Everybody has the same 24 hours in the day. It just seems like working moms have less because there are so many demands placed upon us. It’s easy to feel like you have to be at everyone’s beck and call—your boss, your friends, your mate, and your children. But if you don’t place a value on your time then no one else will either. You’ll end up feeling under appreciated and taken for granted.
How do you show your time is valuable?
Have a plan of action. As much as I love hanging out and chatting with my friends, I have to place limits on the time I spend. There are things in life that absolutely have to be taken care of otherwise I’ll feel like I’ve wasted my whole day. So I have a list of what is priority for the day and then I stick to it.
Get involved. Many times we hold back from doing something because we feel we can’t do it perfectly. It’s so important to just do something, even if it’s not perfect. At least you’re taking a step forward and getting something done.
Weed out the distractions. A big distraction could be checking emails. Before you know it, a huge chunk of time has been eaten up and you haven’t gotten anything accomplished. You’ll find that if you unsubscribe from most of your mailings you’ll have a tremendous sense of relief. There won’t be that huge amount in your inbox making you feel like you have to read them all. If unsubscribing seems too drastic, set up a second email account and reroute many of the emails to it and check it once a week. You might find you don’t really want to read them after all.
Hire someone to help you. There are many things in life that could be outsourced to others. Pick the activities that are eating up your time, but that someone else could be trusted to do for you, for example, housework, running errands, etc.
Rely on your support system. We all need to have people to bounce our feelings and thoughts off of. Many times they can help you see things more clearly and can give suggestions that will be helpful. Knowing you have their support will renew your spirit and energize you for the important things in life.
Limit how much of yourself you’ll give away. Women love to help others and when we’re asked to volunteer to do things we often will agree before we’ve given it enough thought. Then we find we’ve spread ourselves too thinly and our family and our own selves suffer because we’re trying to do too much.
Learn how to say “No”. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person to tell people you can’t do something. You have to remember every time you say “yes” to someone you’re saying “no” to something else you need to do. You need to figure out what is a time waster and what will help you accomplish what is important to you.
This doesn’t mean that you become self-centered, but you do have to have a realistic sense of your own worth. When you place a high value on your time, you’ll find that you accomplish so much more and are much happier. And others will see that your time is valuable and will appreciate you more.