How to ease your weekly struggles
We are all busy. All the time. And sometimes we stress about those routine tasks in our week that just keep ourselves afloat. Those tasks that are necessary to live comfortably like meal planning, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning, and even making basic decisions with your husband about your schedules can just tip you over the edge.
I felt ready to tip over when the dishes were stacking up, mail was unopened and texts were unanswered, bills were nearly overdue, decisions were unmade. It felt as if I couldn't get ahold of those routine tasks that need to be complete in order to have it all together. So I set out to determine what I could do to lessen my weekly struggles.
Let's not tip over the edge, and let's get straight to the solution.
If you have any roles and responsibilities besides just yourself, like most of us, you are likely to experience reoccurring tasks throughout the week that you don't feel like doing because it just causes you stress. We are going to demolish that.
In order to feel like we have it all together, we need to start with what are those routine weekly tasks that are important to use and are causing us stress. Yes, there may be routine tasks that cause us stress and that we stopped doing, but here we are talking about those tasks that are still important to complete yet still cause you stress. Let's find a better way to complete those stressful tasks so that the stress is diminished if not removed altogether. Follow this simple process to start lightening your weekly load.
No. 1
Determine what the issue is. What is it in your week that is causing you the most stress? Evaluate where you are spending your time. See what waste can be removed in order to make enough time in your time budget to complete your weekly tasks. A lot of our struggles come from not lack of time, but lack of time management. Take some time to purposefully pause in your week to notice what is affecting your stress levels. In this free worksheet, you can use the weekly observation tool to help you see where you are spending your time.
No. 2
If you have mastered this task in the past, contemplate what solutions have worked before. Take notes from your weekly observation and see if you can find any connecting patterns as to why you are stressed from your weekly tasks. What distractions have you come across that can be eliminated in order to help you achieve your weekly tasks? Also, check your screen time on your phone. It is alarming how many hours a day we can spend on our phones.
No. 3
Ask yourself if any of the following common interventions will alleviate the stress of this task:
Decluttering
Early Intervention
Delegating
Reminders/Setting Timers
Changing Attitude Revolving Around The Task
Other
It is important for you to consider your unique circumstances, because if you do the work, you will get your individualized solution to your unique pain points. You just need to put in the brain work to make it happen!
No. 4
Lastly, try it out! Implement your proposed changes to your weekly tasks. Use the weekly observation tool to, again, observe and then evaluate how you are spending your time WITH your implemented changes revolved around these weekly pain points.
As with anything new, you use the revolutionary yet simple thing called the scientific method. Literally, all that the scientific method is, is identifying an issue, implementing a change, and evaluating the results. Try, and try again!
To get started with reducing your stress in your week, download my free Better Week Worksheet for the full formula AND work pages to better your days in your week!
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