Wellbeing Wednesdays #3 - Making Life Easier

(Image taken from 100 days of Sunshine)

Hi everyone, welcome to Well-being Wednesdays!  Last week's post potentially involved spending a little bit of money so I thought I would make this weeks a completely free idea and it's probably one of my favourites because it makes one of the biggest impacts on my day to day well-being.  This week I'm going to talk about making life easier for yourself.

I'm sure lots of people have lots of different hacks and tips they use in their lives with certain things and I guess these are just some of mine.  I am fully aware that half of the battle with anxiety is getting yourself to do things.  There's often times when I know what I should do to help myself, what I could to do help myself and I think about it but I don't act.  So, perhaps it's easy for me to sit here and talk about these things and not so easy for you to do them but I have made these things part of my routines and so they get done.   Sometimes I think, I'm too tired to do that but then I remind myself how happy it makes me and I do it.

A lot of my tips, if not all, come down to preparation but I cannot explain how much easier they have made certain points of the day or week for me.  

My biggest one is sorting out my outfit the night before if I'm up early or going to work.  I know this seems silly and you think it doesn't make much of a difference but I promise you it does.  It's one less thing to do, think about and sort.

When I say clothes, I mean everything.  Full, outfit, all underwear and socks.  I like to have some time to wake myself up and through the week this just isn't an option.  Any way I can save time is a bonus for me.  When I get up, my husband is usually still in bed with the curtains closed and the lights off so I put all of my underwear in a little dust bag and hang it over the two hangers that have my outfit on for the next day.  Then, I put this at the side of my wardrobe so I know exactly where everything is.  My cousin laughed at me when I told her about this and thinks I'm ridiculous but I swear it makes me feel so happy in the morning when I know I have got everything right there, ready to go.  No hunting for socks or matching underwear. No getting the iron out.  No calling myself for not having any clean trousers to wear.  It's sorted, done and ready to go.

My next thing is another prep idea.  This one is to do with the weekly food shop!  We do ours on a Sunday as it's the best time for us but before we go we make a list of all the days we are both in for tea/dinner/evening meal (What do you call this?).  Then, we make a list of all the meals we want to have for tea that week and make our shopping list from that.  This also helps with food waste but it means we definitely have all of our meals for that week and don't have to go out through the week and get something (unless we want to!).

Another thing I use, again, helps with organisation.  This is something I could talk about forever. I could make multiple posts on this and I probably will.  Its to-do lists.  I love to-do lists.  I use them regularly I find the best time to write them is either last thing at night so you can stop thinking about what you need to do or first thing in the morning so you feel motivated.  Sometimes I write these down and sometimes I put these in my phone.  Because I don't want to ramble about this forever I will just give my one tip with to-do lists - don't be overly ambitious.  If you get to the end of the day and haven't even managed half, this won't make you feel good.  Be realistic about what you can get done in your day.  If you get everything done, add something on then if you want to but you only have so many hours and a to do list isn't something to get upset over.  

My last little idea for making life easier is the calendar app on my phone.  When, I switched to my new phone I realised how much I've come to rely on this.  As soon as I get an appointment I put it in.  Date nights are in.  Birthdays are in.  Gym classes are in.  Everything is there for me.  It really helps me with scheduling and not overbooking.  Being able to see everything laid out in front of me means I don't double book and I don't over book - I can still make sure I have some down time in there.  Whilst I certainly haven't cracked the work life balance I like to make sure I have time for regular me time, regardless of how short it might be!

I hope some of these tips have been helpful to you and you were able to take something from them.  I have some extra little ones if you'd like to know more about them.  Let me know if you try any of these, if there's any you do already or perhaps you have some of your own you'd like to share with me.

xx