It feels like everyone is always busy, if not overloaded, in today's world. There are never enough hours in the day, especially when you are a parent or if you have a demanding, high-stress career (or both!). Even my older adult or "retired" yoga students often express that it is not just a challenge to find the time, but also the energy, for self-care. There have been seasons of my life where I felt like I was always in survival mode. For over ten years, I was working full-time, raising a teenager, had a spouse with a demanding career that involved odd work hours, both of my parents needed long-term care, and I had an urban farm complete with cows to milk and sheep to shear. I can absolutely relate to any feelings others may have about not being able to find the time or energy for even 15 minutes of meditation or exercise!

We all know that taking time for self-care, including consistent daily activity, is vital to our health and longevity. But, the reality of trying to make that happen can feel impossible. So what can you do to ensure you are managing self-care into your busiest days?

1. Know your goals and set boundaries to honor them.

Only you know what matters most to you. I have found that not just acknowledging my goals but actually writing them down helps me as conflicts arise that will take time away from the things that I consider most important. Setting your personal goals and planning what it will take to accomplish them in terms of daily time commitment can make it easier to say "no" when lower priority activities that don't support self-care pop up in your day. Personal goals, such as self-care, are different from responsibilities such as work/career, volunteer or religious activities, or commitments like family or pets, although they may sometimes overlap. If attending church weekly is a personal priority or part of your self-care, and also involves a responsibility, then you get to decide where that falls in the spectrum of importance as you make time for yourself.

Setting clear boundaries around the time you need to commit to your goals can also help with ensuring you honor your own time. As part of my health goals, I allocate time each day to prepare healthy, home cooked meals. I schedule my work hours to accommodate the time needed to plan and prepare healthy food daily. If a responsibility comes up that is a lower priority for me, then I firmly explain that I can't accommodate what I am being asked to do at that time. If something comes up that is a higher priority (my husband or kids need me), then I fall back on taking a pre-prepared healthy meal from the freezer to ensure I am still meeting my goal. Knowing what your goals are, what that will require each day, and managing your goals against your responsibilities and commitments can be very helpful in making the time to care for yourself. If you have a goal to maintain your current weight and your associated daily priority is 30 minutes of walking every day, make sure that you only relinquish that time for something that supports a higher-priority personal goal, commitment or responsibility. For example, when I was caring for my parents, if my dad needed to go to a doctor's appointment (commitment) and that conflicted with work (responsibility) and also with my daily yoga practice (personal priority), I had to decide which activity was the most important - in this example, my dad was the priority but I could also do yoga (frequently with him) by taking a little extra time off of work to practice before the appointment. Decide what is non-negotiable for you relative to self-care goals and then stick to it, understanding that you may have to focus on 1-2 priorities for self-care depending on where you are at in your life in terms of commitments and responsibilities.

2. Schedule your self-care and activity (but with flexibility).

This one can be incredibly hard, especially if you have a lot of competing responsibilities and commitments. I provide myself with windows of time to accomplish specific priorities instead of creating firm appointments, so that if an unexpected higher priority item needs to be taken care of, I can use a later time slot in the day. As an example, I make it a priority to run 2-5 miles a day. I am flexible about if I am going to do it in the morning before work, on a lunch break, or before dinner. I am also flexible and on days with more demands, I run 2 miles instead of 5. If it is a day where I have more time, I will run 5 miles. If it is a difficult, busy day and I am tired, I walk instead of run. Back to the example in #1, I am flexible with what time we eat dinner if I need to accommodate my run before we eat by scheduling a window of time for healthy dinner prep instead of one firm time of day. For some people, having exact times scheduled on their personal calendar works great, but if that doesn't work for you, schedule windows of time in the day to complete self-care activities and be flexible and kind to yourself when you need to shuffle things around to meet your self-care priorities or juggle them against responsibilities.

3. Ask for (or accept) help!

One of the hardest things for most people is to ask for or accept help, particularly if you have a mindset that self-care is "selfish." If I know that I can't prepare dinner at the end of a long day and run because time is short, I will ask someone else to prepare a healthy dinner so that I can take needed time for myself to meet my goals. When I was actively caregiving my parents, if I needed a break, I would ask a sibling or my son for help so I could take care of my needs and priorities. Taking time for yourself and your goals is not selfish, it is necessary for all of us to maintain both physical health and emotional wellness. Are you a parent that needs help watching your kids for an hour so you can do yoga or an exercise video? Don't be afraid to leverage your support system and don't be shy to ask for help to make the time for self-care. If someone offers to help with something, don't be afraid to relinquish control over a commitment or responsibility so that you can meet a goal. Give others an opportunity to complete tasks at work, or get comfortable outsourcing your laundry. We all like to feel indispensable, but that shouldn't come at the expense of our health.

I have recently added additional later evening, live online yoga flow sessions that are only 35 minutes. When time is especially tight, I would encourage you to join me if that aligns with your self-care commitment or personal goals. Yoga is an incredible way to get in daily activity that benefits physical and emotional health and can support healthy sleep. If I don't offer sessions at times that work for you, please reach out and let me know how I can work with you and your schedule.