Episode 13: Make Time for Yourself

The Importance of Scheduling Time for Enjoyment

Do you ever feel like work and responsibilities consume your entire day, leaving no time for yourself? Burnout is all too common for parents and adults, but setting aside time to do what you want, is important. In this episode of Message for My Kids, the host explains to his kids how and why you should schedule time for yourself, doing what you want to do. Whether it’s spending quality moments with family, engaging in hobbies, or just unwinding, scheduling downtime can bring balance and fulfillment to life.

Why Making Time for Fun Matters

Life can get busy, making it easy to overlook the need for relaxation. However, dedicating time for enjoyable activities allows for mental reset and can strengthen relationships. The host shares his experiences of planning regular activities with his children, emphasizing the value of structured fun. Having a designated time for relaxation provides a sense of balance. Instead of doing fun activities randomly, scheduling them ensures that both responsibilities and personal time are managed effectively.

Finding the Right Balance

The episode explains balancing leisure time with responsibilities is key. By setting a specific schedule, individuals can:

• Get priorities done before relaxing.

• Avoid procrastination by sticking to a schedule.

• Adapt their schedule based on changing priorities and needs.

A Lesson for All Ages

This message shared applies to everyone. Whether it’s setting time for hobbies, social media, or simple relaxation, planning ahead ensures that both what you need to do and want to do, get done.

Listen to the Full Episode

Want to hear more about the benefits of structured fun and relaxation? Tune in to this episode of Message for My Kids with the player at the top of the page. Get personal insights and tips on making time for what truly matters. Don’t forget to subscribe or follow the podcast for more valuable life lessons and parenting insights!

You can also read the transcript below!

Welcome back to another episode Message for My Kids.

Today I would like to talk about setting time for something fun. It could be about yourself. It could be for a family. It could be for you and the kids. It could be whatever you really want it to be.

One thing that we do together is we spend time every Sunday, or at least we try to spend time every Sunday, majority every Sunday night, and we end it with a trailer or a movie.

Last night we saw a movie that was very funny, very good. It was about a person who was reading bedtime stories and the bedtime stories were happening.

And at first when I was young, I saw that movie, younger. I saw that movie and I didn't really like it. It must have been my age or something. I saw it when it first came out.

When I played it last night, the movie, You, You Kids Were So, So Happy, and you guys were laughing about the funny parts, the funny scenes inside the movie.

And I was looking at your guys' reactions and there was this hamster or guinea pig and it had these big eyes. We were laughing, but the enjoyment out of this booking time is really from me looking at you guys, how you guys enjoy stuff.

Now on Sunday nights, I would like to kind of change it up. I like watching a movie, kind of getting everything all calm and then you guys go into bed for the next day of school.And you guys just take your mind off of things about school and everything just to relax.

But I kind of want to change it, something probably like board games or have a mixture of stuff.

I know before we ended up having your guys' ideas mixed in what we can do on Sunday, that didn't really work. Some of you found yourself to be grounded. It wasn't really fair for you not to participate. You were grounded.

I know that is kind of different in a way where you would be grounded and it wouldn't be fair for you, but it was unfair for you to be grounded. Not that what you did was wrong and not to be grounded. You did do something wrong and be grounded.

But what I'm saying is it was your idea. It was your idea. And so that didn't work. That didn't work. That makes sense. It wasn't fair because it was your idea.

So we did try it. We did try that.

So I kind of want to do something different. It's been cold out, super cold to where you guys can't play outside all day, Sunday night with the flashlights. So that's another thing that I was thinking about.

But then again, I don't want to wake you guys up. I don't want you guys to get energetic and then can't sleep. You got school tomorrow. You wake up at 6.30 in the morning for school. That's crazy, guys. That's crazy.

But I guess if you get older, you got to book some time for yourself. Like really book some time for yourself. You say, OK, Sunday night, Saturday night, Saturday evenings from 3 to 6, 3 p.m. to 6, you are gonna watch TV series, TV shows.

You guys are gonna play games on your phone.

There's even we had Electronic Day Sunday. Electronic Day Sunday was when you guys would literally spend your time on electronics looking at YouTube, looking at every social media, just doing whatever you wanted to do.

It could be Googling. It could be web searching. It could be whatever you wanted. So we used to do that.

So I mean, when you get older, when you get older, have it have some alone time, book it, change it every week, change it every weekend.

What usually happens when you get alone time, what I noticed is you kind of you don't waste your time outside of those alone time. So for example, if you're doing alone time at random times on Friday and Saturday and Sunday, you really don't get a lot done.

But if you did your alone time on booked times like way we have it, everything else gets done. You get your priorities, correct. You get your chores done. You get things that you need to get done. The garage gets clean. I clean the garage.

And it's like, you know, you have a specific time where you yourself wants to get things done before that time. And then you're like, okay, well, my times over.

And so what happens is you create an agenda and you stick to it.

Sometimes you can't get your alone time.

And sometimes it feels good because you feel like you accomplished something else rather than getting your alone time in, which is also good.

So if I'm mowing the grass and my alone time is between one p.m. and two p.m. And that's my alone time. And I'm mowing the grass and I go over my time. If I go over my time, that's okay. That's okay. That's all right. I'm doing something that's being productive. I'm getting the grass cut. I'm making the yard look nice.

And sometimes it takes me literally eight hours to get the whole yard done because I got to go around the trees. I got to go around the garage, around the house, around the fence and around the playground.

So when you do things that go over your time, that's fine. That's okay. Sometimes it works out better because you get everything done and you literally have nothing else to do.

But my message to you kids is make sure you get some alone time. Make sure you get that time in where you can just relax, do what you want to do, book it. Either it's looking on a trading card game online or it's playing video games or it's watching movies or it's Googling your actress or actor.

Just take your mind off of things.

I don't recommend doing it through Friday, through Saturday, through Sunday, just at random times because I learned that you don't get things done.

When I used to do it randomly, even looking into news, looking at news stuff like that before, I would have to cook at eight or seven or have dinner done by five.I found that I was procrastinating.

So procrastinating your priorities is not something you want to do. So having a book time is really helpful.

Sometimes you can even book from all day Sunday. You know you're coming up on a weekend that it's a birthday weekend or you have everything done bills are paid. Everything is categorized. You can literally do an all day Saturday, all day Sunday, but have a primary time for yourself.

And for me, my primary time is on Sunday night when it's with you kids. We watch movies. We eat snacks, not candy snacks, but more of cookie snacks. We used to we still do. We watch an animated series that's that's online.

So that that is something that we would do and we're still in the middle of the series and we change out whatever we view.

So definitely have definite like booking time, even if it's from even if it's Saturday and Sunday, 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. You just got to really stick to it. And it's OK.

It's whatever you want to do, either it's you and somebody else, either its you by yourself, as long as alone time is there and you put it into the agenda.

That's the key.

That's the key.

It doesn't mean you have to obey by it, but really have it there. If you go over it, doing priorities, that's fine.

You got next week, you got the following week, but still have it there. And if you don't, if there's even a time where you get invited to go somewhere, you can literally use that as an excuse like I can't go.nI have an appointment at 8 p.m. or I got something I already planned.

So it also helps in that type of way. You're not lying. And it's you know, if it's personal information that you don't want to share, that's fine because you come first, yourself comes first.

You try to get that really booked into your priorities. You come first. You know, obviously, if you have a family, they come first as well.

It is a lot to manage. It's a lot to understand and it's a lot to do right now.

You guys really don't really do anything. So right now your age, you have a lot of alone time. You know, you play games, you wake up, you have a lot of alone time.

But as you get older, as you get older, all the small things that you think that are important are really not important.

They really aren't.

You have to get a charger and charge your phone and you feel like it's really, really important, but it's really not. You can literally probably turn off your phone and live life like that.

You know, if you don't have butter, it's the end of the world.

You got to go get butter.

So the more you get older, the older you get, the more the small things become a bigger problem. But if you learn how to maneuver what, you know, between what's important, what's not important, you'll be OK.

I think the start of that is literally booking your own time. So and it really helps. It really does help because sometimes just having alone time in a chair rocking, maybe take a nap.

If it's Saturday between six p.m. and eight p.m. Usually a two hour nap really does help for four p.m. to six p.m.

Whatever you're doing, book some time.

All right, kids, I love you. You're amazing. You're doing great.And this another message for my kids.