It is a well-known fact that there are only 24 hours in a day. Besides the various obligations people have to tend to in their daily routines (such as eating, breathing, sleeping, going to work, being with family, maintaining a social life and/or going to school....just to name a few!) there is one thing that is important to remember: Make time for yourself.
Trying to make time for yourself is an important key to remember for having a balanced life. It is important to make time for yourself because if you do not it can affect your mental, physical and emotional well-being. Life can get hectic from day to day and in a busy world, there will always be an obligation that needs to be completed. Although sometimes doing these obligations will cause less time to be allotted to you in a day to find that extra time for yourself. But one needs to understand that it is important to make time for yourself if you want to live a life that is less stressful. A part of that is knowing that you should learn not to over schedule yourself and that you should prioritize the important obligations of your present or if you can your upcoming schedule.
In order to live a balanced life where you can make time for yourself it is best to know what your daily routine is, the importance of each obligation, as well as the limits you have made for yourself when committing to this schedule routine. This is so you can focus on the main obligations you need to get done with the best of your ability rather than doing a mediocre job on many obligations just to say you accomplished them. Perhaps the daily routine in your schedule is flexible or maybe it is concrete. Either way, it is best to sit down and try your best to evaluate what you do know about your schedule so then you can have less stress figuring out any of the free time you might have within your scheduled routines.
Therefore try to make a list, make sure to add important dates to your phone calendar or even try creating a visual schedule on an Excel document to post on to your refrigerator. No matter what the schedule format is that you choose just pick one out so you can create a physical reminder of your schedule. Then you can use it to remind you that yes you have a daily routine but in the free time that you do have, you can try to make it some free time just for yourself to reflect, do some favorite hobbies or even to relax.
But what if your schedule changes last minute? Sometimes this happens and you cannot control the outcome. Although if you plan ahead and if you have a flexible schedule you could move some of your obligations around to still have that extra time to spend on yourself. However, if your schedule is concrete it may be difficult to create some free time space within it for yourself. This is because of the concrete obligations being already set into place. But if you find out that some of the concrete obligations within your daily schedule are too stressful or just take up a lot of time it would be a smart idea to remove yourself from some of them especially if they are concrete obligations that are not leading you towards having a balanced life.
Overall, life can get hectic and there are some obligations that are mandatory to complete within your schedule. However, if you try to plan ahead, learn to remove yourself from negative concrete obligations and realizing that having extra time for yourself is important you will be on the right track on implementing positive time management towards your daily life schedule.