An Appointment With You
I’m busy.
I’m sooooo busy.
Busy, busy!
I’m so busy these days, I don’t know what to do.
I can’t do it, I’m too busy.
Said it lately? I know I have. Seems these days we’re a culture of Busy.
Most people I know are juggling a lot – jobs, families, social lives, taking care of children or parents, volunteering, running errands… When you get right down to it, the statement “I’m too busy” is really a declaration of our priorities. Sending out my survey this week, I was most curious to see how women especially (the usual caregivers) choose to spend their time when their priorities overlapped.
The good news is the majority of you, a whopping 95% of you, treat your doctor’s appointments as sacred and deftly juggled work appointments to keep them (and keep your bosses happy!). As one of you said, “I need to be healthy to work well.” Amen!
Friends and children also rated high on your priority list. Whether it was dragging yourself out of bed when you were feeling less than sunny-side up (65%) or staying up late to stir brownie batter (60%), seems like we’ll forsake sleep to make our friends and fam feel important to you.
What struck me as most interesting, of course, was how we choose when it comes to time for ourselves, specifically healthy eating and exercise. We had a tough time deciding between a scheduled exercise versus a dinner invitation from a friend: 40% skipped the workout for quality time with a friend, 35% held the workout sacred and 25% of you showed up sweaty to socialize. The jury was split 50/50 on whether t-ball practice or spinning class stayed in your appointment books, although 2 of you smartly added you’d just go find another spinning class!
Healthy eating – whether planning or follow through – was what got sacrificed the most. 75% left your brown bag in the office fridge and joined the crew at El Dorado. (This was a real life example for me!) Our best made intentions are often times forsaken in the day to day of real life – 80% of us bumped our grocery trip into the next day when a work deadline was pressing down, and just 3 people turned off the TV to write a meal plan. Fortunately the majority of us, 65%, still did some meal planning during the commercials. Hey, multi-tasking is better than no-tasking in this scenario!
In our day to day busy lives making time for all our priorities is no doubt a challenge. For women especially, taking care of other’s needs often comes before our own needs. Without health, we deprive ourselves the opportunity to live our best life. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we certainly can’t take care of other people.
Food For Thought: Whether it’s scheduling play time for yourself or blocking off your workouts in your Outlook as calendar, treating your time as sacred as those doctor’s appointments is key to maintaining those lifelong healthy habits. Many of us start January off with the best made intentions, only to find them lost a few weeks later in the day to day shuffle of our busy life. Choose one habit you’re trying to maintain, and take a look at your calendar. Find where it fits in and schedule it in – every week. When you’re choosing how to spend your time, the question you’re asking yourself is “Am I my own priority?” How could you not be?
Tags: motivation, strategies
