The alarm goes off at 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning, and almost immediately, you’re moving. There are children to wake up, lunches to pack, backpacks to check, breakfast to make, and everyone—including you—to get dressed and out the door. By 7:00 or 7:30, you’re on your way.
Maybe you’re dropping children off at school before heading to work. Then you work a full day, pick the kids up, drive to sports practice, dance lessons, tutoring, church activities, or wherever else they need to be. Eventually, everybody makes it home. There is dinner, homework, showers, preparation for tomorrow and, if you’re fortunate, you’re in bed by 9:00 because you know the alarm is going to go off again in a few hours.
Then comes the weekend. Surely that’s when you can take some time for yourself, right? Except Saturday has laundry waiting. The refrigerator needs groceries. Someone needs new shoes. There are errands that couldn’t happen during the week, the house needs attention, and somehow Monday is already peeking around the corner.
So when someone tells you, “You need to practice self-care,” you may be thinking: When?
That’s the woman I want to talk to today.
Self-Care Doesn’t Have to Become Another Appointment
Sometimes the way we talk about self-care makes it sound like something we have to add to our calendars. Book the massage. Take the yoga class. Spend an afternoon at the spa. Go away for the weekend. Have an elaborate morning routine.
Those things can certainly be wonderful forms of self-care. But if you’re in a season when you barely have time to sit down, telling you to find another two hours in your week isn’t particularly helpful.
Self-care has to fit the life you’re actually living. During a very busy season, that may mean changing the question from “Where can I find an hour for myself?” to “Where can I care for myself in the minutes I already have?”
That’s a very different question.
Start With the Five Minutes You Already Have
You may not have an empty hour hiding somewhere in your schedule, but you may have five minutes. Maybe it’s the five minutes after school drop-off before you drive to work. Instead of immediately checking your phone, sit quietly in the car. Take a few slow breaths. Pray. Listen to one song you love. Ask yourself, How am I doing today?
Maybe it’s five minutes at lunchtime when you step outside instead of eating while answering emails. Or perhaps it’s the few minutes you spend waiting outside soccer practice. You don’t necessarily have to use every waiting period to catch up on work, return calls or scroll through your phone. Sometimes you can simply sit.
The CDC recommends making time to unwind, connecting with others, getting outside, moving your body, and making time for activities you enjoy as practical ways to support emotional well-being and manage stress. Read the CDC’s tips for improving emotional well-being.
Attach Self-Care to Something You’re Already Doing
One of the easiest ways to make self-care realistic is to stop looking for somewhere new to put it. Attach it to something that already happens.
You’re already taking a shower. Can you make those few minutes feel less rushed once or twice a week? You’re already washing your face. Instead of treating skincare as another chore, let those two or three minutes be a signal that you’re caring for yourself now.
You’re already driving. Could one trip become your favorite music, an audiobook, prayer time or even silence? You’re already waiting for your child at practice. Could ten of those minutes become a walk? You’re already going to bed. Could you put your phone down five minutes earlier, stretch, breathe or think about something you’re grateful for?
None of these requires you to rearrange your life. That’s the point.
Your Basic Needs Are Self-Care, Too
Self-care isn’t always pretty. Sometimes self-care is realizing at 2:00 in the afternoon that you’ve barely had anything to drink. Sometimes it’s packing something nourishing for yourself when you’re packing everyone else’s lunches.
Sometimes it’s taking the medication you’re supposed to take, making the doctor’s appointment you’ve postponed, going to bed instead of folding one more load of laundry, or asking someone else in the household to handle something.
Sleep, nourishing food, movement and regular health care aren’t the glamorous version of self-care we tend to see on social media, but they matter. Self-care can be practical. In fact, for a woman with a very full life, practical self-care may be exactly what she needs.
Five Ways to Find Self-Care in a Day That’s Already Full
If you only have a minute to scan this article, start here. Choose one idea and let that be enough for today.
- After school drop-off: Sit quietly for five minutes before moving on to the next thing.
- During your workday: Step outside, stretch, refill your water or take a real lunch break when you can.
- While you’re waiting: Walk during practice, read a few pages, listen to music or simply do nothing.
- During something you already do: Let your shower, skincare routine or drive home become a small ritual instead of another task.
- At bedtime: Give yourself five minutes without your phone before going to sleep.
You don’t have to do all five. Choose one. That’s enough to begin.
Stop Giving Away Every Available Minute
When you are accustomed to taking care of people, an empty ten minutes can immediately become an opportunity to do something for someone else. There’s always another email you could answer, another load you could start or another errand you could squeeze in.
But every open space doesn’t have to be filled.
If you arrive at pickup ten minutes early, you are allowed to sit there. If everyone is occupied for fifteen minutes on Saturday afternoon, you don’t automatically have to go looking for something that needs cleaning. If you have twenty quiet minutes after the children go to bed, you don’t have to earn the right to enjoy them.
Sometimes self-care is simply not volunteering your newly available time for another job.
Let Other People Help
Self-care can also look like asking for help. Maybe your children are old enough to take on more responsibility at home. Maybe your spouse or partner can handle a task you’ve automatically assumed belongs to you. Maybe grocery pickup saves you an hour on Saturday. Maybe dinner doesn’t have to be made from scratch every night.
And sometimes the help isn’t practical—it is emotional. Call the friend who makes you laugh. Talk to someone you trust. Stay connected to your faith community. Tell someone when you’re overwhelmed rather than carrying everything quietly.
You don’t have to prove how much you can carry.
Create One Small Ritual That Belongs to You
I would love for every busy woman to have one small thing in her day that feels like hers. Not an hour. Not even thirty minutes. Just something she can look forward to.
Maybe it’s drinking your first cup of coffee before everyone else wakes up. Maybe it’s your nighttime skincare routine. Maybe it’s sitting in the car for five quiet minutes after work before you go inside. Maybe it’s walking around the field while your child practices, reading two pages of a book before bed, putting on a fragrance you love even though you’re only going to work and the grocery store, or turning on music while you cook dinner.
Small does not mean insignificant. When life is full, those small rituals can become reminders that you are still a person inside all of the roles you fill.
And What About the Weekend?
I don’t want to tell you to turn Sunday into a “self-care day” when Sunday is already full. Instead, look for one pocket of time. It could be twenty minutes on Saturday morning before the errands begin, fifteen minutes after the groceries are put away, a walk while the laundry is running, a bath instead of a quick shower, or sitting outside with something you enjoy before starting dinner.
And here’s another possibility: occasionally, something on the list may simply have to wait.
Every towel doesn’t have to be folded before you sit down. The house does not have to be perfectly clean before you are allowed to rest.
Self-Care in a Busy Season Will Look Different
There may come another season when you have time for leisurely mornings, long walks, spa afternoons, lunch with friends or an entire day with nothing scheduled.
This may not be that season.
Right now, self-care may happen in five-minute pieces scattered throughout your day: a glass of water, a deep breath, sunscreen before you leave the house, a song in the car, a walk around the field, a simple skincare routine, ten quiet minutes, asking for help or going to bed.
Those things count.
And if what you’re carrying feels like more than ordinary busyness—if life simply feels emotionally heavy—you may also want to save my article What to Do When Life Feels Emotionally Heavy for a quieter moment.
You don’t need to create a picture-perfect self-care routine. You need to find small, realistic ways to care for the woman who is doing all of that caring for everyone else.
Start with one.
Then keep taking the small steps that help you age well with confidence.
You Have Five Minutes. Let’s Start There.
If this article felt as though I was describing your life, I created a simple next step for you: The 5-Minute Self-Care Guide for Busy Women. It’s designed to help you choose one small practice you can use in the life you’re already living—no elaborate routine or free afternoon required.
Open the 5-Minute Self-Care Guide
And if you’d like more practical encouragement like this, join the Purple Essence By Evelyn community below. I’ll continue sharing simple ideas to help you care for yourself and age well, one small step at a time.
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