Working mums, how do you protect your time?

[redjumper]

I heard a coach on a podcast the other day talking about wellbeing. She said everyone knows what to do for wellbeing, that's not the problem. The difficulty is time. That we all have a tendency to take on far too much and not protect our time and give ourselves enough rest and leisure time.

I've always been so busy! Busy in my job where by its nature, everything is urgent, and busy at home with the kids. And never good enough, the house is still messy!

What tips do you have for creating more time for yourself? For setting boundaries? For saying no? For simplifying?

Low standards re housework
A dh who is around a lot (term time worker)
A dh who will just come in from work and crack on with stuff, with me, until stuff is done
I don't work outside my contracted hours (wfh)
Weekdays the kids eat earlier and go to bed earlier so dh or I will sit with them with a cuppa and the other one will go in the bath or go read or whatever downtime they like. Weekends all meals together and later nights for the kids.

Following as I am the worst. I do all housework, work, kids, dogs then end up doing extra work at weekends and evenings. Never get a moment to myself. Can’t remember the last time I was alone. Ever.

Maybe try doing things for yourself before others? If you wait til the evening when you’re exhausted from working/kids/house it is very hard to motivate yourself even if you have some time.

Tricky, isn't it!

I'm not great at this, but occasionally DH will take all the kids out and I make make point of not doing anything useful for the first 15 minutes or so. Just have a cuppa and sit down. Even 15 minutes can help! Then I do tend to get on with stuff as otherwise I'll have to do it when the kids are asleep and I'll be up late.

How old are your children? I tell myself it's going to be better when mine are all done with the toddler years... hope that's true! My eldest is 6 and can now be trusted not to make too much mess most of the time, but she doesn't help with much in terms of chores yet. My toddlers I would be content if they could just not pee anywhere they shouldn't.....