Athene Donald, Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge, 2009 Women in Science Laureate, Courtesy of Youtube.com

Early this morning I woke myself up, knowing I had an appointment to get to.  While showering (my favorite spot for reflection), I thought back over my last dream before waking…

My client had shown up and was circling my office looking for me.  My gardener pointed him to the front door.  My husband was home and I heard their voices when he opened the door.  I was frantically getting ready and a part of me was chiding myself for having overslept. 

Thankfully, it was just a dream, but also a wakeup call for me.  Was it caused because I was overtired and wanted to sleep more?  Was it a foretelling that my client would call and reschedule with me?  (It could also be a connection with recently seeing the movie, Alice-in-Wonderland or maybe reading Sunday’s L.A. Times article, “Breaking Into Dreams” about the dream thriller film, Inception.  Or maybe it was my recent comments added to the Women Entrepreneurs group on Linkedin around this question, “How do you balance work and life?”). 

But more than likely it’s my own unresolved concerns about how I manage my time. 

It’s a personal value of mine to find joy in all I’m doing and not wait till I have time off or less things scheduled on a certain day to enjoy life.  Even so, it was refreshing not to have a busy weekend for a change, a rarity for my husband and I, since we spend much of our time with our families.  There will be busier days than others and I recognize it’s more about how I am being with those events at the time that is the real “time effectiveness” component. 

Life balance and time management are completely within our individual control.  For example, you don’t have to take on that extra project or work somewhere that expects you to put in 12 hour days – it’s your choice.  But if you do have to do those things on occasion, it’s about finding grace with it and working as fluidly with it as you can.  Not resisting it or plodding painfully through it.  And as my dream response reminds me, “leave the chiding aside.”  Some helpful tips: 

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Sometimes I feel worn out and I have to stop and remind myself to implement one of the solutions below.  When my coaching clients tell me they feel run down, it’s often because they’ve depleted their energy through pushing themselves to produce results and not taken care of themselves along the way, so we look at one or more of these fitting solutions to get them back on track. 

These are helpful remedies, but not the only answer if yours is a medical problem. You have to know what’s causing your exhaustion to apply the right solution. If your tiredness is lingering, it could be a medical issue (thyroid; low blood sugar; heart problem); a substance abuse problem (too much sugar, alcohol, drugs); or a stress-related problem.  See a doctor and get  a complete physical, including a full blood panel test and thyroid test.

If it’s not medical, it could be soon if you don’t deal with it.  It may be mind overload, poor time management, or taking on too much.  Here are 21 tips that can help you regain your energy:

1.   Go to bed earlier in the evening. Don’t want to miss late shows?  Record them to view another time.
2.   Sleep in a half hour to an hour longer in the morning whenever possible, even if you’re awake, you’re still resting.
3.   Exercise 3x a week minimum, but don’t overdue it.  Seek out a professional who can fit your workout to you.
4.   Eat healthier foods, including daily fruits and vegetables with smaller portions of meat and carbohydrates.
5.   Stop eating and minimize liquids two hours before bed, so you’re sleeping and not digesting.
6.   Reduce or avoid all stimulants (alchohol, sugar, coffee, caffeinated tea, drugs).  Stop the up/down rollercoaster.
7.   Get rest more often and become a master of cat naps.  There are many sites online to earn how to do it effectively.
8.   Rate your priorities. Determine if all tasks need to get done and when, eliminating any that you can.
9.   Ask for help rather than feeling you have to do it all yourself.
10. Delegate tasks to others, even if you have to pay for it to be done.

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The truth is, beauty sometimes does escape me.  I’m busy getting things done, and I forget to notice the world around me.  But it means a lot to me to not let it slip by.  I go for walks as often as I can and remind myself to catch the sunrise, sunshine, late nights when the world is dark and still – it’s so peaceful.

I think that’s the blessing of sick days (and yes, I’m taking a quick break and writing this from bed where I’ve been down a few days with a cold).  It causes you to slow down and notice things.  And though I’ve taken the full week off, I was so inspired I had to write this.

I live in a home with huge glass windows and the immense beauty of the rolling grey clouds announcing another rain is about to begin, just captured me completely on a trip to the kitchen for water.  I had to stop and sit down with a chair in front of the windows and catch my breath and thank God for not letting this beauty escape me.  It was an artist’s huge palette and perfect painting of the quick rumbling, yet graceful clouds.

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Daylight Saving Time (or summertime as it is called in some countries) is a way of getting more light out of the day. To make it easier to remember which way the clock goes, we’ve learned to keep in mind the little expression, “Spring forward, Fall behind.” But the daylight isn’t all we’re trying to squeeze more out of.

We often view Spring as a time of cleaning, sorting, new openings; Summer as open-armed, vacations and care-free expression; Fall (Autumn) as a time to wrap up business deals and batten down the hatches for colder weather, but also for quieter, reflective time and the family engagements of Winter. Fall signals our year is fast coming to a close and we scurry to gather in the projects and ideas for the balance of the year and bring them to a comfortable resolution so we don’t feel as if WE’RE falling behind.

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