ABSTRACT
Time guides us. Just think of the bells in schools – they ring for each critical moment in a schedule, to warn us and to guide us. We schedule everything, or plan to. We have our to-do lists to help us manage our time, achievement lists to celebrate how we have used our time. We roll over in bed to look at the time to see how much longer we have until we must get up and begin the day. We wear watches or carry phones with us that have time prominently displayed on the screen. Time guides almost everything we do.
So why is it we find it so hard to manage time when it comes to our wellbeing and self-care?
Let’s investigate time awareness, valuing your time and time with and for others. As you explore this chapter you will tick a lot of the PERMAH areas to develop and maintain your toolbox. What you will notice is that time as a key dimension for self-care is actually your friend, versus something we consider as a hinderance (ie, I have no time, or I am time poor).
Before you do this, though, let’s think about time and how it can be used to support your self-care. Let’s do a quick time audit as a check-in. We need a variety of different practices and strategies in our toolbox for self-care, and we also need to embrace time as a variable that supports us to accomplish this. What does this look like for you?
