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[0:17] Hello everyone and welcome to Artful aging with Amy I'm your host Amy Friesen and on today's show we're going to look at my top 5 productivity hacks
for the sandwich generation
if you've been watching our fully aging you know the sandwich generation is a regular topic discussed here and so many people tend to fall into this group of people that it's worth having a conversation about it multiple times in multiple different areas
today we're going to talk about how to be the most productive you can
well being a member of the sandwich generation as a caregiver could be so difficult to feel productive
often we balance home life that has children and a spouse and pets as well as a whole household of things that we need to do
and then on top of that many of us have aging parents were also taking care of them and whether it's mental or physical emotional
Financial we're putting a lot of effort into that now let's not look past the fact that many people these days also have
careers outside of the home a lot of women and speaking to generally you know back you know many many years ago a lot more women were in the home and if they were a caregivers
it was a little bit easier to balance I'm not saying it was easy but.
[1:41] A little bit easier now a lot of women are CEOs business owners or or employees of some nature and it's difficult to keep everything afloat and feel productive and be productive.
[1:55] As many of you know I'm a mom of a four-year-old her name is Eva I am also married to my husband Mike and we have for animals
and my parents who are living about 3 hours away from me and my father-in-law who is living with us.
[2:11] If I wasn't organized I would go mad I have to tell you.
Let's face it there are still many days that I could be just sitting in a corner rocking for a little bit trying to get my own.
You know myself out of the funk that I'm in or just kind of getting the energy but.
Let's face it if I was to do that I'd have four animals on my lap plus my daughter so we know that that's not going to happen either so how do we be productive.
As caregivers as business owners as women as men in our lives to make sure that we are getting as many things done as possible that need to be done but also taking care of ourselves in the meantime.
[2:50] So without further Ado here are my top 5 productivity hacks and tips for you today my number one tip is batching.
Now if you haven't heard of batching batching is the process of taking life too
activities and putting them together so if you are going grocery shopping but you need to do groceries for your host and for your parents for instance
then doing them all at the same time organizing yourself in a fashion where you're not taking extra trips you're not you know whether that you know trips in the car but also trips to the grocery store as an example and so
what you want to do is make sure that you're doing.
Anything you can in a batching technique as often as possible and that could look like I said groceries it can look like cooking it can look like work tasks
it can even be email so that you're not constantly in and out because every time you break your concentration it can take up to 25 minutes to get back into the Zone once you're distracted and so.
[3:54] If you can get used to doing this batching technique and say okay for the next 30 minutes to an hour I'm going to do X and that's what you focus on no distractions then you're going to get more things done because
you're not in that wrap-up mode constantly being distracted.
As someone who gets distracted quite a lot with just even the animals coming in and out working from home my husband's here to when he was home from school she's here too.
It's very very easy to get distracted and so you need to make sure that you can get that stuff into your calendar.
[4:27] I tip 2 then is setting boundaries this also goes hand in hand so you setting boundaries is an action where you
tell the ones that you love that this is what you need so if it's distractions you say okay I'm going to close my door at this time and I'm not to be disturbed at that time
boundaries are a way that you can set up your own personal boundaries so that things don't come into your realm that disrupt you but.
It's also I just a different way to communicate now it can be really difficult to set boundaries and it can be really difficult to hold boundaries and one of the tricks to doing that is really communication so
you know some people might feel a little offended depending on what the boundary is like you know Mom and Dad I can only
talk on Tuesday nights for an hour I can't talk everyday at noon because I'm working for instance but.
If communication is the key that you know making sure that you know what your boundary is as well as communicating it and effective way to the people that are involved to keep hold of that boundary and really letting them understand
why it's a boundary for you I know this takes a little bit of extra time but if you can set it up properly then you're more likely to be able to hold the boundary for your own space.
[5:51] My tip 3 is creating habits and routines.
Now they're also quite difficult to get a hold of but a morning and an evening routine will really save your day
in the morning it will set you off on the right track to make sure that you're already being productive as soon as you kind of get up whether that's you know my wrote I'll tell you what my morning routine is my morning routine is getting up
making the bed
going downstairs making sure that Eva is doing her thing breakfast and what not having a coffee and just being with my family for about it's about a half an hour to 45 minutes
and then as soon as Eva and her dad leave for preschool
then I am getting changed I'm going out for a walk with the dogs I'm coming home I'm doing a workout I'm doing a 10 minute meditation
I'm hitting the showers and then I'm having breakfast that's kind of my morning routine my evening routine is going up to bed
actually I'm pretty early to bed so around 8:30 8:45 but it's not necessary to go to sleep it's too set in in motion my routine so I go up
I get my skincare routine done I brush my teeth I make sure all that's taken care of.
[7:03] I go into my room I do some journaling I do some yoga and stretching and then when I go to bed I actually put on a meditation as well to help me get to sleep and so that my mind is going on some positive affirmations or positive things while I'm sleeping in my subconscious and so
when you can put these habits and routines into place then Things become a little bit easier you feel more in control.
And any habit that you're doing.
It is what it is you know I have it is a having its habitual like brushing your teeth and so if there's certain things that you can get that are habitual like the dog walk for instance then eventually you start to not think about them and you just do them.
[7:46] Keep in mind that forming habits and routines is a process and so don't cut yourself short give yourself the time to grow into those habits and routines so that you can then
have a schedule that works for you as opposed to against you my tip for is schedule your own time in your calendar
everything makes it in my calendar including my own workout and even the dog walks even meditation because it's so important that you're reserving the space in your day a lot of us
go by our calendars especially if you're running a business or you have a lot of things work related we're very used to running with calendars.
And so by putting everything in there.
And putting reminders or notifications then you're better able to say oh hey this is the time that I've reserved for myself and I'm going to do X or what not
again it was your boundaries on you know number two is make sure people know like this is the time I work out if my door is closed this is because I'm doing something please don't disturb me.
[8:49] And number three or number three number five is actually fasting.
[8:55] I find that you can be more productive or I'm more productive when I fast at night and so fasting does a couple of things I usually stop eating
around 6 or 6:30 7:00 at the latest so that my body has time to digest before I go to sleep it takes about three hours of to digest before you go to bed so that's really important because the digestion takes up a lot of
energy and so when you fast.
[9:23] You're getting that digestion done or in the process when you go to sleep you're actually not digesting as well because you don't have as much energy being put into that and so
if you can get that done ahead of time
that's helpful and then in the morning you would still be fasting depending on how long you're going too fast for many people fast for 12 hours
I try to shoot for 16 hours I get nothing is perfect it's not always 16 hours but you have to learn also to kind of
follow the Ebbs and flows and so with that when you wake up you actually
I do feel more energetic you feel more productive you get more things done and then something that I do to hold my fast sometimes is introduced a little MCT oil into my coffee now it's best if you have like a little blender I have a little
scissor for lack of a better word and it's just to be able to blend it into your coffee the idea is that because it's pure fat it doesn't actually break your fast that's something that I've learned along my line as well
and so
that would be a helpful step as well because you don't want to waste all your energy digesting and if you're not digesting a bunch of food in the morning then you're going to have a spike of energy generally speaking.
[10:37] Well that's it for me today I hope that you found these products for productivity tips
helpful and I would love if you could put in the comments if you're doing any of them or what your morning or evening routines are
and helped fuel the conversation because there's a lot of people that are really new to this topic or haven't quite got it done or down so by that you can
we can help show people different routines mine aren't always right for you and yours might not be right for someone else so let's share so share this podcast in your groups in your networks help people find us.
And spread the word a little bit of people aging thanks so much for joining me today on our clay aging with Amy from me to all of you I hope that you have a wonderful Wednesday.
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