The enemy of "me" time

I’m writing this whilst on a child-free weekend away with hubby to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. After unpacking and making lunch, I was overwhelmed by the need to “do” something. However, I made myself sit and enjoy my lunch and tried to “just be”. I must confess I didn’t do very well, because while I sat quietly, enjoying the tranquil Berowra Waters from the deck of our gorgeous digs, I was composing this post in my head.

My current situation got me thinking, how many mums are missing the opportunities for quality “me” time as a result of our compulsion for “doing”? I know there are always things to be done and even short periods out of routine sees the washing pile up and the house quickly out-of-control, but is part of it simply the habit of “doing”?

Then, when we do take some time out, how often do we feel guilty afterwards because we think of all the other things we could have done with that time?

Finding “me” time was the second biggest issue raised by Workplace Mums in my survey (you can complete the survey here if you haven’t already). But are we our own worst enemy when it comes to finding “me” time?

As with balance, perhaps part of the challenge is to disassociate with our ideals from life before children. I think a further challenge is that we don’t always acknowledge when we are taking some “me” time. Then there’s the issue of putting everyone else’s needs above our own, which can really impact on our health and well-being.

Jo (Coach & mother of 3) says that “me” time basically comes at the bottom of the list. “I don’t plan for it, but I think we tend to naturally do what we need to recharge; for me, this is spending 10 minutes on Facebook or one of my favourite websites”.

Unfortunately, these activities don’t make it onto our to-do list, so we can’t cross them off and when we look back on the day, we generally think we were wasting time. Alternatively, we don’t actually get around to doing those activities which help us to recharge and that’s when the wheels really can fall off.

Anita (Workplace Mother of 2) has, what many of us would consider, the holy grail of “me” time: an afternoon every weekend when her hubby takes the children out to give her some time alone. However, this situation came about as a result of Anita being sick for months, unable to recover because she couldn’t get sufficient rest.

“It shouldn't take the ship going down to realise when you are over-stretched and need to rest”, says Anita. Now that she has recovered, she struggles not to be doing something when left alone. “When sick, I had a reason not to and had been ordered to rest. Now I find myself whipping up a batch of healthy mini muffins for school lunch-boxes instead of relaxing. It's as if I can tick a box - have achieved something, child's nutritional needs will be met etc”.

So, how can we prioritise “me” time and make “recharging” an equally compelling goal?

Firstly, think about and acknowledge what you are actually achieving. For example, Kathryn (Senior Lecturer & mother of 3) mentioned missing out on time to exercise, but upon reflection, realised that her regular dog walking gave her that opportunity.

Next, set a minimum baseline - what you need to do to maintain your own well-being - and challenge yourself to make those activities a priority. I think, perhaps, we resist admitting we are over-stretched because it feels like admitting defeat and with so many demands, it is just easier to push “me” time to the bottom of the list. But ask yourself, how useful are we to our families and employers when we are sick or exhausted? And if we are still functioning, how much fun are we to be around?

With your baseline set, perhaps consider the following questions:

• What do I feel I’m missing out on?
• What would I do if I did have more time for myself?
• What am I prepared to do in order to have more time for myself?

I think a big part of the challenge is to manage our expectations of ourselves and be realistic about what is possible. I know we can’t magically create extra hours in the day, but we can choose how we think about and use our time. There is definitely more to be said on the subject of time management, but I recently found this blog post about time vs energy and it really resonated with me: Time is fixed, but energy is not 

Do you agree that we are our own worst enemy when it comes to finding “me” time? What is one thing you could do differently to get a little more “me” time? 

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