One good way to find some extra time, and save on stress is to rearrange your day. It doesn’t matter whether you work first, second, or third shift, whether your children go to school or homeschool or aren’t even old enough to go to school. How your day goes is your choice. You don’t have to have breakfast in the morning, or dinner at night. Rearrange your day to fit your needs.
Want a little extra time at night, then have “supper” in the afternoon, and “lunch” at night. Make your big meal earlier, and have the light one at night. Have a little more time in the morning now that you are ready before you need to be? Have “lunch” for breakfast, “supper” for lunch, and “breakfast” for supper. As long as everyone is getting the nourishment they need, it doesn’t matter when or how they get it.
Who says you have to do all your household tasks at one time after work or like everyone else? When I have sweeping scheduled on a particular day, I like to do it before I go to bed, then it is nice and clean when I get up in the morning, and I can still see the rewards of my work the next day. When it’s a day to change the cat box, I like to do that right away in the morning so it’s out of the way, and I don’t procrastinate on it. My favorite time to go shopping is between 10:00 pm and 12:00 am. There’s not a quarter of the people there at night as there is during the day, and at night the people are more relaxed and usually less stressed. They are there shopping when they have the time, so they aren’t running around trying to gather up what they need for dinner right now.
Granted, not everything in your life can be completely rearranged. There are some places that aren’t open 24 hours. You can’t bring your car in to be fixed at three in the morning to get it fixed, but you can arrange to drop it off the day before it’s fixed and pick it up the next night or morning, which ever works best for you. You can’t go get your hair done at midnight, but you can go in early morning, or late evening. You don’t have to be there in the middle of the afternoon.
Find employment that fits your needs. If you are more of a night owl, find a job you can do when you are awake, if you just can’t get out of bed until after ten in the morning, find a job that starts in the afternoon. Not everyone can work 9-5. If everyone worked 9-5, everything would shut down at five, and nobody would be happy. You also don’t have to have a job where you work eight hours straight every day. You can look for a job that is split, like driving a bus, or pre-school and after school care for school aged children. You can also get two part time jobs; in my case I work with two people who have FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder), and work with Usborne books as an independent consultant, and blog.
Your day does not have to be like your neighbors, nor like it was when you were little. Make your day your own. Rearrange, reschedule, and make extra time for you and your children, and let go of the stress that builds when trying to fit everything in at the right time.