As the school year begins, the importance of effective time management for parents comes to the forefront. With the demands of back-to-school schedules, it’s crucial for parents to prioritize their own well-being. By scheduling personal time for activities like workouts, massages, or even moments of relaxation, they can maintain their health and set a positive example for their children.

Balancing responsibilities with self-care is essential for long-term physical and mental health. Carving out dedicated time for oneself, whether through a consistent workout routine or other relaxing activities, helps recharge and ensures that parents can better support their families. Taking care of oneself is not just a personal benefit but a key factor in the overall well-being of the family.

Highlights of the Podcast

00:04 – Introduction and Technical Issue

00:50 – Importance of Time Management for Parents

01:23 – Self-care is Essential for Parents

02:34 – Setting an Example for Children

05:12 – Balancing Work and Personal Life

06:52 – Planning and Scheduling Personal Time

08:16 – Finding the Right Time for Self-Care

09:43 – Creating a “Fortress of Solitude”

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] Sorry we’re late today. My, my my podcast computer actually blew up. I was doing a, podcast that apparently the, topic was maybe too spicy for Mac in here. We’ll get that one out. Anyway, so time management, scheduling. So I know a lot of people are going back to school, and that’s awesome work going back school. And my wife has sent me all the calendar stuff, and it is a gigantic amount of things, and I am sure yours is just as loaded as ours is. However, we all need to make sure that we, while we’re putting the schedules in and making sure we get the kids where they’re supposed to go and get them all their stuff in their pens and their backpacks and all that jazz. We need to make sure that we’re also scheduling time in there for us. A lot of the stay at home moms, we work with a lot of the, you know, single moms and dads we work with at a lot of the parents who, you know, both have jobs. You guys need to make sure that while you’re putting all that schedule working for your kiddos, you’re scheduling time for you. Make sure you’re putting your workouts in. Make sure your time for your massages are and you’re, you know, sitting and just doing your bubble bath or whatever it is you do for you that you’re putting in there. If you guys let your bodies kind of go to hell while I’ve got all these things I got to do, I got to get a little Johnny here and little Susie, there we go.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:23] Do this and that. I don’t have time to work out. Terrible plan. You’re never going to find the time to work out. You’re never going to find the time to do your bubble baths or get your massages or do the things for you. You have to manage that. You have to put that in. You have to show your family you are important enough to schedule time for. And I realize that that’s the hard, hard part. A lot of people want to make sure they take care of everybody else, but they don’t want to make sure they take care of them. Here’s the problem with this. I know we talk about this a lot, my mom lecturing the whole deal. But here’s the thing you got to take care of you. If you don’t take care of you, you can’t take care of anybody else. The whole idea of you can’t pour from an empty cockpit 100% real. And things happen over time. So all of you moms and dads out there who are, you know, getting your kids ready for school, recognize that if you don’t take care of you right now, you’re going to have you’re going to leave your children with a giant mess. As you get older, your hips are going to be messed up. Your coordination balance is gonna be bad. Your health is going to be really poor. Like all these things are in your way. I get it, you’re 40, you’re 35 to 50 right now. You’re in that age range. You’re like, I’m good enough. Well, yeah. You’re also deteriorating like crazy.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:34] Like, think back to how you were when you were 20, 25 and 30. If you’re 40 and 50 and be like, are you better now than you were then? Because if you’re not, you’re on the you’re on a path that’s decreasing. You’re going to end up, you know, getting worse and worse as time goes on. So you got to make sure that you do something to right that wrong. Plus, and I know you hate and everybody hates her. And this you’re the example for your kids. So whatever you show them is important. Now they will carry forward even in the back of their head is important later. So if you go like, hey, you know, I’m going to get you here, I’m going to go work out here, I’m going to do this thing here. I’m going to make sure my diet’s where it’s supposed to be. You know, we’re not going to eat this anymore because this is bad for us. Z, you’re the example. You have your kids, you’re the standard bearer. And so if they watch you and they go, oh, I don’t need to work out, that’s not really an important thing. I don’t need to eat. Right. That’s not really an important thing. I don’t need to supplement. I don’t need to take time for me. I don’t need to do that type of stuff. That’s not important. That’s what you’re teaching them. So if you go and you say, all right, look, I can’t take you to this thing right now because I have to go to a massage because mom needs, you know, something for her. I have to go work out. Because staying healthy so I can take care of you guys is paramount to me. Okay? You can just tell them why. Like, I’m working out, so I’m healthy so I can take care of you. Tell them the truth, because a lot of times that’s what it is.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:55] The reason a lot of you guys tell me that you can’t work out is because you have all these things to do for your kids. Do this one for your kids. Work out for your kids. You know, this goes back to the whole thing of if you’re like, I die for my kids. And you’re like, okay, great. That’s easy when you live for them. Like when you show them the stuff you’re supposed to do when you go ahead and work out what you eat, right? Well, you, you know, take care of the emotional function of your family and yourselves. That’s gonna be the big piece. So while you’re scheduling all this stuff for your kids and making sure they get where they’re supposed to go and they have all their supplies, blah, blah, blah. How your schedule look for you. Where do you. Where are you working out? When are you getting up? When are you going to bed? When are you doing the things you’re supposed to do? Like schedule your life in there too. Because again, if we want to make such a kids great. And you’re the example. Like, you know, people talk about all the time about raising their kids. The person who raises your kids is the person who has a moral and their psychological function, crafted that. Those of you who raise your children, I don’t care who feeds them. I don’t care who cleans the rooms. I don’t care who drives them from point A to point B, that’s what it is. If you have, one of the biggest things you can do is be the example for your kids, you know, make sure you’re doing the hard things, you’re working out. You’re, you know, you’re doing the things that need to be done. You know, those are the things that you guys need to make sure that you’re doing.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:05:12] And the you know, I’m not saying things that you think, you know, I talk about this all the time. People are like, no one’s like, you’re crazy. Don’t just I’m not. For example, my kids look up to, like, everybody knows it. Like, this is not I’m not this is not world breaking. You know, no one’s seen that with no training. Like I never knew this. Like, these are things we all know, but we’re not doing anything about. And so that’s the thing that we, we need to kind of recognize. And this is one of the reasons why people get a little pissy when we talk about this, because it’s a sore subject and I get it. And you’re like, well, there’s just no time. Make it. Make the time. Find. Find a place to do it. And I’ve talked to. There’s a lot of my. My career won’t let me. My job won’t let me. Okay. I get it. Money’s important. I’m not arguing that. Especially now when everything’s going sideways like it is. However, sooner or later you need just sit down and be like, okay, what’s more important? My job, my health, or my family like you, that’s give me accounts, give me conversations that you guys are going to have to sit down and figure out, because your job will take every second of your life and it’ll happily, greedily take it. So there isn’t enough you could give to your to your job. Like no one panic. Like very few companies punish you for working overtime. Most of them are like, we’re going to pay you this much to do this much work. However, you’re going to have to do this much. And that’s just how things are. And you’ve got to find time to be like, I’m going to the pool. I’m going to go to the gym. I’m going to do these things. Like I’m going to take time for me. I’m not just going to work my whole life and pay my bills and and die and be miserable, have low quality of life the whole time.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:06:52] So while you’re scheduling all these things for your kiddos and for back to school and stuff like that, make sure you put some stuff in there for you. And I get it. This first week of school is going to be bonkers. And so you’re like, look, I don’t know how many times I’ve got, you know, the fourth grade back to school party in the sixth grade back to school party we’ve got those are mine. We’ve got, you know, the mandatory athletics meetings we’ve got we got all these things that have to happen this week and it’s just crazy and well, great. Fine. What’s next week? What’s the week after that? What’s towards six weeks from now like. Make sure you if you just put a start putting it on your calendar, sooner or later you’re gonna get there. So manage that time. Make sure you’re putting things in there that you need for you, and you don’t have to go work out. Working out is is my favorite for lots of reasons, because it’s going to build your body to make you healthier, achieve your balance and coordination function for later. Ligament, tendon, bone strength and short break stuff. So long term health because everything I do is long term function, long term health. Working out is going to be the very best thing you can do for your body and for your mind. Sympathetic. Parasympathetic function. Digestion, the whole nine yards. However, if you’re like I’m not there yet, but I am, I will take time to read my favorite book for 30 minutes every day. Right? Or I’m going to take time to, you know, get a massage or I’m going to go out. I’m going to, you know, I’m going to do I’m going to go grounding. I’m gonna jump into whatever you’re going to do.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:08:16] Right. You know, classes are fantastical. This is one of the things I love about five five, the gym in Frisco that we helped put together. It’s it’s 55 minutes. It’s. I hear the class times. And so it’s pretty easy. And you don’t have to use five five. We can use any class you want to to any yoga or any any hit training, whatever, whatever your flavor is even CrossFit. If you’re going to do CrossFit, make sure you find a good chiropractor first. But any of those things, it’s like from time to time, they and those are oftentimes easier for people because they go, okay, I can figure out how to schedule, you know, three days a week or five days a week at these times into my calendar drive time, the whole deal. Like, we can figure that one out, right? Sometimes whenever you want, there’s a little bit too much freedom. But find a time like the time I found was since I don’t eat lunch, I work out from about 1245 to about 230 every day, and so that works for me. I can still get all my stuff in there and day and it’s fantastic. I cannot I cannot tell you how much I love. It’s not the lifting. It’s the hour I get alone by myself to just get in my head and work on stuff and, you know, go through stuff and just have some alone time like it is in, I call my gem my Fortress of Solitude. For those of you who are Superman fans, that’s that’s my thing. Like, nobody comes in, I turn my ringer off, nobody gets a hold of me like it’s an hour and a half or two of just me working out, thinking about stuff, decompressing.

Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:09:43] And I’ll tell you, as much as I love the first half my day, like I’ve got a really cool over. But as much as I love my day the same, that’s always better. So if you guys haven’t found that time, if you guys haven’t made that time, find that time. Put yourselves in the in your schedule. Make sure you put your health in your schedule because it’s not really for you. It’s for your kids. So make sure that you guys find the time to do that. And if you need to find somebody to help drive the kids around, cook their meals, clean up, like whatever those things like, that’s fine. Make sure you guys do that because there’s only so much time. You are in charge of it. Figure out how to get your stuff done to otherwise what you’re really doing is your is your is you’re waiting and giving your family a giant problem in the future. So figure out how to fix this up in for you. Get yourself done and, make yourself better. All right. Thanks for your time. Like she said.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

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