The other day I was reading an article written by a man. He isn't married and has no children. He mentioned in his article that he was very stressed just from working and doing things for his friends. He felt he had no time for himself. No time to unwind and have fun. I thought to myself, "This guy needs to really figure out what he is spending his time on".

I have a husband to make happy, a house to clean, 3 children to nurture and teach, 2 cars to clean and maintain, a business to grow and that is just to name a few. I'm sure many of you mothers can relate. There are many times when I feel very pressed for time. I asked myself, "How can this man who only has a business and a couple of friends be so stressed and feel he has no time for himself?"

The answer is that we can all get carried away with the little and mundane tasks that get us through our day and forget to look at the big picture, no matter who we are or where we are in life.

So how do we fix this problem?

I recently made a list of all the tasks I do throughout the day. I made a new list for each day for about a week. I estimated how long I thought I was spending on each task. At the end of the week, I took a look at my lists and realized I was wasting quite a bit of time. Can you believe I spent a total of 15 hours checking and responding to emails during that week? That was just email!! Now I know I don't get that many emails. I tend to get sidetracked when I'm reading my email. That is my problem.

What are your time-wasters?

I dare you to create similar lists for yourself for a week and see where you stand. Are there things you can spend less time on? I bet there are some things that can even be eliminated? How important is each task? Which ones are really contributing to your family or your business? Really look at those tasks, does your family or customers/clients really care if you tackle that task, or is it something that could wait for another day?

Scheduling time for ME.

If you want to have time for yourself, you really need to schedule it in. We schedule our work hours, we schedule in time for cooking dinner and spending time with the kids. We even schedule play dates for our children. Why don't we schedule play dates for ourselves? These dates could be just browsing in a mall. They could be taking a bath or reading a book. Whatever it is that you need to help you unwind and feel alive, is what you need to schedule in to your daily calendar. You should be taking at least 15-60 minutes per day for yourself.

You need to schedule these dates in for yourself. You will rarely have a spare hour just pop up where you can decide to take off and do something for you unless you schedule it in.