The 10-Minute Self-Care Revolution

Have you been treating self-care as optional? That book you wanted to read, the walk you planned to take, the few minutes of silence you craved? These are often the first things we sacrifice when life gets hectic. But what if just 10 minutes of intentional self-care daily could dramatically transform your energy, patience and productivity?

In this empowering episode, I share why those precious minutes for yourself aren't selfish, they're strategic. Drawing from countless client sessions where this issue surfaces repeatedly, I offer a simple three-step framework to make self-care non-negotiable, even with the busiest schedule. You'll learn how to schedule self-care like an appointment, choose truly restorative activities (not just mindless scrolling), and track the surprising returns on your investment.

The math is compelling: 10 minutes daily equals 60 hours yearly of investment in yourself. What could you do with more patience with your children, clearer thinking at work, and better decision-making in all areas of life? As a mother of four, I share my own morning ritual and how it changed my parenting approach. Self-care doesn't steal your time, it amplifies your capacity to use time effectively for everything else.

Ready to stop putting yourself last? Whether you're struggling to know what you need or can't see how self-care fits into your particular situation, this episode offers practical guidance for every circumstance.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Beyond Organised
• 1:01 The Importance of Daily Self-Care
• 2:55 Step 1: Schedule Like an Appointment
• 5:55 Step 2: Choose Restorative Activities
• 7:21 Step 3: Track Your Return on Investment
• 10:14 Resources and Free Strategy Session
• 12:50 Episode Closing and Connect

Transcript

Mel: 0:18

Welcome to Beyond Organised, the podcast that helps you simplify your life and amplify your purpose. I'm Mel Schenker, life coach speaker, founder of She's Organised, but, more importantly, a wife and mum of four little kids. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, like you're constantly juggling everything but never quite catching up, this is the place for you. Here we go beyond just the tidying up and creating systems. We're talking about real life strategies that bring order to your life, but also we talk about the things beyond the organising, the things that really matter, like your parenting relationships and so much more. So grab your coffee and let's dive in. Welcome to today's episode.

Mel: 1:01

I wanted to actually talk about self-care, so one of the biggest things I'm talking about in my one-on-one sessions with clients is the need to have at least 10 minutes a day. Almost everyone I've come across is not giving themselves proper time to refuel themselves, to pour into their own lives. So I mean there's plenty of people that are scrolling on social media or doing other things and there's time that's being wasted as such, but not even taking 10 minutes of intentional time for themselves. So I wanted to cover that today, because I wanted to highlight the benefits of why even 10 minutes a day is important, but also how you can get that return on your investment, so to speak, and how that plays out as well. Most people they feel like self-care is optional. It's almost like you go through your day you try and get all the things you have to get done, but that book you really wanted to read, well, oops, I've run out of time, I'm going to eat into that time of reading the book and there goes my day. It's almost like that is your buffer and your optional thing in the day, and when things don't go to plan, that's the first thing to disappear. But we need to start treating it differently. It's crucial to you being able to not just survive the day, but to eventually enjoy your day and have the energy you need for everything else and the patience, but also being productive. So I have three steps that I want to cover today that will help you see this return on your investment in spending 10 minutes for yourself and how to make this happen. So step one is schedule it like an appointment. We want to put 10 minutes in your calendar every day. Treat it as non-negotiable For me.

Mel: 3:04

I like doing it in the morning. 10 minutes in the morning before anyone wakes up. Hopefully, if my baby doesn't wake up before then. I like to have 10 minutes and I love to just make a coffee, sit down in silence, and sometimes I'll journal, I'll draw in my adult coloring book. I'll just take 10 minutes for me and honestly, it's just to think, breathe and enjoy a hot coffee.

Mel: 3:31

And I find that by just starting the day not feeling rushed and frantic because I know what's about to happen after that 10 minutes can get pretty hectic. Just starting that way, I already just feel a lot more calm. So when the kids are taking way too long to get ready they're not getting out of bed, they don't want to put on their school shoes or whatever it is I actually have the patience to deal with it better and not snap, which I can tell you. If I didn't have that 10 minutes beforehand, I would be more likely to get impatient with them. So I know what I'm like and I know how I react to situations and if I'm already starting off feeling a little bit more calm and refreshed, then that will also help me pass that on to my kids in behaving better as well myself. So it doesn't matter whether it's morning or lunch or evening.

Mel: 4:28

You find what works for you, but try and make it consistent. It's okay if one morning here or there or one night here or there is different, that's fine, but try and make it as consistent as possible. So you've also got that to look forward to. You've got that time that you know is for you to maybe read those few pages of a book or to sit down and journal and get out your feelings for the day. Respect it like any other meeting you would have. And it's okay if you miss a day, just don't quit, pick it up again. We want to have that long-term being able to give that 10 minutes for yourself. And I tell mums in particular don't focus on the laundry pile that's sitting right in front of you. Have your coffee or tea, read your book, do whatever it is that you're doing in that 10 minutes. Don't worry about the laundry. We've got planned for that later. This is your 10 minute time to do what you like and look if you can do more than 10 minutes 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it is great, go for it. But I'm sure we can all find at least 10 minutes in a day to put yourself first, really, because no one else is going to put you first. I hate to say no one else is going to do it, only you can do this for yourself.

Mel: 5:50

My second step is to choose something restorative, not reactive. So when it's restorative, it fills your tank. So things like prayer, if you're a person of faith, journaling, walking, stretching silence that's one of my ones Deep breathing, whatever it is that fills your tank. Maybe a bit of artwork, craft work could even be listening to a podcast or something educational, whatever it is that fills you up. That's what we want to focus on. We don't want to do the reactive things, the things that numbs you and things like your endless scrolling TV or any other kind of busy work. You don't want to leave that 10 minutes wondering what you just did. You want to know what you did in that 10 minutes wondering what you just did. You want to know what you did in that 10 minutes. You want to be intentional about it and not just waste that 10 minutes that you've got, because 10 minutes of restorative time for you is going to be way more productive than even 30 minutes of reactive scrolling random TV and things like that. Now, there's nothing wrong with being on social media or watching TV. Please don't hear the wrong thing, in that you can definitely do that at a different time. This is just not part of your intentional 10 minutes of self-care time.

Mel: 7:16

Now the third part is sort of tracking the return on investment. Now, I love data, I love facts and figures and the way that I go about things, even when it comes to this stuff, that a lot of it can be mental and less physical in some ways can be a lot harder to track. But I like data and facts. So we want to try and track our return on the 10 minutes that we're putting in. So I want you to start noticing the effects. Do you have more energy? Maybe it's snapping less at the kids. Maybe it's just being able to be that little bit more patient when certain situations pop up that normally frustrate you. Maybe you've got a little bit more clarity, you have less brain fog, you can make faster decisions or react quicker to certain situations. Maybe you actually just feel a little bit more calm around the home or at work or anything like that. So I want you to start noting down how things are changing. Maybe particular situations that come up a lot and you've reacted differently this time, or you felt differently this time.

Mel: 8:26

I want you to start tracking how this time for you is impacting other areas of your life. So I want you to think in terms of like compound interest. So If you're doing 10 minutes a day, that's 70 minutes a week. Fair, it's five hours a month, 60 hours a year. Now, it's not a lot. It's really not a lot in the way you do things, but taking those small deposits of consistent time can have really big returns in the long run. You might find you have got more energy and you can get through your workload quicker and clearer. You can deal with household tasks a lot easier, maybe even make better financial decisions, because you're not reacting to certain situations. You're thinking things through and financially it could actually end up saving you more money as well. So we want to see how this is impacting other parts of your life. So start noting it down, journaling it, putting it in a spreadsheet. However you want to do it Actually get intentional with noticing the differences in your life. So, just to recap, we want to schedule it in, we want to treasure this time like we would anything else. That's important. We want to choose restorative, not reactive, tasks and we want to be able to track it. We want to actually see so you can really see the benefits, because if we're not focusing on how it's impacting our lives, it might be something that will easily drop again down the track, and we don't want to do that.

Mel: 10:08

Self-care doesn't steal your time. It actually gives more back to you. So I just want to encourage you that if this is something that you've been struggling with, you don't need to keep struggling with it alone. I have got inside the she's Organized Hub. For those that are in there, I've got a self-care toolkit and it gives you a whole list of examples of things you can do, even just with a short amount of time and for free. There's a whole lot of things in there that might spark ideas, because if you're anything like me, when I first started I did not know what to do with myself. I'm just so used to being busy and dealing with everyone else and everything else that I actually didn't know what I needed for me.

Mel: 10:57

But if you are wanting a little bit more personalized help in this situation and you know that, you know you need to be looking after yourself, but it's just so hard because your particular situation, you can't see how it could possibly work, then I encourage you to actually book in a free, 60-minute organized life strategy session. I've had a lot of these sessions with women and, trust me, I think I've seen every situation that you can think of out there. I am confident that I'll be able to help you in creating a plan for the next steps for you in moving forward from this, and there'll also be options to keep working together beyond that as well, if you're interested. But even just taking that one hour to spend with me, I can guarantee you we'll put things in place that will save you potentially hours every week, let alone month, year, so on. So if you're interested, head to the description. I've got the link in there to book in the free strategy session with me. But if you've got any other questions and that you can always reach out to me, the details are in the description and I'm more than happy to help you with this, because this is a really common pain point for so many women out there in just putting themselves last. And let's start putting you first so you can actually look after everyone else better, you can love on everyone else better, because at the end of the day, like I say in the tagline of this.

Mel: 12:30

Organising is just the beginning for the purposeful life beyond it. It's not just about being organised. It's about the relationships and the life we want to lead beyond all this stuff. So if you need my help, I'm more than happy to help you and I look forward to talking to you soon. If you loved this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you want to continue the conversation, you can connect with me on Instagram, at @shes. organised, or, for some free resources, head over to beyondorganised. com/ toolkit. Remember, organising is a tool to live the purposeful life beyond it. See you next time.