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5 Areas To Detox (That Don’t Include Your Body)

At the beginning of the year, “Detoxing” is a huge topic of conversation, but usually the focus is on food and diet culture. While that’s normal to focus on (you do you), there are other areas that probably require more focus at this time. We are surrounded by junky drawers, closets, and even social media platforms, so why not take a little time out to detox those? If you have an extra hour to spare here and there, here are 5 areas to detox that don’t include your body.

clean home

Digital Detox
With so many people working from home now, it’s safe to say we’re using social media waaay more than what we usually do. With that being said, we may find ourselves becoming fatigued by the content that we’re intaking, so if you’re following people who’s content no longer serves you, makes you feel anxious, or just isn’t inspiring anymore, don’t feel bad about unfollowing or deleting them. Social Media should be fun, and before you feel like it’s toxic city and that you need to completely delete it or take a break, reassess who you’re following/what you’re consuming and make changes to that first.

digital detox

Clean Out Your Fridge
Seriously, when is the last time you gave your fridge a really good deep clean? It’s probably time, lol. Remove anything that is expired, old condiments that are messy, and any other items that you know you will never eat. Give it a good wipe down with a safe cleanser and hot water and then try to organize what’s left in a way that makes sense to you. If the cleaning bug has really hit you, start in your pantry next!

organized groceries

pantry

Declutter Your Car
MANY of us (self-included) treat our cars like a second home, and it’s time that we stop. There’s nothing worse than having to constantly move stuff around because people have nowhere to sit, so now’s the perfect time to get in there and clean it out! Remove anything that doesn’t belong, vacuum it out and then give it a wash (I prefer the drive-throughs, lol).

Donate Clothing You Longer Wear
Getting rid of clothing that we no longer wear or want is probably one of the hardest things for people to do, but it’s so necessary. For one, it will make getting dressed so much easier because you can actually see what’s in there. Secondly, getting rid of the pieces that don’t work makes room for the pieces that will! You have to treat it like ripping off a band-aid (if you think too long about a piece you’re less likely to get rid of it), but once it’s done you will feel so much better.

closet

Cancel unnecessary subscriptions
If you have a gym membership that you’ve never used but pay for monthly, raise your hand! Guys, we are wasting SO much money holding on to these subscriptions that we will never use, no matter what we tell ourselves every day. Take some time to go through your bank statements to review the subscriptions that you currently have, and cancel any that you don’t really use or aren’t necessarily helping you. Stop giving money away!

netflix

There are so many areas that we can work on and get in order, but these are just a start (and can be knocked out in a weekend)!

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4 Ways To Be More Productive

Is there ever enough time in a day? Even before Covid hit, many of us found balancing work, school, family, kids, and maintaining a normal social life difficult, especially if we weren’t super organized. Yes, we have the same number of hours in a day as Beyonce, but we don’t have the same team, so any help that we can get with being more productive is a gift. Luckily, with a few tweaks with how we manage our daily schedules, we can maximize our time and really get ish done. We always ask the universe for more time, but if we aren’t cognizant of how we’re spending it, it’s gonna be pretty hard to make any real strides toward our goals, no matter how much more time we are given.

Balancing it all isn’t easy, but it’s definitely not impossible. If you’ve been having a hard time, here are 4 ways to help improve your time management and be more productive every day.

Plan ahead as much as you can
And by plan, I mean get it out of your head and onto a notebook or plugged into your Google calendar with actionable steps to complete your tasks. Prioritizing your to-do list by the hour/day/week/month will help you hold yourself accountable so that you can realistically scratch items off of your list. You may not be able to get everything done daily, but at least you will have a working guide that you can actually see (vs. trying to remember it all and failing).

be more productive

Batch out daily/weekly tasks
The Pomodoro Technique is pretty popular for people working on their time-management, but I’ve found that personally, I prefer using an alarm on my phone when I’m tasking. I will block out 2-3 hours max to knock out a few projects/tasks at a time. I don’t really like to multi-task in the typical sense-I prefer to just work on things in batches. Turn on music or a podcast (TV can be too distracting), turn off your ringer, and place your phone in another room so that you can completely focus on your project(s) at hand. If you end up completing everything early, take a break for the remaining time before you move on to your next time block activity.

Unplug frequently
Checking social media can be such a time suck. You don’t realize how much time you spend scrolling Instagram and Facebook until you look up and 45 minutes have passed by . Every single app is open on your phone, but NOTHING ELSE DONE. Limiting how many times you check your fave social platforms will ensure you don’t miss out on valuable time you could be using to do some none tech related activities (reading, cleaning, spending time with fam).

calendar

Schedule in time for the simple things
When you find yourself struggling to do all of those small things that you never seem to have time for, it’s probably time for you to schedule them on your calendar. I know that it might seem silly to block out time to wash your hair, read or journal, but treating these tasks like appointments and adding them to your calendar can actually be a game changer. Sometimes, there really isn’t enough time in the day, but most times, we’re losing minutes and hours doing trivial things. Be very specific with how you schedule it (don’t just put “Me time”, lol), and soon it’ll become a lot easier to take care of those tasks that matter the most to you.

vera bradley monthly planner12 Month Large Planner, Vera Bradley $26.95

Don’t force yourself to have a rigid schedule (life happens when we’re busy making plans), but being more cognizant of how you’re spending your time daily will allow you to have a much better work/life balance and get more done in a day.

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