Summer is here, and with it comes unique challenges of trying to fit all of your responsibilities into the available hours in the day.
Balancing everything in during the other seasons is hard enough, with work, freelancing, and family commitments, but in the summer time, everything just seems to ramp up in a whole new way.
Weddings, family reunions, vacations, camping trips and yard work all compete for our time and sometimes leaves me feeling like I need a vacation from my vacation!
It’s not always easy keeping up with everything, especially if you’re a side hustler like Michelle and I. That said, there are a few ways we can make sure that everything essential gets accomplished, while still fitting in the important things, like family.
Use the Daylight
In my neck of the woods (Eastern Canada), it gets dark at around 5:30pm in the winter time and stays that way until about 8am. This can make getting anything done outside of work hours less than appealing. Fortunately we have the complete opposite situation in the summer time, where it doesn’t get dark until 9:30pm, and even then it only lasts until around 5am.
Due to this, I love using the extra summer day light to my advantage in the summer. It’s so much easier to get up in the morning when it’s already light out, so I try make sure to get up extra early and accomplish a few tasks (some days I try and fail).
In the same vein, being able to stay outside to accomplish things like yard work and visiting family late into the evening allows me to just plain old get a lot more done than I would want to in the dead of winter when the thought of venturing off my warm couch and into the cold just makes me want to hunker down underneath the blankets.
Multitask
Combining tasks is a great way to free up spare time. For example, I love reading, but I have a terrible time carving out an hour of my day in order to turn some pages. So, I listen to audio books while running, walking the dog, and doing yard work. I actually get more books read this way then I do by reading them on my eReader all winter.
The same goes for family gatherings. Want to go camping but also need to organize that family reunion Why not have the reunion at a camp ground? This is a great way to visit with family and it also spares family members the headache of having to host.
Just Say No
To me, summer is about recharging from the frozen darkness of winter and soaking up the beautiful scenery.
It’s about taking the time to feel recharged and catch up on life.
If I said yes to every side hustle opportunity, volunteered for every project at work, and accepted every social invitation, I’d be run off my feet in under a month. So, I’ve had to learn to say no. Sometimes it feels pretty bad, sometimes my ridiculously over-inflated sense of guilt makes me feel like I’m letting people down, but I’ve learned that in order to do my at my best, I have to do less.
Summer is awesome, it’s my second favourite season (Fall wins that one) and I love taking the time to get out in nature and enjoy the beauty that this season has to offer. In order to do that, I have to be super efficient with my other life commitments, and using these tips, it’s been smooth sailing so far.
What plans do you have for the summer? How do you find time for it all?
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