Owning Your Time — In the Wild+Wonder

24 hours. It’s how many hours every human gets to live on. Sometimes we waste them away and other times we use up every minute to the fullest and our head hits the pillow at the end of the day completely exhausted.

If you’ve followed me for a while or read my blog at all, you can see that waking up early is something I strive to do everyday. It’s my “me time” that I get each and every day that so many women are chasing after. It’s the time I can get alone with God without distractions or “my people” needing anything from me. This always helps me to get my day started off on the right foot. I get up, throw on my workout clothes, brush my teeth and head out to the gym that we built in our shop. After I’m done with my workout, I’ll head in to brew some coffee, journal some, read my devotion and or my Bible and look at my planner for the day. Does it go exactly like this everyday? NOPE! It’s just what it can look like when we don’t have to run anywhere early in the morning and since we homeschool, this kind of day can happen more often than not. I truly believe waking up early can be for anyone, whether you work at home, work away from home or you’re strictly a stay-at-home mom (in my opinion, this still means you work at home, hehe!) You can read more about my morning mindset here.

But let’s get on to what I really want to talk about…Owning Your Time!

For me, I haven’t always spent my time in the most effective way. That doesn’t mean that every minute of everyday should be spent being productive, but I believe it should be spent being effective. Scrolling social media, looking up recipes on Pinterest, watching Netflix, these things are fun, but do they help you spend your time effectively? Don’t get me wrong I do them, probably way too much in the past, but I’ve recently taken on a new mindset when it comes to how I spend my time.

That new mindset goes like this:

Do I own my time? Do I manage the hours, minutes and seconds of my day? Or does it manage or “own” me?

When you look at your calendar (that’s assuming you have one) what do you see? Are your days planned out with something everyday? For us, there are a few things that happen the same day and time each week. Those include my daughters’ jiu jitsu classes and church. Pretty much anything else that gets put onto the schedule is sporadic. So with that, I can plan my days around needing to leave the house 4 days a week in the afternoon for their class and headed out to church Saturday nights or Sunday mornings. Everything else is just extra and should line up with what our family values….also known as PRIORITIES. I love that word because it helps my mind zoom into the things that really matter.

I’m gonna share my priorities with you, not because I want you to be able to compare yours to mine or to make it look like I have it all together, but just to give you examples of what priorities can look like. Then I’d like to show you how to come up with our own.

My Priorities:

Work- Right now, I don’t have a typical “job” but I truly love getting some work done. Whether it’s editing photos for some ambassador work I’m a part of, writing out a blog post, or helping Kody out with the couple of businesses we run together, this sets us up financially for all of our other priorities to happen. My motto is: If it needs to happen that day, make it happen first!
Homeschool- We try to do this at least 4-5 days a week and it can vary from 1 hour to 6 hours depending on what we’re working on. We also do school year round, which allows us to do less work in one day.)
Housework- First off with this, if you’re house is cluttered and full of a lot of stuff, I highly recommend decluttering it and getting rid of junk that you don’t use or need. I’m not a huge fan of Marie Kondo’s method because I think it can be a little too legalistic and way too rule based for this mama, but there are a couple other ladies that I love following who have helped me get my house simplified and uncluttered. Allie Casazza happens to be one that I absolutely love. You can check her out here. Also, Kendra Hennesey can help you get your house seriously clean and help you keep it that way, find her here.
Anyways, with housework, I like to do a few things each day that help keep it under control, but doesn’t take me an entire day to maintain. Laundry in our house happens every other day. Cleaning bathrooms is a once a week task. With a tri-level home like ours, vacuuming happens usually 3 different days a week, mainly because I hate it. So, I have to break it up! After each meal, me and the fam help to clear plates, wipe down counters and sweep the floor. I seriously love a clean kitchen, it allows my mind to be less hectic when it’s clean.
My girls also have chores that they help with. They’re super great at picking up their room and dusting, as well as cleaning their bathroom. I rarely have to do any of that myself. I’m a big believer in kids doing chores that are appropriate for their age and learning personal responsibility. (I may do a future blog post on this if you’d like to know more of what we do.)
Body movement- Working out can become a habit and I think it should be. Move your body everyday, whether it’s a walk, lifting weights, taking a class or going for a swim…a healthy life depends on it, so make it happen. Don’t wait to get motivated, just do it.
Healthy food in your home- I’ll just say it, I don’t like meal prepping! So, I don’t do it. BUT I do food prep.
What’s the difference?
Well, after I’ve shopped for healthy food with a list (so I don’t buy what I don’t need and buy what I do need.) I prep the food that will allow me to make healthy quick meals and snacks during the week.
Food prepping could look like roasting a bunch of sweet potatoes and broccoli to have on hand during the week that will go with grilled chicken or smoked turkey sausage. It could look like cooking some chicken in my instant pot to go with salads or wraps for lunch. And one of our faves is browning hamburger to make ready for tacos or spaghetti. I’ve tried to meal prep, but I always get to the day that I’m supposed to make it and I either don’t feel like eating it that day or we end up eating out and it gets forgotten or goes bad. Food prepping has really helped our family out so much, plus, it’s ok to eat the same meals each week!!
Downtime- I love downtime! In my book, downtime is a must because it allows us all to flex our creative muscles, to learn or to just get lost in a good book. My girls are 5 and 7 and have the most amazing imaginations because I believe they’ve had ample time for their entire lives to simply just play. They love to get out paints, markers, clay or just doodle on blank sheets of paper. Or they’ll build forts or homes for their stuffed animals. There’s really no end to what they can come up with and the word “bored” very rarely comes up in our home.
For me, this is when I write or read. I love reading to learn but I also love a good historical fiction novel. Having an uncluttered home and lots of white space on my calendar allows for this and I’m very happy with how we’ve built this into our lives.
Time outdoors- I know this is probably easier for us since we live on a ranch, but there’s no doubt in my mind that each person should get some ample time outside. It’s good for our bodies and our mind. Nature can really help to put us in a better mood, a sort of reset, when life gets hectic or stressful.
Time with friends and family and or serving others- It’s not all about you. I tell myself as well as my kids this probably way too much, but it’s really true. How can you serve others? It may be calling that friend you haven’t spoken to in a while or having her over for coffee. Or it could be helping out at the senior center. Whatever it is, make it a priority.

I know priorities can look different for each woman, because everyone’s day is unique, and of course not all of these priorities happen for me each day. But it doesn’t matter if you work in or out of the home, priorities and owning our time can happen. It just takes time to figure out what those are and make them happen.

Here’s a few questions to ask yourself:

What are the things that need to get done each day, week or month?

What do you really love doing?

Are you over committing yourself to things that really don’t serve you and your family?

Are there things you could pass on in this season, so you can enjoy more of time you get with your family? If so, do it, don’t be afraid of letting people down if you can’t do something with them.

Remember, whatever you say “yes” to is something or someone you’re saying “no” to. Make sure that’s not the people you love most.

Learning to own our time also allows us to hustle and work on the things that can better our lives financially and allow us to feel fulfilled in chasing after our goals. When we’re not spending time on things that don’t help us in our core relationships or in our goals in life, we have more time for them!

I hope this was helpful and I fully admit to not having it all together, but I love sharing what I’m learning and what’s working for me. I humbly profess that I’m not afraid to change what used to work and no longer works, so if I find something better, I’ll be sure to share.

I’d also love to hear from you and if there’s things in your life that have helped you “own your time.” Drop a comment here on the blog or on my Instagram!