7 Ways to Stop the Crazy Busy
Getting caught up in the busy-ness of life?
Yeah me too, but I know I bring it on myself.
But is being busy really all it’s cracked up to be?
For a very long time, my friends have always said how busy they perceive me to be. It’s true. I just cannot sit still really for very long. Hell, I have a 4 month old and I’m already back working on my biz, as well as running a household of two babies and helping to support a full time working and studying husband.
I fill almost every moment of every day and get to the end of the day exhausted in a heap, promising myself not to do it all over again tomorrow, only to find myself back in the same spot all over again.
Often wishing for a clone, or for more hours in the day to finally get to read that book I’ve had sitting on my bedside table for weeks, or download that song playlist, or respond to those emails, probably on my iPhone while I am doing something else!!!
How do we get so overwhelmed and busy?
Just as it’s important to schedule time in our diaries for tasks or to-do lists I really think it’s important to schedule ME time or DOWNTIME or FAMILY time or whatever applies, and I’m sorry to say I’m guilty of not doing this lately.
Sometimes afraid to say no to people for fear of letting them down with social engagements, or work commitments, it’s no real difference to staying late at the office or working overtime (by choice).
And does that make for a good worker, or a bad time manager?
Dr Hallowell wrote Crazy Busy, and describes that nowadays we sometimes just do not know how to be un-busy.
With gadgets like iPhones & Blackberrys meaning emails are just a tap away, and even sitting in traffic can mean a minute or two of responding to text messages, we are more available than ever, but also more stimulated than ever too.
Here are my tips to help stop the Busy-ness
1. Allow yourself a set number of social events per week and stop when your punch card is full. Some people are fine with 2 or 3 social catch-ups, whereas others feel overwhelmed with over 1. If I’ve reached my limit of 1 play date or social catch up for the week then I have to practice my ‘Thanks, but no thanks.”
2. Only answer your emails once per day as per this technique. Not only will you not be wasting precious time that could be served elsewhere (including REST TIME), but also it will enable you to prioritize your responses (if required) when checking them all at once. Emails are very rarely serving you; they are almost always serving the sender.
3. Schedule REST. Rest is not being lazy, and too often we find ourselves working all week, only to get to the weekend and cram more activities, to get back to our working week needing another weekend to recover. There is no shame in having NO plans. The weekend was originally created for REST and to recover and rejuvenate to be ready FRESH for the week ahead.
4. No MORE FOMO. Fear of missing out. Saying no can be difficult if you fear missing out on something whether work or personal, however there is always going to be another night out, or another opportunity to catch up for a cup of tea, or another even better offer, if this one just doesn’t work this time. There is always a next time, and this is not the LAST time you will ever be asked.
5. Recheck your priorities. At a rare lunch date I had with 5 of my girlfriends today which I had scheduled a month in advance (crazy!) one of them mentioned that you don’t get a cheque at the end of the month to pay for the extra stress you put yourself under. You don’t get a medal. What are your priorities? More family time, less technology, more exercise, eating healthier? Work out what is most important to you and work out how it could fit better into your life.
6. Meditate. This is a big one for me. Last year Pat and I did the AOL breathing and meditation course and it was very powerful stuff. They even offer free guided breathing & meditation (Sudarshan Kriya) every Friday morning to previous class participants on our compound, but we never seem to find the time to go. We’ve suggested each of us taking turns each week to do it while the other looks after the children and I think that when you have the least amount of time is when you need it most. If not, just 5-10mins of clearing your mind and sitting quietly will do wonders and we’ve both been making an effort to do at least that.
7. Be present. Get off Facebook, email, twitter etc. for a break and just BE for a moment. Need I say more?
I hope this list has helped you as much as it continues to help me right now as I go back to this list and continue to work on reducing my own busy-ness.
I’d love to hear if you have any solutions or advice for reducing your own busy-ness if you have any in the comments below.
Good luck 
California Fruit Salad {Milk Mama Giveaway Winner}
Last week I took Manus to have a playdate a friends house.
Little did I know it was going to be a fancy afternoon tea (my favorite!) made especially for ladies.
With gorgeous vintage & antique home decor, and stunning tea cups that looked straight out of the mad hatters party from Alice in Wonderland, my stunning host from LA served us up some delights.
Including delicious rustic spelt banana bread and the best fruit salad I’ve ever had. Hands down.
My friend was delighted when I queried the sweet addition of coconut in the salad, saying she wasn’t surprised a raw chef could detect that.
So this week I’ve been craving that delicious and decadent fruit salad and served it up for today’s lunch.
There’s something about eating fruit more if it’s already cut. As a kid I would eat apples and oranges if mum cut them up and placed them on a platter in the busiest room in the house. It be so easy to drop by and grab a couple of pieces on my way past.
This fruit salad takes it to a new level and makes it very easy for you to get more than your minimum two servings of delicious fruit per day.
Here are my ingredients but you can play around with your favourite and in season fruits.
California Fruit Salad
Equipment
Chef Knife
Ingredients
1 cup watermelon
1 peeled orange
1 apple
2 pears
1 punnet blueberries
1 punnet strawberries
1/2 cup pineapple
1 banana
(kiwi would be nice too!)
All roughly chopped except for the blueberries
Juice of 2 lemons
3 Tbsp melted coconut oil
Handful of soaked (refer to soaking chart here) roughly chopped walnuts (pecans would be nice too)
1/4 cup shredded coconut (we used fresh shucked coconut from mature coconuts – a service offered here at our local supermarket)
1-3 Tbsp maple syrup, honey, agave or your favourite sweetener to taste
Method
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir gently. The lemon juice acts to reduce the apple and banana from oxidizing and going brown.
And serve!
Voila.
{Milk Mama Giveaway Winner}
The winner was drawn randomly from the entrants in this post here.
Congratulations to Jade – mama to Jet.
Jade, please send an email to contact@girlonraw.com with Milk Mama in the subject to claim your eBooks.Thank you to everyone for their entries.
Milk Mama | Breast Feeding Success! {Giveaway}
Breastfeeding has been such a joyous experience this time around with my little girl who turns 4 months shortly.
Going in this time I was a little more emotionally prepared for the worst unlike the taxing time I had with Manus when breastfeeding didn’t go according to plan.
You can read more about my breastfeeding woes with Manus in my Post Pregnancy Part 1 and Part 2, but the purpose of this post is to encourage other mummies who also had troubles with no 1 that no 2 is not always going to tread the same path.
When Chloé was first born and I spent those first 2 nights in hospitial with her, she was on my boob all the time, as you do, leading up to milk coming in. I gave myself permission to give her a little formula if I felt she wasn’t settling or I felt she was too hungry.
I guess my fear was that she would get dangerously underweight like Manus had when I had pledged to only breastfeed, pump, take drugs to bring on more supply, compress, feed, rinse repeat (all while compressing my breast for more milk) during my breast feeding experience with him. Nevermind trying to get a shower in or brush my teeth, those were luxuries my friends.
Whilst I am thankful that I didn’t have other issues like mastitis (touch wood) I’ve heard some mum’s talk about, only the other night, Pat said that I must have really wanted breastfeeding to work considering I taped a tiny tube (nursing supplementer) to the side of my breast to enable Manus to feed on my nipple while we supplemented with formula at the same time. This was to ensure nipple confusion didn’t occur and breast stimulation was also being done to bring on more milk!
Feeding Chloé has been a dream.
First of all I worked on building up my supply by having Chloé feeding or sucking at least every 3 hours, or less if she was wanting it.
She mainly slept 18 hours a day for the first 2 months, or even more, I just felt like she would wake to feed and change, then go back to sleep.
People tell me this is normal for newborns. Well it wasn’t for Manus and I guess we always say it was because he was so damn hungry poor thing.
But even now as a 2 year old, his temperament and personality does show a higher energy, is really loud and needs to be heard kind of person. I really think so far we’ve learnt that Chloé is a more at peace kinda chilled baby.
Initially I was supplementing Chloé with a bottle of formula milk of an evening as I was finding her to be the most unsettled then, but after talking with my amazing lactation consultant and breastfeeding extraordinaire from La Leche League, who also was there for me every week with Manus, she told me this was normal for most babies, as there was less milk after a day of feeding.
At 6 weeks, we trialled no bottles for almost a week but Chloé just had had it and was really distressed (which says a lot for a baby that hardly ever cries) on the 5th day and I gave her an evening bottle.
Now at 15 weeks, I just unconsciously noticed (isn’t that funny! But life’s a little more hectic with 2 babies now) that she’s not had a bottle in over 2 weeks. I always offer breast first, but so far lately she has been satisfied with my breast so I’m needless to say, over the moon.
While I am not ruling out that she will not need any more formula, especially during growth spurts, I am truly thrilled that my body has been able to supply my gorgeous little girl with the milk that I so desperately wanted to provide for Manus.
Giveaway
in celebration of all mama’s out there, Joanna Steven whole foods nutriion coach and author of eBooks The Milky Way and Well Rounded (must haves for pregnancy and mamahood for the healthy inclined) has generously offered her two books up for grabs for one lucky Girl on Raw reader.
7 Tips for Eating More Raw in a Cooked Family
Good morning! Well it is here in Saudi, and I’m sitting here in my exercise gear ready to hit my boot camp class but my sitter is late so I thought I’d share some tips with you instead on how to eat more raw in a family that just isn’t as into it.
I’ve mentioned before that even though my husband is just as health conscious as me (he owned a champion juicer way before we met and he often only eats fruit only until lunch time) he still wants to eat meat. I’ll only cook chicken or fish, if he wants red meat he’ll eat it when we go out for dinners. And that’s fine by me.
Over the years of progressing from being single to a wife, to a busy mama to 2, running a business from home but also being the main meal provider I’ve learnt how to turn more complicated gourmet dishes cooked and raw, into simple quick and still nutritious meals that don’t mean I have to spend ALL day in the kitchen.
This means I still get to make my husband and children the cooked meals they want without compromising my own desire to eat a high raw diet.
Here’s some of my top tips!
1. Meal prep 1 day a week. Previously this used to take me hours to do, but I am fine tuning it and on Sunday I also took part in my Canadian friend Angela Peters’s online class The Sustainable Healthy Kitchen (Meal Prep Workshop) click for details to glean some tips from her. She has some wonderful suggestions for spending just 1 hour per week prepping the meals for the week ahead. You can also download my Kitchen Prep PDF here for ideas on what you can prep for your raw meals.
2. Invest in equipment that will work for you. I use my 5 in 1 (pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, soup maker, steamer) at least twice per week to make cooked dinners for my family. This morning I put in all the ingredients for apricot chicken in the slow cooker for my family by 830am. All I need to do it pull out our separate rice cooker an hour before serving time to cook up the brown rice to serve with it.
3. Eat what your family is eating for dinner but half or third the portion size and serve with a big tasty salad. Last night I made bean enchiladas for my family and I ate half an enchilada with 2 servings or my guacamole salad.
4. Make your raw dinners easy and delicious. Sometimes my family will be eating a cooked meal while I am sitting there with my nori pinch up wraps. I even will have a huge smoothie for dinner if that’s all I’m feeling like.
5. Make dinner buffet style. Include some cooked and raw choices so you can encourage without pressuring your family to eat more raw food. If you get adventurous, you can even pick out something a little more complicated like a raw pad Thai or lasagna which doesn’t look like a salad, and leftovers could be your lunch or dinner the following day.
6. Try to recreate your familly’s favourite cooked food in a raw way to invite them to enjoy a raw meal with you. Things like pizza, pasta, sushi, burgers, etc could all be considered.
7. For fancier dinners, have a raw starter like vegetable crudites (sticks) with a delicious raw dip or dressing. I love Kristens Raw Tuscan Sundried Tomato Pesto. It’s a crowd favourite! Or give a delicious raw dessert a shot!
Love to hear your suggestions on how you make eating healthy work in your busy family in the comments below.
