I hate to admit this, but I am extremely notorious for not taking care of myself. In past articles, I’ve tried to give other people tips on how to do it. But how can I give advice when I can’t even do it myself? It’s a really bad habit of mine to just completely neglect my needs. Sometimes I don’t eat until almost dinner, I don’t exercise and I stay up extremely late just to get things done. Balancing school, my social life and basic needs is a really difficult thing for me to do. I feel guilty if I don’t get things accomplished, but I’m extremely exhausted if I work too much. There has to be a balance somewhere. I found it when I downloaded the Timebloc app.
To give you a bit of a backstory, I saw my therapist a few weeks ago. I told her that school work was stressing me out a bit and I get so focused on it that I just forget everything else. Like a good therapist, she told me that I really need to take time and prioritize caring for myself. I decided I would take her advice and try to find a way to schedule my days. Not having my day planned out is a big contributor to my anxiety sometimes, so it only made sense for me to download a planner app. It is now one of the best things I have to help my time management.
The Timebloc app is formatted in a relatively simple manner. It has time slots for all of the events that you would like to complete. You can change the amount of time an event is, the time it starts and ends and even add categories or icons to remind yourself of the kind of event it is. You name your event after you set the time and it’s set in your schedule. You can even schedule events far into the future. However, my favorite part about the app is that if something does not go as planned, you can easily change the slot to be a different time or a different activity. It is flexible enough to let me have a change of plans, but rigid enough to really remind me of everything I should do. I now go to bed at a decent time, instead of ungodly late hours, I wake up at the same time every day, try to have three consistent meals and exercise. I also plan out time when I can do homework. I’ve figured out that I actually can have a life and be a student all at the same time. It’s quite the relief.
Before I had this app, every day I would wake up in a pool of uncertainty because I had no idea how my day was going to go. It stressed me out just thinking about if I was going to be able to get a good night’s rest or be able to have three meals a day, be able to complete school work and go to my job. Now that I have a pretty consistent schedule and an app to remind me, I have less anxiety about everyday events. I suggest Timebloc if you are anything like me and need reminders on when to take care of yourself or have anxiety about plans. It’s definitely a process to get used to, but I already feel much better since I’ve gotten this app.