Taking time out of your day to do stuff for yourself may seem counterintuitive when you have a day packed to the gills with tasks. I know I have a hard time with this. However what I have learned is that taking the time for self-care no matter how inconvenient makes completing the rest of the tasks that I have time left for more efficient. Now granted as you have seen from that last sentence it does mean picking and choosing the tasks that you will have time for. This is the hard part and sometimes you can’t you have to get them all done or suffer negative consequences that are not palatable whether they are political or economical in nature. Meaning you might lose money or miss a deadline that would imperil your position.
There are many amazing blogs out there about self-care. To me self-care can take many
forms but what it is at its root is taking time for yourself that involves self-reflection, introspections, and/or physical activity that leaves time for the first two items. That my physical activity for me means that I will at some point have a moment of quiet where I will be able to push out the distractions and think about my behavior and how my behavior affected those around me. This then leads into how I want to try and change my behavior for the better.
“Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health” –PsychCentral
I have the hardest time with finding the balance to give myself time and give time to the rest of my obligations. I usually err on the side of giving too much to my outsides obligations. I also find self-care harder to implement when depressed however I have drastic improvements when I prioritize self-care.
When I take the time to ride my bike or do yoga or meditate especially if I do it in the morning I find my mind is more organized and ready to concentrate at the task at hand. This make me more efficient and effective at completing these tasks which is why I classify self-care under efficiency.
How do you take care of yourself? Have you noticed it helps your efficiency?
