Tag: #ManagingLife

Since school is out and I have my grandchildren more hours per day, I am finding myself in a constant state of behindness (Yes, I know that’s not a real word, but it fits.) I’m the little boy in the picture below, struggling to keep up, carrying my balloon. 🙂

Of course, when you add in a book festival, a road trip to see my sister, and a music festival those contribute greatly to the behindness. So, I can own the fact that I did this to myself.

I’m curious. How do you do it? How do you juggle blogging, keeping up with other bloggers, social media, promoting your books writing new books, reading, working, taking care of your spiritual life, keeping your body healthy, and spending time with family?

I know not everything works for everyone, but I found one word that resonated with me

Simplify – Sounds easy, right?

When I looked at ways to do that, I made two lists. In one column, I listed the necessities in life and in the other column I listed the things I want to do but aren’t essential for living.

“But,” I hear you say, “I don’t want to stop doing what I’m doing.” Oh wait, that was me talking, not you.

Okay fine. I’ll move some of the things I want to do over to the essentials column.

Oops. Guess what? Now, I have one column. Back to square one with a deep sigh.

What to do?

I looked at the column again and thought to myself, prioritize.

That sounds logical.

I have to eat, sleep, do meditation, and exercise. Those are top priorities just to keep functioning. Then, I have to work to earn the money to support my lifestyle. That’s another priority. But what about my writing life? Isn’t it equally as important to promote the books I have spent money, blood, sweat, and tears creating? If I don’t, will anyone see them? Probably not. Finding the time to keep creating is ultra important to my well-being.

Blogging isn’t a necessity, I suppose. But if I hadn’t gotten consistent with blogging, I would never have built the following I have. So, if I neglect it, the numbers fall. And, if I don’t visit and support other blogs, the visits and comments on my blogs diminish.

You see where I’m going, right?

I have no easy answer. The truth is that I want to do it all and I feel like I’m on a merry-go-round getting dizzy.

I thought of two things I can implement that might help me get a grip: #1 Start saying “no” to anything I don’t really want to do #2 Ask for help (the hardest thing in the world for me to do).

Now, I’d love to hear from you. How do you juggle it all and stay on top of the pile? We’re all on this merry-go-round together.