Are you feeling the stress yet? The circus is in full swing. Its time to start juggling work, school, homework, dinners, sports, housecleaning, meals, and, and, and…
And that always leads to stress in normal times. This year its a nightmare!
I’ve seen a lot of advice saying to set up a separate school area. Most of us don’t have that kind of extra room.
Most kids do have some sort of desk area in their room.
What I’m hearing from parents is that they have the oldest in their room. The next child at the kitchen table. And one child at the coffee table. I think the dining room table would be better than the kitchen table – less distraction. But everyone has to do what works best for them.
And just like in school, they need to put their stuff away at the end of the day.
Seriously! Enforce this one.
Stick to regular schedules and routines
Get up and go to bed at regular times.
Eat meals at regular times.
Do your housecleaning schedule.
And make sure you take time for exercise, relaxing, playing, and spending quality time with your family.
For some reason, we humans seem to thrive by our rituals. The closer you can stay to ‘normal’, the better you’ll ll feel.
I know planning is not fun, necessarily. But it saves your life.
Planning meals is probably one of the most important things you can do. I know that if I don’t have enough meal choices planned for the week, we end up eating out. Bad for the wallet, the waistline, your health, and your energy.
I’ll at least take something out of the freezer and have it thawing. Then I make sure I have enough vegetables and sides that I can throw something together.
I struggle with that myself. Its hard to plan a week of meals. And there is always at least one day when even the best laid plans fall short.
But there are 2 other tips that help save my butt.
Use every spare minute.
Put things away, right away. You won’t feel like it later either.
It is a rule that I cannot go to bed until the dishes are done and the kitchen at least wiped down. When you do it every night, it only takes a few minutes.
If I know I’m going to be up for a couple of hours, I throw some laundry in. For the most part, the laundry doesn’t need me. It can be running while I do something else.
When I get ready for bed, I take 2 minutes and wipe down the bathroom.
Anytime you have to spend time waiting for something, do something. Make out your shopping list, put something away, wipe something down.
Anyway – you get the point, right?
The second tip is – do it now!
A good example was getting gas. It was still 2.74, and I knew I was going to need gas in the next day or so. But no. I put it off. Now I have to get gas, and its 3.07 UGH! No, I didn’t feel like taking the stupid 5 minutes and getting it done. We always pay when we put things off.
Another example is dropping everything inside the door when you get home. It would have only taken a couple of minutes to put the stuff where it goes. Now, following your lead, others have dropped their stuff too. You didn’t feel like it? Yeah, now you feel like it even less, and you can’t yell at them when you did it first.
Oh, and you didn’t take something out for dinner…
Besides, you didn’t feel like cleaning the kitchen last night and there is no clean space to cook anyway…
See how it all spirals?
And 1 more thing helps save me mentally.
Get exercise.
I’m serious. That 2 mile walk at night helps so much. I’m not saying you have to do anything that extreme, but do something to get your body moving every day. It really helps relieve stress and clear your head.
That’s how I’m surviving these days.
Do you have any tips for getting back in the groove?
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