In the spirit of being adventurous and open-hearted, I’ve gotten into the habit of saying yes to a lot of things in my life.  In the beginning, it was an exercise in faith and trusting the universe, that what I needed would come my way.  It opened me up to new experiences and expanded my heart and mind–mission accomplished.

But lately I’m just feeling really busy.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  When you spend time doing things that aren’t necessarily adding value to your life, but you do it just because you said you would?  Yuck.

So as a result, I’m making it a point to being more intentional these days with my time + energy.  I’m trying to set boundaries and create a framework that allows me to enjoy what I’m doing when I’m doing it.  Imagine that. And instead of feeling selfish about it, I’m looking at it as self-care.

I want to be intentional about my life and not let it just happen to me.

For example: I recently admitted to myself that I don’t love going out at night after work, during the week.  Once in a while is fine, but I’m trying to make it a habit not to schedule social activities at night during the week unless it’s something that I really want to do.

And being a social person, this can be hard–my actions conflict with my feelings.  I want to be that fun person who’s ready to go at a moment’s notice.  But….I’m realizing, I’m just not.  I need time to decompress at the end of each day.  And if I go out, I don’t get to unwind and it does something funky to my psyche.  I become irritated and tired Steph.  She’s no fun.

In this adventure of un-busying my life, I’m getting to know myself better and listening to my heart.  It feels really good to tune in to what I want, and just say no.  I acknowledge that trying to do it all doesn’t work for me.  And the more that concept sinks in, the lovelier it feels to let myself off the hook.

Here are some of the questions I ask myself to re-calibrate how I’m spending my time, maybe they’ll help you too:

• What do I enjoy doing?  It’s such a simple question but sometimes we get bogged down in life by obligations.  Remembering my joy triggers each day are such a necessity–Reading, watching a movie, painting, spending quality time with Chris–and I want to do that as much as possible.

• How do I want to feel? How I want to feel is the driver of all things in my life.  It is the fuel to my fire: content, calm and inspired.  These core feelings help me make decisions throughout my day.

• What are my limits?  Knowing my limits allows me to set healthy boundaries.  I know I need no less than 8 hours of sleep a night, so I plan accordingly.  I also love weird, healthy food (I’m one of those) and need to sweat out my stress regularly to stay sane.

• What do I want to accomplish?  Having a basic plan helps me organize my thoughts and actions throughout the day.  Whether it’s a new blog post or starting a new painting, I have mini goals that motivate me and keep me on track.

Being busy doesn’t mean getting a lot done.  It just means we don’t have time to deeply examine our choices.  Sometimes what we stop doing is just as important as what we start doing; how can you become less busy today and more in tune with yourself?