A happy life balance

I"d love suggestions please for improving my life balance. How do you make time to
exercise
socialise
have enjoyable time with your spouse
relax,
do housework, paperwork, and other chores, fix it jobs, that need doing.


A few of us were discussing how negative it can feel if hubby is handy and good with technology and is always given more and more requests from the wife or family to fix and solve more and more things. It saves money but can be very tedious, dreary, endless. ( reminds me of the story to offer to wash dishes but then break a couple so you are never asked again.For hubbies that are good with technology or handyman stuff the requests can be endless and demanding . )

How can we balance all those tedious jobs with relaxation, romance, fun, appreciation so that we dont feel that homelife feels tedious with a constant list of chores .

Can wives of handy hubbies try to not make requests for a few days a week or do we schedule fun and relaxation once a week or a bit per night and not let anything encroach so we feel we have a happier balance between endless chores and relaxation/fun/ family time.

do you have a routine for date night, or nice walk or outings together, relaxation per night, or weekend, so that you feel you have nice time together and not just an endless list of things that need doing which can make a relationship feel tedious rather than fun.

Does the appreciation you get maybe make you feel less heavy about the endless list of chores. How do others deal with the never ending chores, handyman jobs, or technology chores in a family without spending a fortune for experts to do all these and still having time for enjoyable time alone or with the spouse.

Stop doing the things you don't want to do and start doing the things you do want to do.

It's not rocket science.

Make time for things that are important for you and cut everything else off, either by rejecting requests or outsourcing services.

Example

exercise - I wake up 1 hour earlier
socialise - I'm bad with meetings, everyone is busy. I keep in touch through messages, calls and making time on weekend if they have time to squeeze
have enjoyable time with your spouse - be relax first, then you can start enjoyin this.
relax - go massage
do housework, paperwork, and other chores, fix it jobs, that need doing. - outsource ones that I can't do

I really wish I could outsource exercise.

You could always discuss with your partner how this situation makes you feel and then negotiate a more equitable outcome.

Mr. Fabulous said:

I really wish I could outsource exercise.

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I wish that too, or even better, generate electricity when I exercise so I don't need to pay the bills.

EN710 said:

I wish that too, or even better, generate electricity when I exercise so I don't need to pay the bills.

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Now there's a good business idea. Is there anyone on here that has the knowledge to determine if it's possible? I'm serious, btw.

jasonp3 said:

Does the appreciation you get maybe make you feel less heavy about the endless list of chores. How do others deal with the never ending chores, handyman jobs, or technology chores in a family without spending a fortune for experts to do all these and still having time for enjoyable time alone or with the spouse.

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Appreciation helps but you are only one person, you can't do it all.
If I have quick tips for this - start getting comfortable with saying "no" and "that's my limit, I can't do it without feeling miserable about myself".

Mr. Fabulous said:

Now there's a good business idea. Is there anyone on here that has the knowledge to determine if it's possible? I'm serious, btw.

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There's a gym somewhere in the world that do this I think. Not sure about household settings thought.

Mr. Fabulous said:

Now there's a good business idea. Is there anyone on here that has the knowledge to determine if it's possible? I'm serious, btw.

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I did a google..American ...but you might source Australian products

http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech...ise-machines-turn-your-sweat-into-electricity

Mr. Fabulous said:

Now there's a good business idea. Is there anyone on here that has the knowledge to determine if it's possible? I'm serious, btw.

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Been tried before. You can't just plug in any generator into a wall socket according to our beloved network companies. Someone might get hurt!

There is a world of hurt trying to legally connect generators to the grid - far more than there is upside. It took decades for network companies to work out how to handle solar inverters to take just one example. I don't recommend the attempt...

In any case you would have to do an awful lot of exercise to make any difference to your power bill. The average human is hard pressed to mechanically power a light bulb and lighting in total is usually no more than 5-10% of people's power bills.

Buy some more efficient appliances instead...

Cheers, bro! On to the next idea.

I definitely agree that you need to discuss how you feel with your partner. You might be able to share/swap/reduce chores.
My Mum had a very handy partner later in life and she told me that he loved to do all the little fix-it-up chores. She would 'specially find jobs for him. Maybe he liked it, maybe he didn't.
This is the kind of honesty that isn't hard to hear so go for it. You can find solutions together.
Another tip I've heard from a perfectionist/busy-addicted control freak is to cut everything in 1/2. That is, do it at half pace, expect only 1/2 as much from yourself, etc.
Usually, it's our own expectations that set us up for failure!
Because I'm single, I do everything myself. Sometimes I wish I had a cook, housekeeper, bill-payer, handy-man, gardener, dog-walker, cat-scratcher, etc etc 'cause all I want to do is blob out and maybe read a book if I can find the energy.
I'm going to start a system for myself where I only pay bills on Fridays or must read a book on Sunday afternoon, must make a salad on Saturdays, etc. Hasn't happened yet, though. Life.

jasonp3 said:

A few of us were discussing how negative it can feel if hubby is handy and good with technology and is always given more and more requests from the wife or family to fix and solve more and more things. It saves money but can be very tedious, dreary, endless. ( reminds me of the story to offer to wash dishes but then break a couple so you are never asked again.For hubbies that are good with technology or handyman stuff the requests can be endless and demanding . )

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Tell your family the husband will no longer be taking requests for repairs as you both want to spend more time together. If they get upset, tough. Read the book 'The Power of No' by James and Claudia Altucher.

jasonp3 said:

How can we balance all those tedious jobs with relaxation, romance, fun, appreciation so that we dont feel that homelife feels tedious with a constant list of chores .

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Take a step back and determine what *really* needs to be done. Prioritise your time. What's more important to you this week? Tinkering with something that can wait or doing something enjoyable. Here's a hint: your answer should always be 'do something enjoyable'.

jasonp3 said:

Can wives of handy hubbies try to not make requests

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Yes.

jasonp3 said:

do you have a routine for date night, or nice walk or outings together, relaxation per night, or weekend, so that you feel you have nice time together and not just an endless list of things that need doing which can make a relationship feel tedious rather than fun.

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Routine is the backbone of every successful relationship.

P.S. I'm being sarcastic.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and take a guess that this is Mrs jasonp3 writing this. I suggest you stop over thinking everything and just relax a little bit. Implement a system called The Daily Practice, where you do one thing from four or five different areas in your life everyday. For example, these are mine:

- Physical: go for a walk
- Mental: 10 ideas/read for half an hour
- Spiritual: Write down one thing I am appreciative of today
- Business: work on Business Model Generation

The business one changes as each major task is completed. Yours don't need to be the same groups, just do whatever suits your life right now.

The idea behind The Daily Practice is that you take a small step every day towards whatever it is you want to do. That's how things get done - one step at a time.

My husband has never fixed a thing in his life. I'd be surprised if he knew anything ever needed fixing.

l feel very very strongly about all this sorta stuff and life's bs these days . There is so much crap now , so much . And at the end of the day l say there is no way computers and internet have made life easier because they've also made life so much busier now .
Takes hours sometimes to get rid of a machine and onto a human , l've probably spent 20grand over the years on computers and printers , and the hair pulling , my God. Don't think anything in life compared to this before.
Everyone , gov's , your bills , it's all on outo in computers and built to hassle you much much faster now .
Life , even leaving Melbourne and settling up on the Ocean Road now , it stil just never stops .

So you have to watch all this stuff l believe , you , you are the boss. l don't buy everyone's busy busy, l refuse to .
l believe you , you are the boss , it's your life and you make yourself the boss.

So you trim the fat and get the hell rid of the crap because at least 50% of it is just crap , just crap bs.
So l get rid of as much of that crap bs as l can and then some.
It helps a lot . l mostly refuse to work weekends to , or later than 4 or 5 oclock max , usually earlier . That helps a lot too . And it gives you a bit of time to take care or all the bs , before you just close down for the day and live instead.
With the exception of some of my customers and deals that can end up being done at all hours or Sundays , l put my foot down with the bs they seem to insist on forcing onto our life style these days.

Just putting the foot down and the brakes on , saying no , just no , helps a hell ofa a lot.
The other big thing l find is just finding the crap , you find it , and you kick it the hell outa your life . That is a huge thing to.

l now enjoy every wk night in anyway l wish , and 8 out of 10 of my wkends in anyway l want to . Way to go.
Work and have a life to live, not to waste on bs and work .

Have a weekly list of jobs, allocate same day every week to do jobs.

Prioritise, do important ones first, stop when allocated time is up and go have some fun.

Start again next week at same time and do the same thing, probably some of the family will soon start to fix things themselves rather than wait, it will do them good

Hi

Hiya

For couples , I suggest reading this:

http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/

A few of our couple friends did the book together for fun but it was surprising what we learnt about our own spouse....most couples do not "speak" the same language and that leads to unhappiness with one another...understand what is your spouse main "language" and a lot of problems can be anticipated

All of us agreed it has lead to an improvement on our relationships

Can't your teens fix the computer these days? If I can fix 90% of IT issues, so can everyone else.

Speaking just from personal experience of having a large, busy family...

Having a routine is greatly underrated.

Getting in the habit of getting up 'early' (we get up 6am'ish), and going to bed early'ish (we seem to have lights out at around 9.30pm). We found we weren't getting much quality time much late at night, and found the early start was great for getting things done before work/school.

Wrangling the kids so they fit your routine (sometimes easier said than done) and if you have a lot of them (we had 5 at one stage) setting up a 'production line' for stuff like baths, chores, packing for school/lunch etc.

See if you can tweak your budget, cut your living expenses, prioritise what's important moneywise and what isn't, and then cut back on work hours and have more time for other pursuits (again, sometimes easier said than done).

Having a family member/close friend locked into a schedule to come around and look after the kids for a few hours, say one weekend a month so you can go out as a couple. We usually returned the favour.

When things turned to custard, we just let the house go for a few days without doing non-essential chores.

Haha , l like the above one to.

Tell you something . My dad had 11 kids , 2 businesses in Melbourne and 12 people working for him and a 500ac wkend hobby farm an hr from Melbourne and mum of course had the 11 kids and all our sh@t , the Melbourne house and the 500ac farm house up the country to look after .

Dad was home nearly every night , 5 oclock , reading his paper and watching tv with the kids , wrestling with us and taking us up the farm on the wk end .
Mum was always there for any of us and always made time for a chat or our problems , 11 kids .

One of dads golden rules was no phone at home . We grew up with no home phone , ever .
That was so he could leave work , his two factories , come home at 5 oclock , and no one could reach him, ever .
We hated no phone but now l get it . Luckily we had a phone box straight cross the road though , which we could rig and call anywhere in the country any time for nothing .