Setting Boundaries: Reclaim Your Time and Energy for What Matters Most

Today, we’re going to talk about boundaries: from identifying what’s draining you, to setting boundaries, and ultimately figuring out where you can pivot and make some changes. If you have My Dream Life Blueprint Workbook, you can follow along in chapter six. If not, grab a pen and paper so you can take notes.

Off the top of your head, what are some boundaries you know you need to set? The answers I hear from people are often so relatable to one another. We’re all the same. We all need to set similar boundaries, and for whatever reason, we all seem to struggle with them.

I’m going to prompt you with some questions. Take note of how many you answer with a “yes.”

1. Do you feel overwhelmed with tasks?

2. Do you have any resentment towards a specific person?

3. Do you have a tendency to loan things or money to people?

4. Do you feel unable to say “no” to certain situations?

5. Do you feel like you’re neglecting yourself and possibly your self-care?

6. Do you have a random desire to run away from certain responsibilities?

7. Do you feel like you’re completing tasks with little to no support from others?

8. Do you feel unable to ask for help sometimes?

9. Do you try to avoid certain people?

10. Do you feel like you’re always the one helping, but never being helped?

11. Do you feel like you’re trying to avoid certain gatherings or interactions with specific people or groups?

12. Are you feeling burnt out?

13. Are you having a hard time allowing others to help you?

Understanding what situations or people are potentially taking you or your time for granted is key. These could be related to friends, family, work, or circumstances that are out of your control. Once you’re aware of them, you can take complete control of your time. The first time I ever went through these questions, I answered “yes” to every single one of them. I am a recovering non-boundary setter, and I feel I’m getting better every single day. The amount of improvement I’ve seen is wild, just through understanding, rinsing, and repeating.

By the way, you may want to consider looking inward here as well. You might discover that you spend way too much time complaining, mindlessly scrolling your phone, watching Netflix, etc. Whatever it may be, you might need to set some boundaries with yourself.

I’m going to prompt you with a few more questions to help you understand what’s blocking you and what boundaries you might need to set. This is a super powerful exercise! Don’t overthink your answers; just write down the first thing that comes to mind.

Finish the following sentences:

1. I feel most drained when…

2. My biggest stressor right now is…

3. Someone I need to work on forgiving is…

4. I can simplify my life by removing…

5. Someone I need to set boundaries with is…

6. I feel most calm when I see… (can be a person, thing, situation, etc.)

7. I feel most relaxed when I do this…

8. Something I can organize is…

9. Something I can start saying “no” to…

10. Picture yourself at your happiest. What do you see?

When I talk to people one-on-one in my DMs, I often hear, “I have to go to my job because I need the money.” Yes, absolutely… but do you have to stay late if your boss requests you to? No. You’re paid for a certain number of hours. If something is not serving you, making you more money, or allowing you to get home to your family or that side hustle you want to build, then you’ve got to start saying “no” to it. That’s what I want you to understand today.

When you realize you can clear up that time and space, it opens up so many new opportunities! What does this free up time for? Where can you refocus this time or energy, and what is now possible for you to do?

When I started to recognize this in my own life, the amount of time, space, energy, and potential that freed up for me blew my mind. I no longer let other people or situations control that time or take my self-worth for granted. I was inspired a thousand times over, and what happened in my life was incredible. With all of that time and energy, I built a company called The Daily Grind.

My hope for you is that you can take something that might be a small passion and turn it into an incredible company that changes people’s lives. Whatever your goal may be, you need to make time and space for yourself and your worth.

Once you think about where you can refocus your energy, what you can shift around, and what you can make happen, share it and declare it. I want to see it in the comments!

Mastering Your Minutes: 4 Practical Tips for Intentional Time Management

If time management is something you struggle with, you’re not alone! The idea of time management doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to plan out your day in the best possible way. Instead, focus on not just letting your time pass you by, and spending it in an intentional way. Today, I want to go into how I manage my own time, and share the things that really work for me.

Let’s get started!

1. Being intentional with your time

First, I highly recommend going through the “24 Hour Clock” exercise to figure out where your time is spent. Draw a circle, map out the hours in a day, and hash out where your activities lie on an average day. When are you sleeping, at work, eating lunch, working out, etc.? You may find that more time than you realized is being wasted on mindless activities like watching TV. Once you’re aware of it, you can make a more conscious effort to make better use of that time.

Utilize the time you spend doing things like driving to/from work, waiting for the bathtub to fill up, cleaning the house, etc. I call this my NET time (NET = no extra time). For example, instead of listening to the radio on your work commute, put on an audiobook or podcast that will help you grow or move forward toward your goals. Your car is a university on wheels! You can learn so much in the time you’re spending in traffic going to and from work.

2. Setting a timer

When I need to focus on something, I’ll set a timer, put my phone on “do not disturb,” and mash it out. This way, I’m not multitasking and trying to do a bunch of stuff at once. Instead, I’m concentrating on one thing at a time. I have a timer cube that I love, or you can just use a regular kitchen timer. It’s a game changer!

3. Time chunking

Assign different parts of the day to your tasks to make sure you’re managing your schedule. This is something I figured out when I first started my business. For example, I’ll make the first chunk of my day “Angie” time, when I’ll workout, meditate, do my skincare, etc. The next chunk will be dedicated to filming, and so on. With so much going on, it’s important to make sure you’re touching on everything you want to accomplish that day.

4. Focusing on your top three needle movers

Stop writing out a to-do list that’s a mile long! You should have one to-do task from each of your big goals that actually matter to you. From those to-dos, pick three you’re going to get done today, no matter what. That’s it! This way, you don’t overwhelm yourself. Psssst… if you need a system to help you determine your needle movers, check out the Daily Grind Planner.

With that, those are my time hacks! I’m very passionate about this, and I hope these tips give you some inspo on how to manage your schedule. If you have any tips of your own, I’d love to hear them in the comments!

Extreme House Declutter, Organization & Updates

I’ve been doing the Not So Scary party for 8-9 years, and over time, I’ve accumulated so many pieces of Halloween decor. It’s time to go through all of my Halloween bins, donate & purge some things, wipe down and clean out the bins. I wanted to get it done before Halloween and include it as part of my Summerween traditions going forward. I’m also going to deep clean & declutter the house, and share some exciting updates along the way!

Let’s get to cleaning!

I started with ten bins in the house, and ten more in the garage. I wanted to condense it all, and I’ll just be honest as to why. It’s not to have less, it’s so I can buy new stuff. We’re going to go shopping since a lot of my current halloween decor doesn’t fit the vibe of our new house.

I pulled everything out of my bins and put it on the floor. As I emptied each one, I wiped it down. I washed all of the pillows and blankets, because ew. They were getting musty from being in the bins! Once I had everything out, I decided what I wanted to keep, and put everything else to the side. Then, I re-organized everything I wanted to keep into categories, and packed them back into the bins. It took a couple of days to get through it all.

I didn’t end up combining things like I thought I would. I emptied out a couple of bins, and all the other ones are about half full. Pro tip: put anything that is a soap or liquid into a Ziploc bag, or toss it. Don’t put it in your bins on its own. Candles should also go into a Ziploc, because they attract moisture, and the scents can get into the pillows and other things in the bins. Andre helped me put all of the bins back in the garage once they were all packed up. Currently, we just keep the bins stacked in the garage, but we are planning on creating some shelving for them at some point.

Now, I’d love to take you through the house and give some updates!

First, we ripped up the carpets in the basement. Here’s your daily reminder: it’s okay to make mistakes. Andre and I feel like we got duped with the carpet we had installed when we moved in. While we were buying carpet for the stairs, we figured it would be easy to go ahead and get carpet for the basement at the same time. We had asked for something low maintenance that was good for pets, but what was recommended to us was not it. If you even looked at the carpet wrong, it would stain. If our dog Carl had an accident, the carpet would pill when you tried to clean it, and we could not get it clean. We ended up getting carpet very similar to what we had in our old house. It’s a tighter knit, and a lot more forgiving than the old carpet. I’m really happy with it!

We’re also going to redo the lights in the basement. They keep burning out because they’re regular halogen bulbs, so we’re going to get some LED bulbs instead. One section will be all colored hue lights, which will go with the hue lights behind the TV. Having the TV in the corner is not working for us, so we want to get a bigger TV, and mount it on the wall. We will move the couch and coffee table that are in there, and instead get two chairs and a small table to face the TV. We really want to create a gaming area, because somehow I got into gaming with my husband. I don’t know who we are, but it’s very peaceful and therapeutic!

When we first moved in, we got a few pieces of furniture from Wayfair. We love them, but they were very much temporary holds, just to have furniture since we didn’t have any. We’re getting stuff and then figuring it out as we go. We’re very happy with it and enjoying the process along the way!

Heading upstairs, we’ve also done some work on the guest room, and it’s adorable. I got two really cute bookshelves that should be delivered in a couple of days, and I got some sweet finds from Homegoods! I found two beautiful nightstands there for $150 each. That’s cheaper than Ikea! Pretty good, right?! I also found a padded bench that I put at a rustic writing desk to make a little getting ready area for myself.

Speaking of getting ready, I get asked all the time if I’m still using the same skincare. It’s exactly one year later, and I have stuck to it! Yes, the price is steep. However, I realized I had been purchasing random products, where I’d spend $60 here, $120 here, etc… and I wasn’t using any of it. I thought, “what if I just stick to three things?” I got rid of all my other skincare products, and I feel like my skin has never looked better!

First in my routine, I put on spot treatment, which got rid of my melasma. Next, I use eye cream that I pull all the way up and around into my eyebrow, because it’s been helping my eyebrows grow. The last step is the cream, which has SPF 50. Plus, all of the products are natural, which I love! I believe in it so much that I got some for my mother, and she’s also obsessed!

All of that to say, purge out all of your excess. I just have a small shelf of makeup left and some clothes. If you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you know that I used to have a full beauty room and a huge closet, which is fine, but I kind of like living this way! Andre said, “sometimes the simplest is the best,” and we’re learning that. I think this is part of maturing. I’m so past living for who’s coming over, who might see the house, and if we might resell the house. Just live for your home and how you love it at that moment!

Onto the next few updates, my dad built us a little table out of three tree trunks that had grown together. He cut it straight across, and put epoxy on top so you can put down a glass of water and it won’t damage the table. It turned out so cute! In our bedroom, we want to take the ceiling fan out, put in wallpaper, and create a little reading corner. In our guest bathroom, the long-term plan is to knock out the wall that connects to our bathroom, so the entire space will become our bathroom. We only have guests about twice a year, so we don’t mind sharing the bathroom. There are so many plans!

Back down to the main floor, I’ve previously shared our plans to redo the kitchen. We’re going to extend the island into an “L” shape in the space where our dining table currently sits, and it will all become part of the kitchen. We’re also thinking about doing a little corner banquette and a coffee nook with benches along the wall. We cut down one tree, which I struggled with, but it let so much more light into the kitchen! In the foyer, we’re going to redo the lights, and get a huge mirror for the space. The downstairs powder room is also going to be redone. It’s going to be all green and very charming, so I’m very excited about that!

To give you an update on our garden, it’s doing smittenly! I just planted strawberries, so we’ll see how they turn out. The carrots are doing well, and the cucumbers are doing super well. My lettuce died, and the pumpkins are pumpkining. The DIY fountains I created are also thriving!

To end the day, I finished cleaning up the house before our friends arrived. I vacuumed the floors, unloaded the dishwasher, did the dishes in the sink, and wiped down the kitchen. You know it was a good cleaning day when the vacuum canister is almost full! It’s so satisfying.

With that, I think this is it for my Summerween series! I hope you enjoyed this very much behind the scenes house update/deep clean Summerween. It was a “get my life together” type of blog, which I loved. It was very therapeutic! If there is something you would like to see next on the blog, please drop your ideas in the comments!

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