You have time to fit anything into your schedule. The deciding factor of whether you do or not is if it’s important enough. While you may feel a little called out, the reality is in order to fit anything in your schedule, you have to create the time and space for it, but first it has to be important enough to even search for the time to implement it. This is exactly the same with learning something new like cooking or meal planning.

Lack of time is never really truly the issue, it’s about the lack of managing time. Now you may be thinking it’s easy for us to say, but we have seen it in action in our own lives. We used to think we were so busy and could never add on anything. Fastforward 3 kids and almost 7 years in our own business and we have had countless instances of how we were crazy thinking we didn’t have the time before. The difference is, we have shifted our time management around to fit in what is important.

Have you ever thought about the time you spend on different areas and activities in your life? If you’re anything like we were back when we were just getting into personal growth and entrepreneurship, you probably haven’t. It wasn’t until we started to track the time, we were spending on everything that we found where we could set boundaries, adjust schedules and find ways to put time into new activities. Now let’s jump into some ways to help manage time and how it can be useful for you.

Track Your Schedule

Take a week and actually track your daily tasks and schedule. Treat it as if you are on the outside looking in. Create a log of the main tasks and how they fill your time. Once you can see how much you are spending on each thing you can start to adjust them. This may also mean finding ways to get more sleep or other things that have been lacking in your schedule.

Set Your Goals

After tracking, it’s time to decide what you actually want in your schedule. Make a list of what you want to fill your time and start seeing how it can fit in. Keep in mind that this does not have to be every day and like we say with starting anything, don’t try to get too crazy with adding too much at once. The idea is to show you how you can take control of your schedule, not for it to stress you out.

Adjust Your Schedule

Now that you know what you want in your schedule, start implementing it. Start with a blank canvas and work from there. Add in the things that are always going to be there: sleep, work, eating, personal hygiene. From there see what else can fit in your plan and add it in. Remember that no matter what you do there are only 24 hours in the day and 168 in the week. Adding things in will many times be a pocket of time that may grow from there, but it’s a start.

Set Boundaries

Just like starting something new is not easy, shifting your schedule will take time too. In retrospect it’s very simple to do, but as creature of habit there will be push back and self-sabotage to get in your way, so give yourself grace and space for learning. This is where putting boundaries in place can be super helpful. Boundaries could be things such as notes you see in your house, notifications on your phone or setting limits in screen time or downtime.

Track Your Weekly Progress

While doing this process, it is important to check in on how it is going. Set 5 minutes each week to check in on how your schedule is going. What is going well, what could be better, and what needs to be adjusted to work better. Doing this will let you see the changes and how you have grown, so make sure to celebrate them.

If you start implementing these strategies, you will inevitably start managing your time better and take control of your schedule. What we have found through much trial and error is that it’s all about STARTING. Stop putting it off and start today. One final thing that can be helpful is accountability, so if you start implementing this process, we would love to hear from you. Whether you send us a message on socials, comment here or send us an email we would love to be able to help support you on your journey.

Thanks for joining us, if you haven’t joined our Facebook group Meal Planning for Busy Parents yet, please check it out HERE. That is where you can find our community and easily chat with us. We also go live on Friday to answer your questions and talk about all kinds of cooking and meal planning topics. Let’s get ready for a great summer! We will catch you in the next post. Remember to subscribe to our weekly newsletter below to keep up with what’s going on in the Two Chef Mission world.