When Is The Last Time You Played Like A Kid?

Playing promotes productivity.

“Play fuels your creativity, tickles your inner child and nurtures your soul.”

– Claudia Black

We must find a way to balance our lives between work and play. Have you become too goal-driven? Sometimes when we focus too much on our goals, our friends and family life suffer.

Aren’t these people the most valuable mission in your life? Making them a priority is a must. When you put others before your own needs, life has an extraordinary way of rewarding you with your desires.

When we encounter trials in this lifetime, we find out who our true friends and supporters are. The people who are there for you no matter what. They put themselves aside and encourage you always.

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.

— Ephesians 4:2

This scripture doesn’t say worry only about yourself, your feelings, and your needs. It doesn’t say, protect yourself by building a wall and shutting people out because they don’t see eye to eye with your values. It doesn’t say to turn your back on someone because they are trying to follow their dreams. It says bearing with one another in love.

What am I trying to say? We must slow down and work smarter, not harder.

How can we achieve the balance that everyone craves from time to time? Sometimes life is just simpler. Other times chaos seems to take over.

Playing is a way to boost your productivity level. Because of seeing how a workaholic lifestyle isn’t suitable for anyone, I will share a few ways to overcome this challenge.

Are you seeking a balanced way of living?

I hope you will embrace a few ways to work smarter and not harder, allowing more time for play.

Manage your phone

We have all heard that we should silence our phones from time to time because they can send us down a rabbit hole.

Of course, silencing your phone will definitely help you to work smarter if you struggle with untamed habits of checking text and email too often.

Regardless, managing your phone by using it in more innovative ways can also be helpful. Here are just a few ideas:

Install helpful apps.
Use your camera to take a picture of great ideas or handwritten notes and add them to your Notes app.
Keep a list of your goals on your Notes app. Could you get in the habit of checking them often instead of text and emails? Your goals are more likely to happen with a constant reminder.

Although our phones are smart, we must be wiser while managing them and not the other way around.

Using your phone to make lists on your Notes app is helpful and motivating.

Create a to-don’t list

Yes, a to-don’t list. We have all heard of a to-do list before. However, I prefer making a vision for the day in my journal, either writing on paper or my Notes app.

But have you ever made a to-don’t list? Here are a few examples:

Do not multitask.
Do not second guess yourself.
Do not start the day without a plan.
Do not care about what others think.
Do not value money over family.
Do not take your time for granted.
Do not compare yourself to others.

Often our bad habits need to be addressed to move past them. So, we can work smarter on the things that matter like learning all we can.

Read, write and learn

Reading and writing are the best ways to learn more. Keeping a growth mindset is key to working smarter.

People with a growth mindset are less likely to compare themselves to others. They are also less jealous of others because they believe in their abilities to learn new information.

Having a growth mindset is freeing. This way of thinking leads you to believe that anything is possible, which allows an open attitude to learning even through your failures. Working smarter doesn’t mean there will not be failures.

People who strive through failures are working smarter. How might you embrace your failures differently?

The bottom line

To make time for play, we must strive for a growth mindset for working smarter while embracing our failures along the way. For through failures, tremendous victories have occurred.

When we work on autopilot and allow time-sucking habits to rule our ways, it takes away the time we could be spending with loved ones.

Managing our phones, habits and a growth mindset are three great places to start if you seek a balance between work and play.

What might be one small change in how you have been working that could carve out the extra time for play?

I’m writing this as a thank you note for my family time; I cherish our time together dearly at home or venturing out in the world in which we live.