Self - August 16, 2019

How to Detox Your Life: Scheduling + Routine

Hey friends! Today’s How to Detox Your Life installment is the fourth and final one and is all about detoxing your schedule and routine. I’ve written a lot about priorities and building a routine on BTD, so you probably already know this is a topic I’m really passionate about. I guess I saved the best for last (at least for me LOL). If you missed the first three you can catch up on the first one here, which is all about self-care and some of my fave ways to reboot your skin slash body. The second one talks about detoxing your home, while last week’s was focused on cleaning out your work life.

But let’s get into scheduling and routines, shall we?

Prioritizing your time

There are a few different ways to think about priorities. The first is as it relates to the never-ending to-do lists you keep for work and personal errands and stuff. And I have a great post on how to prioritize those things, but for the purpose of detoxing your life, I want to talk more about how to prioritize categories of your life. Because the truth is, the more I start to figure out this #adulting thing, the more I’ve learned I just don’t have time for everything and that means something has to give. I know everything probably feels important, which can make it hard to prioritize (I have a really detailed post on this topic here), but we gotta do it.

The first place I would start is with unhealthy relationships. Get rid of them. Honestly, they’re not worth your time or emotions. Whether it’s with an old friend or a boyfriend or something, it’s time to say goodbye for good. Once that burden is off your shoulders I think you’ll be shocked to see how much more time opens up in your schedule to spend with friends and family.

And speaking of friends and family, something I’ve learned in the last few years is how important it is to prioritize those relationships. I was pretty work-obsessed for a while and definitely got burnt out (read this post if you want more on this). Burn out isn’t fun, but once I started to prioritize my mental health and positive relationships over constantly being busy for work, I found SO much more peace in my life.

Basically what I’m trying to say here is work will probably take over your life at some point (it did for me), so if you want to spend more time with the people you care about, you’re going to have to make them a priority. Learn to use your work time as efficiently as possible, and then 100% turn it off when you’re done. I will be the first one to admit I struggle with this, but once I defined my priorities and knew what was most important to me, I could start living the life that reflects them which was incredibly liberating! If you want to get started doing this but don’t know how, this post is a great first step.

Create a routine that gives you joy

Once you know your priorities and you’re ready to start living your life based off of them, create a routine that gives you joy. For me, lately, it’s my walking routine that’s giving me the most joy. I feel really good after I’ve done it and it just makes me feel ready for the day ahead. On the flip side, when I’m out of my regular routine and I don’t get a walk in or I don’t give myself some “me time” in the morning, those are the days where I feel like a hot mess. Kinda like when I got back from Portugal and decided to write this series LOL. I was out of my routine and felt completely out of whack.

If you’re sitting there like OK, great Brighton, but how do I start a routine and then stick to it? I recommend reading these posts:

I still have some serious detoxing of my own to do, but that’s what I’d recommend to get your schedule and routine back on track!

I hope this whole series was helpful to y’all and that it inspired you to take some time for yourself and do what you need to do to feel reinvigorated!