How to Pare Down Your Responsibilities

If you are a regular follower of my blog you’ve probably noticed I’ve been absent for a while. More like a month! I want to share with you the reason for my absence along with some things I’ve learned about paring down responsibilities.

For all the years I have had a blog, one thing I’ve always struggled with is consistent posting. My lack of consistency stems from not being prepared with fresh material written ahead of time. When it comes time to post, I’m often searching for the easiest topic I can pull together quickly.

After so many starts and stops, I realized that the guilt of not keeping up with my blog was affecting other areas of my life. I would spend so much time thinking about what I needed to do with my blog that I would not be motivated to keep up with things I needed to do for my home and family.

So, after much prayer and consideration, I have decided I need to set the blog aside for a while and focus on my home and family. I’m not going to be gone forever though. I plan to take the summer off and return to posting on September 1.

My main goal is to set aside a few hours a week writing posts that I’ll eventually share. I feel that if I can get ahead and stay ahead with blog posts, keeping up with all I need to do with the blog will be much easier.

It is amazing how much more productive I’ve been since I made that decision in my mind. I let go of the guilt of not posting and all of a sudden the creative floodgates opened up! You would not believe how many blog topics I’ve come up with.

That brings me to the point of how to pare down your responsibilities. Maybe you are like me and there is one responsibility that is taking up too much of your mental and/or physical energy.

Now, I’m not talking about your job or your roles as a parent or spouse. I’m speaking more about the roles we take on voluntarily. No one forced me to start this blog. It was just something I wanted to do. I’m the only one who has say over whether I do it or not.

So, how do you pare down your responsibilities when you know you have taken on too much?

Here are three things I do when I feel overwhelmed by responsibilities:

1. I first look at responsibilities for which I’ve volunteered. I decide which ones are in line with what I feel God has called me to do in my life.

2. Next, I determine the time frames for these current responsibilities. If there is a specific end date to fulfill the responsibility, I try my best to make it through that time so I can complete my commitment. If it is an activity that has no specific end time and is something that is not aligned with what I feel God has called me to do, then I eliminate it from my schedule.

3. Finally, when I’m asked to take on another commitment, I spend a lot of time in prayer and consideration so that I do not automatically take on something else that will distract me from God’s purposes for my life.

I’ve gotten pretty good at saying “no” to requests for my time. All I have to do is remember back to the times when I had too much on my calendar and the stress it caused in my life. That is a sure way to keep me from being overcommitted!

While I’m gone this summer you can still keep in touch with me through Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter. You can check out my Facebook page as well, but that is the hardest way to stay in touch due to Facebook’s control over what you see from my page.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer! I’ll see you in September!