasting habits
3. Make time for yourself in the morning
4. Schedule me-time
5. Know what you have to do
6. Learn to say no
7. Set boundaries around your time
8. Ask for help and delegate
9. Let go

This is how I make time for myself. I prioritize my time with myself and make sure I meet her.

Every day we are given twenty-four brand new hours each day. There is no discrimination in the time we have been allotted.

Out of these 24 hours, strive to devote at least one hour to your day just for yourself. This is an investment you are making for yourself for your own happiness and peace.

One hour in your day means 7 hours in a week and that is enough to establish a connection and bonding with yourself.

When I started making time for myself more sincerely, bit by bit, slowly I started to feel like I am now actually starting to live my life.

I guess this is what happens.

You start to live your life only once you start living for yourself and making time for yourself.

And once you start living for yourself, you start to live for others too wonderfully.

This much for today

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