Are you constantly exhausted feeling like your to-do list is never-ending and wondering how you are ever going to get it all done? If you are battling chronic exhaustion this episode is for you! Get ready to learn how to manage your time better and ensure that at the end of the day you feel satisfied with all that you accomplished, rather than depressed and exhausted.
To battle chronic exhaustion, we need to go through our task list and figure out in what areas we can trim back. Our goal is to have a satisfying life and if we are too overwhelmed and too frenzied, not only won’t we achieve what we need to get down, but we will feel emotionally and physically exhausted by all the wasted energy we are expending. Here are some ways to cut back and see if we can correct this ongoing issue. These can potentially be areas where we can fix our efficiency. The number one place to look at is our to-do list.
What’s on your to-do list?
1) Get groceries for dinner: How may stores do you have to visit to find that missing spice? How important is that errand?
2) Picking up dry cleaning: Are there ways to trim routine? How about buying a couple of extra shirts so you can go an extra week without this one errand?
3) You have to mail the perfect gift to your sister on the birth of her new baby. We may get aggravated and snap. Is this necessary? Would it be possible to send a check or an Amazon gift card instead?
4) You must call your child’s teacher regarding your child’s behavior. Is there something you can take off your list instead so you can make this call feeling relaxed?
5) You need your insurance re-installed. You have to make this call. It’s an undesirable task. Any chance to make this task more enjoyable? With a cup of java?
6) Pay parking ticket: Just pay it. Immediately. Some unpleasant tasks have to be done as quickly as possible, otherwise, we keep thinking about how we don’t want to do it!
7) Pick up child from school: Get music you like for the car. Think ahead about what I can do to take care of myself better when I have errands I must do.
We do other things we didn’t plan for, and they take huge amounts of time….such as wasting time watching videos or playing mindless and addictive games such as Candy Crush!! We’re sabotaging ourselves and that’s causing constant exhaustion! It’s costing us what’s important!
The Mesillas Yesharim (a great safe) says that the Yetzer Hara (evil inclination) is keeping us busy so we lose focus of what’s important.
Look at the following areas: Pinterest tunnel, cleaning/organizing more than I have to, finding perfect recipe and finding specific ingredients at store, preparing yet another dish for Shabbos. Can you make one less dish and instead impress by engaging with your guests?
Here are areas which are absent from our to-do list, but should be there: Chat with neighbor, take a nap, paint or color, have unscheduled time..could be 15 minutes to enjoy your coffee, have lunch and connect with friend. People get antsy on vacation. We’re agitated and frenzied and we don’t know how to turn off and have down time. Go down your list and write, “later” to things that can wait. Are we addicted to being frazzled? People talk about having serenity, but when they get it, they don’t know how to have it.
Analyze what your root cause of exhaustion is:
1) Do you just have a harried life? Look at your biggest priorities. If you’re a victim and blame, you may be right, but then you have no sense of control. Choose not to brag about how exhausted you are and how little sleep you got (sometimes people have a competition for that).
2) Is your self-esteem tied into how much you accomplish? Try to separate from the mentality that the more you do, the more you feel accomplished … instead, change your mentality to one where the more kindness you do for your husband the more accomplished you will feel — since this will bring more closeness to your relationship!
Take out time to forgive your husband and that should make you feel awesome about yourself. It’s good enough and we don’t have to push ourselves beyond. We don’t need to worry about FOMO. We can turn our phones off for a while. We’re a nation of over-achievers. You can try to overachieve or have better relationships. There is a race to be “selfy-worthy,” and we all try to look and dress in a certain way. We have an imagination given to us by G-d to figure out how to do Mitzvot (good deeds) better. If you’re pushing yourself too much, ask why! Is it to impress others? Maybe that will help you to trim a little off your task list.
The Vilna Gaon (great Torah scholar) said that the reason Hashem (G-d) created us is to work on ourselves to be the best people we can be.
R. Lawrence Keleman says, “being efficient and developing a relationship are mutually exclusive. There’s no such thing as quality time. Magic moments necessarily happen during huge swaths of time well-wasted.”
It feeds our soul to have a relationship. Accomplishing too much causes exhaustion. Connection with others causes us to repair ourselves.
Tools of the day for battling chronic exhaustion:
1) Make an assessment of where you’re failing at taking care of yourself. Accomplishing too much has a cost!
2) Prioritize
3) Know that if you’re constantly busy, your level of anxiety goes up
Cost of carrying too much:
1) Makes us feel that no one appreciates us for all we do
2) Resentment for how much we’re carrying
3) There’s not enough time for ourselves, our husbands, our children
4) We get physically ill more often from lack of self-care.
5) We tend to miss the boat for what we were put here to accomplish
Prioritizing what is important to us shifts our whole day and our whole life! Our husbands are our top priority (we spend eternity with them). For singles, R. Shmuel Kamenetsky (Torah leader and Rabbi) said our priorities have to be achieving shalom (peace) with people. Not knowing what our priorities are causes stress and pulls us in many directions. Whatever our husbands need should become our priority. If your husband needs shoelaces and child needs homework help, your job is to get the laces for your husband. It is okay to ask your husband if he needs the laces right now, and if he does, it’s your job. Your child will figure out the homework himself. As Leah always says, “Try this at home”!
Make your tasks easier by using disposables, don’t make that extra dish. You can now brag how you took care of yourself by taking a nap, turning off your phone, and bragging about what you didn’t accomplish, which means you are more serene.
Secret of the Day: We have the power to take back control of our own lives by being more careful where we put our energy and how we prioritize our lives.
Homework for the week: Brag to one person about how you took care of yourself.
