Midlife is a time of change for all of us and a time of stress. Many are taking care of teens and parents and trying to manage a job. Many of us have kids leaving for college or to moving out on their own. This can leave us thinking “what now?” in terms of our self identity and also our marriages. Whatever the reason, we periodically find ourselves needing to re-evaluate our lives and redefine what’s important to us. That’s why I decided to do this series, “How To Reboot Your Life.” I think it’s important and healthy for all of us to periodically take inventory and make adjustments to our lives. I’ll try to write a post once every few weeks and talk about different areas of our lives to reboot. Balance Balance isn’t a holy grail that you can attain and then hold onto with both hands. It’s a way of living where you continually evaluate and weigh the importance of the different things in your life. You allow into your life what will serve you well. You spend your time in a way that both accomplishes what needs to be done, but also fills you heart and helps you realize your dreams. Reboot Steps Define What’s Important. If you want to reboot your life, you first need to figure out what’s important. That will be different for everyone. I suggest using the Brain Dump and the Decision Matrix to help you figure out what’s important to you. Put tasks right onto your planner. The difficulty we all face is making time for the things that are important to us, but not necessarily urgent. I explain that concept in this post). Once you’ve defined specific things that are important, I suggest using either a paper planner or app to maintain a daily schedule. I talk about that here. Schedule not just the urgent tasks that have to be done, but also the things that you want to make time for like exercise or time with friends. Put it right on the daily pages of your planner. If you’re not using a planner, I cannot stress enough how beneficial it can be. If you want to start with a planner that’s pre-made you, The Simplfied Planner is really great quality and these run from Aug – July so you don’t have to wait until January to start. Create Routines. Establish routines like a morning and evening routine to help certain priorities become a habitual part of your life. You can also establish routines for social priorities like, going out with your girlfriends the first Thursday of every month, having family night one Friday a month or every Sat afternoon, etc… Maybe healthy dinner Monday or Sat morning home clean up. The entire family can help with that one. My Priorities I’ve already done this. The things I’m concentrating on are exercising regularly, getting back into healthy eating habits and de-cluttering the house. I’m putting exercise and 15 min of de-cluttering right into my morning routine. I find that I’m much more likely to get something done if it’s in the morning routine. Spending time with family and friends is already something I make time for. I put monthly reminders on my calendar to look for fun local outings to do with the kids or with friends. If you follow these simple steps, you’ll be able to reboot any area of your life that you want to adjust and actually make your new priorities happen. I’ll delve more deeply into rebooting the diet, exercise, self care, etc… in other posts.
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