Sometimes I feel like a hypocrite. I blog about living a simple, balanced, purposeful life while mine feels like I’m in a racecar going 200 miles an hour from one stop to the next.
Life isn’t always balanced and it’s not always chaotic. However, when we are living out of balance and throw in too many activities, stressful life circumstances, or when there are more obligations than time, we enter into an unfriendly place that is known as survival mode at our house.
When survival mode hits, it affects everyone differently. When my twins were NICU babies that was a different form of survival mode than what I’ve dealt with recently. My good friend who lost her mom a month ago is dealing with a different form of survival mode than I’ve ever faced.
Each of us deal with it differently but I’ve found 10 things to help me get through survival mode. When I apply these 10 tips, to my daily life, there is less stress and I feel more at peace.
The last 3 weeks have been survival mode in our home. The kids had close to 20 ball games, we’ve been getting the 4-H animals ready for fair, trying to choose faucets and plumbing fixtures and get quotes on other items needed for the new house to be built, daily swimming lessons, and trying to keep up with daily chores have left me tired, stressed, and cranky!
Most days we were home around 2 to 3 hours and gone the rest of the day. It made the every day tasks like keeping the house picked up, preparing meals, and doing laundry about impossible.
With a family of 7 this can happen. Easily. However life doesn’t have to be this way (and I know many of these were self-induced. I’m not asking for sympathy, just stating the facts).
Here are 10 tips to get through survival mode:
1. Make sure all mail goes in one place.
I can’t tell you how many days the last few weeks that I didn’t have time to go through the mail, let alone sort it and pay bills. By putting it all in one place (a basket on the counter) it makes it quick and easy to sort through it all.
2. Make easy meals that can be eaten at home or on the go
When you’re in survival mode, anything made at home is better than going through a drive through!
My kids think it’s a treat to have scrambled eggs and toast for dinner. We really like marinaded steaks and chicken on the grill. Pizza and spaghetti are quick meals. Roasts that I can slow cook on the Traeger make great sandwiches and meals that can go in the slow cooker are all things we eat during these times. They are healthier than takeout and save a lot of money. However if we have a night that we do go out to eat, I give myself grace. It’s important!
3. Do one load of laundry a day.
If you can was a load in the morning, throw it in the dryer during the afternoon and fold it at night, you will have clean laundry, even if you’re living out of a laundry basket. I’d rather do that than have a mountain of laundry.
A different option is to try my friend’s solution. When she has the mountain of laundry she takes a morning and heads to the laundromat.
Once again, please give yourself grace, these tips are to help, not add stress!
4. Paper plates are my friend.
When you don’t have time to do dishes but want to try to eat at home to be healthier, paper plates are the way to go. Yes, I know they are not ecofriendly but with 7 people sometimes they are sanity savers. Sanity is important!
5. I use the summer emergency kit that I made before summer starts!
I cannot count how many bug bites and sunburns we’ve avoided by having that DIY summer emergency kit in the car.
It’s been used for scrapes, snacks, and rain showers. If you haven’t made one for your car, I highly recommend having one! If you need ideas to create your own, look here!
See part 2 here!
What tips help you get through survival mode?
Looking for more ways to live an intentional life? Here are some posts you might be interested in:
20 Tips For When You Are Overwhelmed
26 Smart Ways To Save On Groceries
31 Days of Intentional Living: Simplify Your Life
32 Smart Ways To Survive On One Income
Have you enjoyed what you read here today? Do you have friends or other women you know that could benefit from this resource? If so, please do me a favor! I have included the links below to share with other intentional women! They’ll be glad you did!
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Paper plates are my friend too!! We use them way more than we should but it makes life so much easier when you have a lot going on. I am going to give your mail and laundry tips a try.
Would you share this on our Tuesday Talk link up. Just hop over to my blog. This would be perfect for my theme on next week’s Talk. So many great ways to reduce stress in everyday situations. Very encouraging for moms out there.
The mail idea is so true, it’s frustrating if your post is going to two different place. Although royal mail can redirect here in the uk, which is useful, especially when you can’t remember everything you need to change. Using paper plates is well sneaky! But I like it, we just better make sure our environmentalist friends don’t find out!
#1 I love your self-care calendars! #2 Paper Plates, mail in one place, easy meals – yes! And one load of laundry a day! YES! That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m in survival mode because I’m transitioning part-time jobs and trying to pick up extra work because our financial needs out-grew our income. So I’m working two part-time jobs, babysitting, AND teaching Zumba classes. That’s like, five streams of part-time income I’m trying to manage as well as a home, and kids I homeschool. But I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!