For Librarians and Working Professionals![]() It’s officially the time of year when people start giving up on their New Year’s Resolutions. That’s right, two weeks and most people are done. It’s no wonder really, everyone is so busy and no one seems to have enough time for themselves. How do you follow the Whole 30, when you don’t have time to cook? How do you work out when you work 12 hours per day? Here are some quick tips to help you free up some time, so you can prioritize your personal life. Use your vacation time. All of it. Every year. You don’t need to spend a ton of money to have a nice refreshing getaway. Go camping or rent a cabin a few hours from home. Staycations are fine, but a change of atmosphere can be invigorating. If you can, go somewhere! Use more sick time. If you end the year with an abundance of unused sick time, there are honest ways that you can use more. Schedule Dr. appointments during the work day and take sick hours to pay for them. Call-in if you have a headache, bad allergies or feel like you *might* be getting sick. Bonus, I find that calling in for minor issues has mostly prevented me from getting disgustingly sick. Finally, and I cannot stress this enough, use your sick time when you are actually sick! Please do not be a walking death martyr, getting the entire office sick. Gross.
Take back your overtime. If you work for a salary, you are probably contracted to work, more or less, the same number of hours every week. If you are consistently asked to work more without receiving additional compensation, start taking back your time. If you have a late meeting or an event on your day off, schedule a day to get that time back. Keep track of your extra hours and take off a whole day, come in late or leave early. It’s your time.
Schedule down time throughout the day. I typically work for about 45 minutes, then get up and work on something easy and active for 15. Repeat all day. As a librarian I would work on ordering books for 45 minutes and then get up and shelve an armful of books for 15. This helps me feel mentally and physically energized all day. Set an “end of the day” alarm. I work part-time and have two littles. I get up at 6:30, work, work on my blog, workout, work on the house and take care of the kids. All day. At 9 PM an alarm goes off and I am done. TV time, book time, down time! Get enough sleep. For me 7-8 hours is perfect. Find out what your optimum number is and get that. Not getting enough sleep is not a badge of honor. It makes you cranky and less efficient. Make sleep a priority. You will be healthier, happier and get more done. Take a whole day off every week. Have one day where you don’t do any work. No laundry, no vacuuming, no scrubbing. Eat out or eat left-overs so you don’t even have to cook and do dishes. Do something fun, by yourself or with friends and family. What would you do with a whole day off? Once you have started to reclaim some of your personal time, consider getting back to your New Year’s goal. Just because your resolution didn’t work in January doesn’t mean that it won’t work in April or August. Take the time to consider what you want to do for yourself and try again. Best of luck! Keep me posted on your progress! Follow this link to a review of The Four Hour Workweek. How do you create free time for yourself? Comment below:
11 Comments
Alison Kelly
1/17/2020 07:20:49 am
Exactly! Good Luck with your goals!
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Alison Kelly
1/17/2020 07:26:06 am
I hope you can take advantage of some of these tips! Thanks for the comment!
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Alison Kelly
1/20/2020 12:26:18 pm
hopefully you will find some of these tips to be helpful!
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1/18/2020 08:24:10 am
Work/life balance is the hardest thing to get right, especially when working from home. This is something I need to constantly remind myself of. Just this weekend I found myself reading articles about SEO (not the most fascinating reading material ever) instead of the novel waiting for me on my kindle. I like your end of the day alarm idea:) I'm going to try that.
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Alison Kelly
1/20/2020 12:28:02 pm
It is hard to work from home. I always feel like I’m neglecting one aspect of my life while I’m working on another. I am guilty of allowing work to fill all my time. Rules help me get some actual rest.
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1/20/2020 08:37:26 am
I love each of the point you mentioned for creating a balanced life, specially the one that says that take a day off, completely. I am surely going to implement this.
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Alison Kelly
1/20/2020 12:30:08 pm
Taking a whole day off can be very rejuvenating. I find scheduling to be so beneficial. I’ll probably do a whole post on it sometime.
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