9 Ways to Improve Your Self Care With Minimal Effort

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There are ways to improve your self care that don’t take up a lot of time and can be done with minimal effort, but they have an impact on how you feel and think throughout the day.

The toughest part of self care for me is to make space for myself. Time flies during the day, and before you know it, your toddler is home from school and it’s bedtime.

That is why I highly recommend using a daily check-in tracker as part of your self care routine. With a daily check in tracker, you spend 10 minutes each morning and each night making space for your well-being. Feel free to download my daily check in tracker as I am giving it away for free!

So if you are ready to improve your self care with minimal effort, check out how the below prompts (available in my tracker) which will keep you staying present, better aware of your moods and more excited to do things for you.

Download it for free below!

1. Score Your Mood When You Wake Up
2. List 3 Most Important Tasks For The Day
3. List Your Desired Self Care Activity For The Day
4. List Your Indulgence For The Day
5. Score Your Mood When You Go To Bed
6. Write An Accomplishment That Made You Feel Proud Of Yourself
7. List 3 Self Care Ideas For The Next Day
8. Rate Your Overall Day

#1 Score Your Mood When You Wake Up

Taking time to think about how you feel when you wake up is a great way to be more present and aware of your overall demeanor. If you are feeling stressed, anxious or depressed in the morning, it will affect how your day goes, especially if you are not aware of how those feelings are affecting you.

–>check out these popular self care planners from Etsy<–

The first step to using a daily check-in tracker is to rate your mood first thing in the morning. If you are not an early riser, set the alarm on your phone for 30 minutes before you need to be up to give yourself time to wake up and tune in with yourself.

In the morning, think about your general mood the past week or month to see if there is a pattern. If it was a bad day or week, what made it so? What can you do today and tomorrow to change that trend? This tracker takes less than two minutes but makes sure you are taking care of yourself every day

#2 List 3 Most Important Tasks For The Day

We all have tasks we want to get done, but we often put them off because there is more pressing work that needs to be completed. We get stuck on this hamster wheel of daily maintenance work that leave us little time for the things that move our lives forward.

The best way to combat this procrastination and still complete your important tasks on time? Write down the three most important things you need or want to accomplish for the day before checking your email inbox.

Once you have your most important tasks on paper, it will be easier to stay focused and get them done.

–>Here Are 12 Other Ways To For Moms To Stay Inspired and Avoid Burnout<–

This way of thinking forces you to prioritize what is the most important for that day because if they aren’t written down, then they are not a high priority for that time frame. Feel free to download my daily check in to get started using this tip today!

#3 List Your Desired Self Care Activity For The Day

If self care is important to you, it should be listed in your daily check in. For most people they want to sleep more or work out daily but it just doesn’t feel feasible. But remember that self care doesn’t have to big things, and it doesn’t have to look the same every day.

Maybe one day you go to sleep an hour earlier, while another day you head to the gym. Maybe the third day its getting that extra delicious coffee from the corner cafe.

Write down what will give you that feeling of self-worth, even if it’s only five minutes long is truly beneficial. This will not only give you something to look forward to but it’s also an easy way to increase your self care.

–>Check out these other 7 Self Care Ideas That Are Free<–

#4 List Your Indulgence For The Day

When I say “indulgence” this doesn’t mean food or materialistic things, it means something that is just for you. For instance: eat lunch at the park; go to the bookstore; watch your favorite movie; make yourself breakfast in bed.

This might take up all of five minutes but writing it down will help you see ways in which you can spend time on extra enjoyable things.

If this is hard to think of, make a list of what brings joy to your life and put it somewhere visible so when the day gets tough, you can look at them for inspiration.

–>You can also download this list of 60 self care ideas for moms<–

#5 Score Your Mood When You Go To Bed

Before going to bed rate your overall mood at that moment. Is how you are feeling presently reflective of the day you had, or linked to a specific instance?

If it was a particularly hard day for whatever reason, write down ways in which you could improve upon that. For example: if anxiety made its way back into your life, list ways to calm yourself down.

This way of thinking will help you realize and remember what works and doesn’t work for coping with negative emotions or stressors that pop up during the day.

–>Are you going to bed upset that your partner is not helping at home? Then read this<–

Doing this simple exercise will also give you some insight as to how you can improve upon those feelings in order to have a better tomorrow.

This will be your last thought before you go to bed so it is a good way for finalizing how the day went and ways in which you can improve upon yourself, leading to more positivity within ~and outside~ of yourself.

#6 Write An Accomplishment That Made You Feel Proud Of Yourself

Did you finally send off that email? Did your boss compliment you on something about your work today? Or did you go to the gym after a long day of classes and still had energy for some squats.

Whatever it is, writing down ways in which you can feel proud or accomplished will give back those feelings of self-worth we all need now and then.

This is a great way to end your day because you can look at all the ways you are doing OK and ways in which you have grown, leading to more positivity for tomorrow.

–>This Gratitude Tracker is also a great way to stay positive! Download your free copy here!<–

There will be some days when it’s hard not to feel like nothing went well or that everyone hates us but if you stay present with your emotions, this will become easier.

#7 List 3 Self Care Ideas For The Next Day

Get yourself ready for the next day by thinking about what you can do for self care the night prior. These can be ideas of activities that are for your well-being or simply ways in which you can be kind to yourself.

For example: if I was feeling particularly stressed out, my list might look like this:

– take unnecessary tasks off my list.

– make a yummy fruit salad at lunch.

– tell yourself that your feelings are valid.

Thinking of ways in which you can improve your self care in advance, even if that is just taking five minutes out of your busy schedule to breathe, will help you realize practicing self care daily is possible.

If there are days when self care feels impossible to fit into your schedule or taking time for yourself doesn’t seem feasible for the time being, this list is a way to have all those things at hand so that they don’t slip through the cracks!

Don’t know where to start? I made a list of 60 self care ideas for busy moms to use when they feel stuck into a rut.

#8 Rate Your Overall Day

In the evening, take some time to think about how your overall day unfolded. Would you consider it generally a good day or a stressful one? Why is that? Was there something in particular that took up all of your energy or just the general flow of things?

Thinking of ways in which you can improve upon yourself will not only give back those feelings of self-worth but also help you remember what works and doesn’t work for managing stress. This is a great way to be present with yourself and decompress before going to bed.

–>Struggling with the Mental Load of Motherhood? These tips will help you delegate domestic life<–

Don’t Wait For Burn Out To Start Practicing Self Care

When we take time to care for ourselves, we are better equipped to be present and productive throughout the day. I want you to have a tool that helps with this! Download our free daily check in tracker here–-it’s easy-to-use and will help you stay on top of your self care routine each day.

Don’t wait until it feels like there is no more room in your schedule or bank account; start improving your self care by incorporating small indulgences into your life every day right now! Even if all you do today is make yourself a cup of tea while reading an inspiring book, you’ll feel less stressed when tomorrow rolls around. Remembering these moments over time will add up and make them worth far more than they cost us.

If you are looking for ways to improve your overall wellness and happiness at work, download my daily check in tracker today!

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