How to Deal with Hectic Days

We all have hectic days where nothing seems to go as planned or we have completely overbooked ourselves for the day. It may seem that the day is never going to get better or it is a complete lost. There are ways to gain control of your day, this article will give you tips that will help you turn your day around.

We have all been there, those days that nothing seems to be going the way we planned or we have over scheduled our day. If you have children, then the days you can't quite get them to cooperate with your schedule for the day. What we usually do is try to force the day to go the way we had planned. We become tense, frustrated, and feel totally overwhelmed thinking about everything we have to do. Believe it or not, you can change the course of the day and get everything or everyone back on track by doing one thing: Recognize the Day!

It can be that simple once the day begins to go awry. If you just take a minute, to stop and recognize the day. When you are in the middle of the craziness it is hard to think rationally, you become as crazy as the day. Once you see that you are losing control of the day or it is not going as planned STOP, take a moment to recognize what is going on. You have to be outside of the hecticness, per say, to recognize the day and figure out how to gain control of the day.

So the question is: once you recognize the day, what can you do to get your day back on track? These tips will help you turn, what may seem like a negative day back into a day you can manage.

1. STOP....Take a 10 – 15 minute regrouping session. Get a cup of coffee and get your thoughts together. If you have children, put yourself into time out. It sounds funny, but you are not any good to anyone if you are frazzled. If you are working and it is not break time, take a bathroom break. Walk away from your desk, regroup, then go back to work with a clearer mind. The great thing about problems, there are always solutions. You can only figure out the solutions if you are thinking clearly and not feeling overwhelmed.

2. Realize what important appointments are: play dates, lunch dates, shopping trips, etc. are not considered important, set in stone appointments. These are something I call niceties, we all need these interactions, but it has to be when we can enjoy them. Lunch with a friend should not be a stressor due to your tight schedule. These can be rescheduled and should be if your day is already hectic. People often feel obligated to see friends or guilty if they need to reschedule, you come first and your needs. If you have real friends, they will understand.

3. Some days you just need to scrap the day; meaning realize you are not going to be able to get everything done. Don't push it, face the facts, add these items to the next day or the following day. You are not super women, things come up, things don't go as planned. This is what we call life, by trying to force the day, two things happen: you will make mistakes that you will need fix, adding more work to yourself and secondly, you will make your blood pressure rise.

4. If you have children, you need to recognize the day differently. Meaning if your child is asking you to play or acting out to get your attention, recognize the needs of your child. You can either spend one or two hours correcting your child and becoming more frustrated because you can't get anything done. You are wasting time and fighting a battle that you are not going to win peacefully. Why not stop what you are doing and give your child attention, whether it be playing a game or reading a story for an hour. That one hour is not going to make a difference, except in the fact now you can work or finish whatever you were doing in a peaceful manner. Your child will be happy with that small amount of time and it is truly a small amount of time.

Remember tomorrow is a new day in which you can start fresh!

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