Self-care During Busy Work Weeks
Something that I’ve been working on ever since leaving my freelance career is how to build in a nourishing and supportive self-care routine to my weekly schedule. In the years that I worked for myself, I had a brilliant balance of working when it worked for me, and working around things like doctors’ appointments, gym sessions, afternoons with my parents, outdoors time… With a traditional 9-5, that’s a little harder.
Self-care, to me, is taking care of the things that make me feel more like me. It’s different for everybody – hence the ‘self’ – so take my words here with a pinch of salt. But, I already know that many of you are just like me, so I’m sharing all of my own advice, tips and tricks here for maintaining sanity and a bit of space during busy weeks.
Assess your weekly needs
These days, I have an innate knowledge of the things that make me feel good: quietness, time in the outdoors, crisp cool air, good food, candles, my skincare routine, calling my sister, playing with my dog, zoning out with video games… I could go on. Each of these ‘does’ something different though. Some weeks are louder than others and require that quietness and time in the outdoors, others are strangely quiet and mean I crave the connection of a phone call or playing video games, often online with friends. Take a moment each week to check in on what you have planned, and figure out which self-care essentials will best underpin that.
Make time
Next, the tricky bit: make time for your self-care needs. Begin treating self-care as a non-negotiable… because it is. Whenever my self-care slips, my week becomes an awful runaway train, and I make doubly sure to prioritise it the next week.
The best way to make time for self-care is to get boring about it and pull up your diary. Even better if you’ve logged in everything else you do: work shifts, appointments, dinner dates, all that sort of thing. You’ll be able to see parts of your diary that are more packed. So, could you factor in a night of taking care of yourself ahead of that? Afterwards? Then, add that to your diary as an appointment. With yourself. This practice itself is now one of my non-negotiables.
Prioritise what feels good
Finally, prioritise what feels good and prioritise yourself. As a lifelong people-pleaser, this has been inordinately hard to wrap my head around, but I’m getting there! I am a much more balanced, productive, kind and thoughtful person when I’ve had some all-essential time to myself. If you’re somebody that struggles to work out what you need, then perhaps building a dopamine menu is exactly what you need.
A dopamine menu separates self-care activities depending on their Simply assign self-care tasks to courses, based on the time and energy required. Starters are quick-wins for an energy boost, main courses are more time-consuming and more rewarding, side dishes can be built into other activities, and desserts are indulgent, quick-fix activities.
To get you started, here’s a Daisybutter Dopamine Menu:
Starters
- Cuddles or hide-and-seek with Milo
- Making a cup of tea in my favourite mug
- Tidying up my library room
- Taking care with my skincare routine
Main courses
- Date night with Eddie
- A non-rushed gym session
- An uninterrupted afternoon with a book
- Nature walks and hikes
- Craft evening!
Side dishes
- Listening to a podcast while cleaning
- Enjoying a snack while cooking
Desserts
- Watching TV or YouTube videos
- Coffee-and-cake date with my sister
- A gaming afternoon
After-work self-care
When it comes to self-care, the biggest game-changer for me has been leaning into rest and relaxation as an antidote to busy work days. It’s easy to rot and lean into hours of TV or a ‘Dessert’ dopamine hit, but often what we need is to take care of errands and ourselves, making ‘Starters’ and ‘Side dishes’ a must. You’ll notice that these are small things, but they’re the ones that make the biggest difference for me. Multi-tasking something fun with something essential is usually how I stay sane on a random Wednesday evening! Trust me, save the main courses for when you’re really in need of them.
