I wrote this post at the beginning of August, but have been too busy to give it a final edit until now.

We’ve been home a couple weeks now and I’ve been busy unpacking and putting things away, decluttering the house for our yard sale this weekend, and playing musical bedrooms with the kids’ rooms (which involved painting four bed frames and then moving all their stuff around).

I’ve gotten so much accomplished in the time we’ve been home, and they were all tasks that needed to be taken care of, but I’ve had to let some things slide. There’s just not enough time in the day to do it all. I’ve fallen behind with my personal blog and this blog, and I’ve been ignoring my other businesses as well.

As I’ve been working on my various projects, I’ve been thinking about how to make sure I don’t drop the ball this badly again. Not that I’m beating myself up over it or anything, because I’m not. Years of illness have forcefully hit home the message that I can’t do it all. But the perfectionist buried deep inside me still wants to do all the things, especially when I have lofty goals to achieve and a timeline that I want to achieve those goals in.

I haven’t come up with a magical solution to get everything done as quickly as possible (though a wand and a couple spells sure would come in handy for getting the housework done faster), but I think part of the solution lies in those lessons I learned when I was ill.

Here’s some thoughts on doing it all and forming new habits.

1. Do what I can, but don’t push too hard.

When I was ill, doing too much robbed me of the energy to do even the simplest tasks. If I did push to get something done, there was a good chance I’d be paying for it for the next day or two, or even longer.

These days doing too much means staying up much too late to finish a project and then having a hard time waking up the next morning. Since I have small kiddos who want to eat, staying in bed until noon is not an option.

2. Prioritize what needs to be done first.

In the days when my energy levels were subterranean, I’d finally go shopping with the intent of visiting several stores to get all the things I needed (because I’d already put it off too long and now had a long list). Usually about half way through the first store I’d realize I was too exhausted to do everything on the list and I’d have to decide which items I really needed on that trip and which could wait till my next outing.

These days I find it too easy to focus on one project to the exclusion of most other tasks. Some tasks need to be taken care of on a regular basis (meal prep, laundry, house work, etc), so the challenge for me is to not ignore them while I work on a more enjoyable project. It may take longer to finish the project, but it won’t be at the expense of tasks that need to be taken care of every day.

3. Be flexible and give myself grace.

When I was ill, I constantly had to change my plans based on how I was feeling and whether I had the energy to accomplish them. I just couldn’t do everything I wanted to and getting upset about it just made things worse, so I learned to relax and accept and work within the limits of what I could do. But exhaustion and pain ruled my life for way too long and in some ways I’m still compensating for that. I like being busy and accomplishing goals, but there’s more to life than just feeling good about being able to check items off the to-do list.

Because I recognize that I have a hard time not focusing on just one project or task at a time it makes it a little easier to try to fix the issue. I try to schedule certain tasks for certain times of the day or week, though I inevitably underestimate how long it’ll take to complete those tasks and my schedule ends up out the door. But I’m trying, and that’s really what matters.

And that’s also what matters when it comes to being more active and adventurous. Just try.

Being active has been a key factor in improving my health, and in my ability to maintain my health today.

A couple things that have helped me change my life for the better.

1. Schedule a time each week to do a certain activity or to go on an adventure.

It may not happen every week at first, but as you continue to make the effort, it will become more natural and more enjoyable and easier. My family has seen this happen with our weekly hikes that weren’t actually weekly in the beginning. However, these days, it’s a rare week that we don’t go on a hike. It’s become a part of our weekly schedule, and something we all look forward to.

2. Plan things out the night before so you don’t add to the stress in the morning.

Set out clothing and shoes, check the weather forecast, fill water bottles and grab snacks, and load up day packs. I even keep our rain gear in the car, just in case we need it while we’re out and about.

3. Leave yourself plenty of time for your adventure.

Trying to have an adventure while stressed about time will not make it easy to establish an enjoyable, stress-relieving habit. So don’t have an appointment scheduled an hour after you want to start your adventure. If you’re anything like me, I wouldn’t even make it out the door before it was time to get ready for the appointment.

I hope this little pep talk helps you in some small way. I know that writing out these thoughts helped me articulate some of the things that have been running through my head lately.