Listen to the podcast version here

If you’re in midlife and constantly wondering where the day went, you’re probably not looking for another complicated productivity system. You just want to get some time back. There are things you need to get done, things you want to do, and people who need your time and attention, and sometimes it feels as though there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

There is an important distinction I’d like to make, though, about the idea of “saving time.” Saving time isn’t simply about doing everything faster or squeezing more into your day. It’s about using your time well, and creating more space for the things that matter to you. There’s not much benefit in becoming more efficient at doing things that aren’t important, drain your energy, or leave you with no time for the people, activities and experiences that make life meaningful. The goal is to use your time wisely: to make everyday tasks easier and more efficient where you can, while creating more room for rest, enjoyment, relationships and the things you genuinely want to do. In midlife, effective time management isn't about fitting more into your day. It's about using your time and capacity for what matters most.

Why Saving Time in Midlife Is Different

Time management in midlife can look different to when we were younger for two main reasons. The first is because we want to use time more meaningfully now, and I talked about that in depth in my last article. It can also look different because our capability changes in our forties and fifties. We often can’t do as much as we used to. We don’t have the same physical energy or cognitive function to keep up with balancing twenty things at once. Most of us in midlife want to simplify our lives because we are more aware of the preciousness of our time, and also because we are tired. Tired of trying to do so much. Tired of trying to do it all, and tired of being “on” all the time.

This shift can stir up feelings of both freedom and grief. The idea of living a simpler life is inviting, and we can also grieve not being able to be as productive as we used to. You may feel frustrated that your brain and body no longer performs as it has done for your life up until this point, and feel some fear that shifting gears to a slower pace will mean that people see you as less valuable. Western society puts a very strong priority on productivity.

In midlife most of us are transitioning through all of this. We are not yet out the other side with the fuller freedom and relaxation of retirement, yet for many people their capacity and desire to be super productive is diminishing. The question then becomes how do we navigate within that? I think one important shift to make is to think more in terms of capacity. Rather than asking “How much time do I have”, in midlife the more important question becomes, “How much capacity do I have mentally, emotionally and physically?” We can also acknowledge the grief that we are no longer the younger version of ourselves, but rather than trying to get that back (which you can’t), we can learn to appreciate the value of who we are now and who we are still becoming. We can see midlife as a shift, a transition, rather than an ending. It is an opportunity to re-assess what is truly important to us and to decide how we want to experience life going forward as this new version of ourselves. We can appreciate the experience and life wisdom that we have now, and recognise what that gives us, and how it becomes part of our value.

That being said, we still have daily workloads to manage. and we can still consider ways that we can be efficient - just in a different way to when we were younger. So, with that in mind, here are my 10 practical tips for saving time and using your time more effectively in midlife. I have structured them into four general guidelines with the tips being like more specific examples. The underlying question beneath all of this is

“What is most effective for me in terms of my time and capacity?”

Stop Wasting Time

Think about the things you do which drain your energy or give you little in return for the investment of your time, and make the decision to let them go from your life. I am not saying here that everything has to be serious and productive. Entertainment and fun certainly have value. However, be aware of the content of the entertainment you are feeding your mind on and whether it stimulates comfortable or uncomfortable feelings in you. Also, be aware of the timing and amount. Having an occasional pj and movie day is fine, but doing it every day may start to impact your wellbeing in negative ways. The most common drain on time and energy is mindless screen time.

Tip 1: Save Time by Limiting Mindless Screen Time

I understand that most of us know that mindless screen time is not a good use of our time, and also, that limiting it can be really hard to do. Of course it is hard. Media apps are designed to grab our attention and keep it. However, mindlessly consuming content and entertainment on your phone, laptop or TV is not only a poor investment of your time. In addition, it depletes your energy, and can have negative impacts on your brain function and mood. It really can be a bit of a black hole vortex.

You don’t necessarily have to delete all your apps and go cold turkey, although you can if you want. People do and still thrive in life (possibly even more so). One way to approach it is to set boundaries. Either use a timer to limit the amount of time you engage with media apps, or set life boundaries, for example having a no phones at the dinner table or no phones in bedrooms rule.

To help you wean yourself off mindless screen time it may help to reflect on the underlying reason you are mindlessly watching and scrolling. Often, we just get distracted, but in many cases, there is something else going on emotionally or psychologically, and recognising it could help you make a healthy shift in your life. For example, are you bored, are you stressed, are you avoiding a task, or are you over-tired? I have noticed that I get more tempted to mindlessly scroll on my phone at night if I get overtired and miss my body’s “go to bed” cue. I then get too tired to go to bed and scroll to avoid that task. I have learned that if I start getting ready for bed at 9pm it is easier for me to go through my night-time routine. If I leave it until 9:30pm or later, I start getting over-tired and reluctant to go to bed, because I can’t be bothered getting up and doing what I need to to get ready for sleep.

Tip 2: Save Time by Not Doing Unnecessary Housework

While I do like to live in a clean and tidy house, there is a balance point to this. That balance point will vary from home to home depending on how the house is used, how many people live there and the ages of the people who live there. If you spend a lot of your time cleaning the house, you may like to reassess if you really need to do all the housework you are doing. It can be helpful to pause and really consider why you are doing it. Is it just out of habit? Is it to please someone else, including the version of your mother that you hold in your head? Is it because you are afraid of being judged if you don’t do it? If you think it still needs to be done, do YOU need to do it? Can you delegate more to others? It may even be wise time management for you to hire a cleaner.

Make Routine Tasks More Efficient

The easiest way to increase efficiency is through the way you do routine tasks. These are usually the day-to-day tasks of taking care of ourselves, our family and our home.

Tip 3: Save Time by Multi-tasking in Positive Ways

This one may sound surprising coming from someone who emphasises slowing down and being present, however, I don’t think that all multi-tasking is bad. I think that multi-tasking is an issue when it over-activates our nervous system or means that we are not giving quality attention to what we are doing. I confess, I have a habit of multitasking and often that leads to me being inattentive to aspects of what I am doing. That is something I am becoming more aware of and working to shift. However, there are other ways that I multi-task that create effective efficiency. One of them is focusing on doing exercises that work multiple parts of the body simultaneously, rather than each one part in isolation. For example, I do lunges and squats at the same time as doing free-weight exercises with my arms. I also combine wellbeing practices where possible for better efficiency and effectiveness. The 4,7,8 and humming breath practice that I talk about in Tip 7 is one example of this, wearing my oral red light therapy device while I do my weights exercises is another. Essentially, I think that it is okay to multi-task to increase efficiency when combining activities doesn’t reduce how well you do the activities and when it doesn’t push you beyond your capacity and activate you to feel rushed or stressed. A helpful question to ask is: “Does combining these activities actually help me, or am I simply trying to squeeze more into my day?”

Other examples of multi-tasking in positive ways could be:

• listening to a podcast while walking

• listening to an audiobook while doing household chores

• catching up with a friend while walking together

• doing gentle stretching while watching TV - as an example of this, my partner and I roll our feet on a massage ball to release tension while watching TV in the evening.

Tip 4: Save Time by Combining Activities

Grouping similar tasks is an effective investment of time when it reduces set up, clean up or travel time. Grocery shopping is an example of this. Doing mini runs to the grocery store to pick up a few items almost every day is a very inefficient use of your time and energy. It is much more effective to do weekly, or even fortnightly or monthly, bulk shops. I also group running errands in the same way as much as possible. I aim to arrange things so that I can do multiple errands in the same area all at the same time instead of going to the same area multiple times over a week. This also uses less fuel if you are driving so it can save you money as well. Doing all the dishes at the end of the day if there are not too many instead of after every meal, is another example of how you can put this into practice.

You can also bunch replying to messages, emails and social media comments. Having your sound notifications turned on and responding to every message as it comes through can be very disruptive. It can cause you to lose flow in whatever else you were doing and uses more energy. The ding sound of notifications can give you a nice dopamine hit, but it also triggers a small alarm in your nervous system causing a mini “fight or flight” stress response. Over time, having to constantly refocus your attention and respond to the activation of your nervous system, tires out your brain. My phone is on silent most of the time. When it suits me, I check my phone and reply to everything that has come through that I want to engage with at that point. I trained the people in my life not to expect an instant response from me, and I reply to messages as I have capacity and in order of importance to me. This allows me to be much more focused and to get work done more efficiently and with better brain capacity.

Tip 5: Save Time by Preparing Ahead

Preparing ahead is similar to bunching tasks, but it is bunching to create future time freedom and reduce future stress. One of the most common examples of this is doing most of the food prep for the week all in one day. This works really well for some people, but I would add a little caveat for this one. Be very mindful about how this affects your capacity. Sometimes, doing a lot of work all at once to save you work later can actually be overwhelming and cause you stress. If this is the case, carefully assess whether doing a big block of work upfront is really the healthiest way for you to manage your capacity. If we use the example of doing the week’s food prep in one day, then what may be a better option for you is just creating a weekly meal plan and then making things day to day. Sometimes grouping tasks together and doing them all at once works best for you, and sometimes breaking big tasks into smaller ones does. Remember, the key question to ask is, “What is most effective for me in terms of my time and capacity?”

Another example of preparing ahead is to get things ready for the next day the night before. For instance, you could choose what clothes you are going to wear, pack your bag or fill your water bottle. I cook extra dinner and then put the extra in a container for my partner’s lunch the next day. This doesn’t necessarily use less time than doing it in the morning, but doing these tasks the evening before can be a more effective time to do it because you are less time pressured and more likely to remember everything. It also means that you are likely to feel more organised and less rushed in the morning, which facilitates starting your day with more capacity than if you were rushed or forgot something and were feeling stressed.

Tip 6: Create Systems That Prevent Unnecessary Tasks

A more advanced way of pre-preparing is to create systems in your daily life that prevent unnecessary work or stress. One of my fellow Substack writers, Joey G Lloyd, shared a great example of this with me. His tip was to always keep a stockpile of the things that you use all the time and which are not perishable, such as toilet paper, rubbish bags, deodorant, soap etc. Always having spare replacements for these essential items saves time and energy because it prevents you having to do an emergency dash to the store just to get one item if you run out. When you use the item that you had as the spare, put that item on your shopping list, and replace the spare stock next time you do your main grocery shop.

Work With Your Capacity

As we move through our days, we often experience short periods of downtime such as when we are driving in the car, waiting for something or doing repetitive tasks that we don’t have to think about too much like going for a walk. Traditional time management guidelines teach us how to use this time more productively by giving us examples of what else we can do during that time. I would argue now that using time well does not mean filling every moment like that. I used to think that it did. I was the queen of efficiency and multi-tasking when I was younger. I prided myself on how much I could get done within a given space of time. Yes, I got a lot done, and I burned myself out, and I don’t have the capacity to do that anymore. I have learned to be much more discerning about how I invest my time. So, there is a proviso here. When thinking about making the most of “down-time” like when you are traveling and when you are eating, first ask yourself, “What would be most beneficial to your wellbeing right now?” Filling every moment may look like efficiency on the surface, but it is usually driven by stress, a need to earn your worthiness, or avoidance of dealing with uncomfortable feelings or experiences.

Here are two ideas for how to use time effectively in ways that support your capacity.

Tip 7: Use Waiting Time for Yourself

Building on this idea of considering your wellbeing when you have downtime, you can use time spent waiting in lines, queues etc as an opportunity to check in with your wellbeing instead of checking your phone. I think of waiting time as bonus time. I realised a couple of years ago that it could be the opportunity to do the wellbeing practices that I wanted to do, but struggled to “make time for”. Now I use wait time to do a breathwork practice, check in with how I am feeling, or simply be mindfully present. This has shifted how I experience waiting. Instead of finding it frustrating or seeing it as a “waste of time”, or trying to somehow cram something from my to-do list into it, I embrace it as me-time. It becomes a capacity building moment of calm, rather than an experience of depleting over-thinking, over-doing, or mindless distraction.

As a specific example of this, when I am in the car by myself, I invest the time by doing breathwork exercises or, if I feel like I have the mental capacity, listening to training or information audios. The breathwork practice that I normally do is a combination of two breathwork practices - the 4, 7, 8 breath and humming, which is another way of efficiently using time by stacking similar practices. I will share how I do this practice in this week’s Easy Wellness for Midlife video.

Tip 8: Break Tasks into Smaller Steps for Easy Completion

Sometimes, a more effective investment of time is breaking long tasks into smaller ones because it can make things more manageable in terms of your available time and capacity. The big example of this for me is exercise snacking. For me to take an hour or more to go to a session at a gym feels unmanageable. It is a big ask for me to block it in both in terms of time and energy. Things that seem hard to manage for us, usually don’t get done. Daily exercise and movement is very important to me though, so I structure it in smaller 5-15 minute blocks through my day. This feels more manageable to me, so I get my daily exercise plan done most days. Even if I feel pushed for time or a bit tired, I think “it is only 5 minutes” and I can do that. If you want to learn more about this type of exercise snacking, I wrote a whole article about it which you can read here.

Decide What Deserves Your Time

Investing time effectively includes structuring or arranging tasks so that they are manageable for you. It is not about getting everything done, it is about real-life planning that includes what is truly important to you. This is where we move from simply asking, “How can I save time?” to asking, “What do I actually want to spend my time on?”

Tip 9: Decide What Matters Most

I understand that when you feel rushed and like you have a lot to do, that pausing to plan out your day can feel like time when you are not getting other things done. That was a familiar feeling for me and I would write lists of what I had to do, but I never used to filter those lists by anything other than what was urgent or what I could do now. When you don’t have a plan, even if you have a list, you are living your life in response-mode. You are mainly just responding to what is urgent, what you think you should do, what is asked of you, what other people want and what is needed. You are reacting to the world around you all the time rather than choosing what to put in your day based on your values, needs and desires.

The best plans are ones that don’t just show you how to organise the urgent and necessary and fit the most into your day. That may have worked somewhat when we were younger, but now we need a more refined system; a system that guides us to create our day by choice in terms of what truly matters to us.

Important is often equated with urgent, but they are not the same thing. Important things can be urgent, but not everything that is urgent is important. What makes something important is how it aligns with your values and beliefs. Often, we decide what is urgent or important automatically without pausing to consider how it fits with our values. When this happens, things get treated as urgent or important largely because of how they have been presented to us, because other people consider them a priority or because we are responding to them from a place of fear. Fear leads to “shoulds”. You think you should do something because you are afraid that someone else will be disappointed or annoyed with you if you don’t.

When you are clear on what you value, what lights you up and how you want to experience your life, and this becomes a guiding North Star for you, then it gives you a way of deciding what is important based on what genuinely matters to you and contributes to the life you want to live. That doesn’t mean you never do anything for others or say no to everything you don’t want to do, because one of your values may be to build fulfilling relationships with your family and friends or to give back to others in meaningful ways. It means that you have a guidepost for making decisions that honours you as well as others. You don’t need to eliminate everything that isn’t your favourite thing to do. You simply need a clearer guide for deciding.

Tip 10: Do the Most Important Things First

Once you are clear about what tasks and activities matter most to you for each day, then plan your day around those things, and if possible, do them first. Doing the most important things first is the most efficient investment of time because it means that you get the most important things done each day. Doing this can also have added benefits about how you perceive your time. Getting them completed first can ease feeling stressed about not having enough time because the main things are done and anything else you do is almost a bonus. When you get your main tasks for the day done and it is only lunchtime, then it can create a sense that you have plenty of time and can approach other tasks feeling more relaxed.

If you don’t already have a life planning system like what I have described here, and would like to learn about how to live your life more intentionally in this way then I will be running a 21 Day programme starting 1 October called Reinvent Your Life that will help you do that. In this mini-course I will show you how to combine the Life Priority Method, Personal North Star framework and Morning Reset into a simple daily planning system that will enable you to invest your time effectively and also, boost your energy and capacity.

You can learn more about the Reinvent Your Life 21 Day Renewal Programme here.

It is free to join for this time only and starts 1 October 2026 so make sure you register before then.

How to Use Your Time Well in Midlife

The key to saving time in midlife isn’t about becoming more productive so that you can squeeze even more into your day. It’s about being more intentional with the time and capacity you have. Some of these tips will help you reduce the time and energy you spend on everyday tasks, while others will help you create more space for the things that matter to you. The most important thing is to find what works for you, because using your time well isn’t about doing everything. It’s about making sure that the time you do have is supporting the life you want to live.

Just One Thing

If you have read the whole article and got to here then I assume that this was of interest to you, so I want to help you take action, because that is the key to transformation. My just one thing action point for you is something to help you start thinking about what deserves your time.

Take some time right now to think about the question:

What is one thing currently taking more of my time or capacity than it deserves?

From that choose one small change you can make tomorrow to reduce that drain.

It may be one small thing, but that is how effective change can begin.

Aroha nui, much love
Janine

Do you know someone who could really do with knowing this information? Feel free to share this article with them.

Frequently Asked Questions About Saving Time in Midlife

How can I save time in midlife?

You can save time in midlife by reducing unnecessary tasks, limiting mindless screen time, combining compatible activities, grouping errands and messages, preparing ahead and creating simple systems that prevent unnecessary work. It is also important to decide what genuinely deserves your time and organise your day around those priorities. The goal is not simply to fit more into your day, but to use your time and capacity in ways that support the life you want to live.

Why does time management feel different in midlife?

Time management can feel different in midlife because your priorities and your capacity may change. You may have less physical energy or cognitive capacity than you had when you were younger, while also becoming more aware of how precious your time is. This can create a desire for a simpler life and a need to manage your time in a way that takes your mental, emotional and physical capacity into account.

What is the best way to save time when you are busy?

One useful place to start is by identifying where your time is currently going and looking for things that are unnecessary, inefficient or taking more time than they deserve. You can then make small changes such as grouping errands, preparing things the night before, limiting mindless screen time or breaking larger tasks into smaller steps. A helpful question to ask is: “What is most effective for me in terms of my time and capacity?”

How can I stop wasting time on my phone?

Setting boundaries around phone and media use can help reduce mindless screen time. You could use a timer, create boundaries such as no phones at the dinner table or in the bedroom, or simply become more aware of when and why you reach for your phone. It can also help to notice whether you are scrolling because you are bored, stressed, avoiding something or overtired.

Is multitasking a good way to save time?

Multitasking can save time when you combine activities that work well together without reducing the quality of either activity or pushing you beyond your capacity. Examples include listening to a podcast while walking, listening to an audiobook while doing household chores, or combining compatible exercises. Multitasking becomes less helpful when it leaves you distracted, rushed or stressed.

How can I make everyday tasks more efficient?

You can make everyday tasks more efficient by grouping similar activities together, preparing ahead and creating systems that prevent unnecessary work. For example, you could group errands in the same area, batch messages and emails rather than responding to every notification, prepare things you need the night before, or keep spare supplies of frequently used household essentials.

How can I save time without making myself more stressed?

The key is to consider your capacity as well as your time. A strategy that saves time but leaves you overwhelmed may not actually be the most effective choice for you. For example, preparing all your meals for the week in one large session may save time later, but if the preparation itself is exhausting, a simple weekly meal plan and day-to-day cooking may work better. Ask yourself what is most effective for you in terms of your time and capacity.

Should I use all my spare time productively?

No. Using your time well does not mean filling every spare moment with another task. Some downtime can be used for wellbeing, rest or simply being present. Before automatically filling a spare moment, ask yourself: “What would be most beneficial to my wellbeing right now?” Sometimes the best use of your time is to do less.

How can breaking tasks into smaller steps save time?

Breaking a large task into smaller steps can make it easier to fit into your available time and capacity, which can make you more likely to actually complete it. For example, instead of trying to find an hour for exercise, you could use several 5–15 minute blocks throughout the day. Smaller, manageable actions can be easier to start and sustain when you are busy or tired.

How do I decide what deserves my time?

Start by considering what you value, what matters to you, what gives you energy and how you want to experience your life. This gives you a guide for deciding which tasks and activities are genuinely important. It can also help you distinguish between what is important and what is simply urgent, expected by others or driven by a sense of “should”.

How can I prioritise my time in midlife?

Rather than automatically prioritising whatever is urgent or whatever someone else needs from you, consider your values, needs and desires. Identify the things that matter most to you and plan your day around them. Where possible, doing the most important things first can help you feel less stressed about running out of time because the things that matter most have already been given your attention.

What is the most important principle for managing time in midlife?

The most important principle is to consider both time and capacity. Effective time management in midlife is not about getting everything done or becoming more productive simply so you can fit more into your day. It is about making your everyday life easier while making sure that the time and energy you have are supporting what genuinely matters to you.

Listen to the podcast version of this article here

Have you ever woken up feeling stressed, tired or out of sorts, only to find that the feeling seems to follow you throughout the rest of the day? How you start your day can have a bigger impact on your health and wellbeing than you might realise. In midlife, when changes in hormones, energy, sleep, metabolism and stress resilience can make it harder to feel consistently well, a healthy morning routine can help give your body the right conditions to function at its best. The good news is that the healthiest morning routine for midlife doesn’t need to be complicated or time-consuming. A few simple morning habits—hydrating, getting natural morning light, moving your body, eating well and taking a moment to connect with yourself—can help you start the day feeling more energised, grounded and prepared for whatever lies ahead.

I think we have all had the experience at least once where we have “woken up on the wrong side of the bed”, feeling stressed, anxious or grumpy, and then the rest of the day has gone wonky as a consequence and doesn’t really level out until you reset with sleep that evening. Most of us understand that in terms of our mood. We have experienced that how we feel in the morning tends to colour how we perceive and live the rest of our day. What is not so commonly known, is that it is the same for the functioning of our body.

Mornings are the critical time to set ourselves up for the day mentally, emotionally and physically and if we don’t set certain things in motion there, it has a flow on effect for the day that can be very hard to recover from.

That is what the Living Midlife Well Morning Reset is about. I’ll be honest, I designed it for myself, because I wanted to know a) what are the key health and wellbeing habits for a person in midlife, and b) how can we put those habits into a daily system that is manageable to follow in every day life.

In this article I am going to talk about what the key health habits are and why they are important to incorporate consistently into our midlife mornings. 

This is the background behind the LMW Morning Reset, which is the how and you can get that for free here as an online app.

Why Your Morning Routine Matters More in Midlife

One of the core beliefs underlying Living Midlife Well is that wellbeing comes from living in harmony with the way your body is designed to function. The human body is incredible. It has built in systems to maintain balance and health. It just needs to be supported with the right resources and environment. The four key health habits of the LMW Morning Reset are not revolutionary. They are natural, basic and free. They are what the human body developed with. The issue now, is that modern city life does not foster those habits. It fosters the opposite, and as a result our bodies are not getting what they need to function well. The result of that is that we experience various levels of imbalance which can show up as:

• sleep issues

• hormone imbalances

• blood circulation issues

• low energy

• joint and muscle aches and pain

• brain fog

• memory loss

• accelerated aging

• skin sensitivity, acne, rashes, dullness and loss of elasticity

Why a Healthy Morning Routine Shouldn't Add More Stress

From this list you may have noticed that a lot of the issues that people experience in midlife can be connected back to not giving the body the resources and environment it needs for health. At this point I am going to clarify something important. It is possible for people to be following a really healthy routine and seemingly doing all the right things to maintain their health, and still be experiencing these issues. There could be a number of reasons for this, but one of the most common is stress. Chronic stress wreaks havoc on your body and following a strict health routine where you put pressure on yourself to do all the right things, can be putting your body under chronic stress which is undermining the other healthy things that you do. This is why listening to your own body needs to be the foundation for any health programme you follow. A little stress now and then to prompt growth is good, but if you are feeling pressured by your routine every day or every time you engage with it, then I would recommend taking a step back and reflecting on whether it is actually beneficial for your body.

This is one reason why I wanted to make the Morning Reset routine simple and adaptable. Not just to make it easy as a marketing thing, but so that it reduces stress rather than creating additional pressure. I wanted it to feel natural and enjoyable, not like another thing that needed to be ticked off or achieved.

That’s the background intention behind the Morning Reset, now let’s look at the five key components and why they are important.

The 5 Essential Elements of a Healthy Midlife Morning Routine

The five elements of the LMW Morning Reset are:

1. Hydrate – Refresh your body
2. Calibrate – Power up your body with natural light
3. Activate – Move your body
4. Fuel – Nourish yourself with a protein-rich breakfast
5. Connect – Reconnect with yourself and what matters most today

1. Hydrate: Why Drinking Water First Thing Matters

Most of us know that it is very important to drink water and stay hydrated, but it is especially important to drink water when you first get up in the morning. This is because overnight while you slept your body lost water through respiration (breathing), sweat and urine production. It is likely that you wake up dehydrated to some level. Adequate hydration is important for brain function and energy levels. Even mild fluid losses of 1 to 3% can reduce focus, slow reaction times, impair working memory, increase anxiety, and trigger physical and mental fatigue. The other thing that happens when you are dehydrated, is that your blood thickens and does not flow as easily. Your blood is at its thickest when you wake up. Mornings are the most common time for heart attacks and strokes to occur, and the risk of having a heart attack or stroke begins to increase in midlife.

If you feel sluggish in the morning, it is highly likely to be connected to being dehydrated. When you wake up with low fluid volume in your body, your heart has to work harder to pump oxygen and nutrients to your brain, which can cause morning fatigue and brain fog.

The other thing that drinking water first thing in the morning does, is stimulate your digestive system and bowels. In other words, it helps you poop and eliminate waste.

Coffee in the Morning: Should You Drink Water First?

I don’t include the question of drinking coffee in the Morning Reset, but I know that many people will be curious about how it fits in a morning routine (and whether it even should) so I am going to address it here. If you love a cup of coffee in the morning, drink a glass of water first. Caffeine can have a mild diuretic effect, meaning it can stimulate an increase in urine production which causes the body to get rid of salt and water. This can reduce the total fluid volume in your blood vessels. The impact of this can be lower if you drink coffee regularly and if you have coffee in a large cup of water as opposed to a more concentrated shot. However, drinking water first in the morning before your coffee is a good practice because it hydrates your body before the caffeine impacts it. Drinking water first may also address the feeling of sluggishness that you are drinking coffee to “wake you up” from.

There is another reason you may want to consider actually replacing your morning coffee with a glass of water. Caffeine stimulates the central nervous system and prompts the adrenal glands to release stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. If you are a regular coffee drinker, then your body adapts and the release of stress hormones is lower. However, during midlife hormone shifts this becomes a more significant issue for both men and women (male and female bodies).

After age forty testosterone levels in male bodies start to decline, and from the onset of perimenopause levels of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone begin to decline in female bodies. High levels of cortisol further reduces the production of these hormones and can interfere with how they are utilised in the body. Thus, as caffeine stimulates the release of cortisol, then it may have an impact on your sex hormone production and make midlife hormone transition symptoms worse. This can have an even stronger effect in the morning because your body naturally produces a peak surge of cortisol within 30 to 60 minutes of waking up, which is called the Cortisol Awakening Response. Having a cup of coffee early in the morning can stimulate increased levels of cortisol when your cortisol levels are already high and cause further hormone issues.

How to manage this:

• Drink a glass of water when you first wake up before you drink coffee

• Delay drinking your first cup of coffee until 60-90 minutes after waking to allow your natural morning cortisol surge to subside

• Listen to your body - tune into whether you feel more anxious after drinking your coffee, or your energy levels crash later in the day, or your perimenopause or menopause symptoms appear worse. If so, you may want to consider switching the coffee out for a beverage that is going to nourish your body more.

2. Calibrate: Why Morning Light Is Important for Your Body Clock

I have been doing sunrise walks for several months now. I started at the beginning of winter which had pros and cons. The positive was that the sunrise was later so it was easier for me to fit in my walk after breakfast. The downside was obviously that it was often very cold, however, I quite like the cold. What I noticed when I started doing these sunrise walks was that I had better energy during the day, and felt more ready and settled for sleep at night. I also find it very uplifting and calming. Looking at the colours and cloud patterns in the sky as the sun rises is a beautiful way to start the day and I take this time to simply be present in my body, in the environment and with my thoughts. Most of the time I leave my phone at home, though occasionally I will take it and make a video for social media if I feel inspired.

This habit is probably the one that most people miss as part of their health routine. We remember to drink water, and we are aware of the need to exercise and eat well, but the importance of light often gets overlooked. Nothing can really compensate for the health benefits of natural light. You can sit in an infra-red sauna or chill out under a red light mask, but it doesn’t have the same full range of benefits as exposure to natural full-spectrum light, and especially to natural light first thing in the morning.

You may know that we need sunlight on our skin to produce vitamin D, but the value of exposure to sunrise light is way more than that for two main reasons: it sets your body clock correctly and it stimulates your cells to produce energy. The frequency make-up of sunlight changes over the course of the day, and those different frequency wavelengths stimulate different responses in your body. At sunrise, the sunlight is dominated by red and near-infrared wavelengths and a specific ratio of blue light that only exists at that time of the day. The red and infrared frequencies penetrate deeply into your tissues and prime your mitochondria, the tiny power-producers inside your cells, for the days energy production. The specific ratio of blue light entering your eyes with that specific angle of the sun sets your body’s master clock to start. This internal clock is also known as your circadian rhythm and it controls sleep, hormone levels, body temperature and metabolism. Exposure to sunrise light sets the optimum daily timing for your Cortisol Awakening Response, growth hormone secretion, thyroid hormone conversion, insulin sensitivity curves, body temperature rhythm, the timing of mitochondrial growth and repair and melatonin onset in the evening. This means that if your body does not get this signal to set your body clock at the very start of the day, then it can have a negative impact on your:

• blood sugar levels

• regulation of your body temperature

• thyroid function

• sleep

• energy levels

• metabolism

• muscle mass

• stored body fat

• bone health

At this point you may be thinking, “Okay, I understand the importance of light, but I’m not going to be getting up at 5am every day to watch the sunrise.”

I understand that the sun rises at different times in different countries and in different seasons, which can make this habit a little challenging.

What I will say is, aim to get outside as close to sunrise as you can without it becoming stressful, because that would be counterproductive. Plus, once you start doing this and experience the benefits of it, then you may be surprised at how it shifts other things for you and becomes easier.

3. Activate: Why Morning Movement Is Important in Midlife

I talked earlier in the article about how drinking water was important to get your blood flowing and help reduce the feeling of sluggishness in the morning. Movement is the other half of that equation. Simply put, the best antidote for morning sluggishness is to drink water and get active. Your body is designed to move to function effectively. Movement promotes the circulation of blood and lymph. Blood transports nutrients and oxygen, and lymph removes wastes.

How a Morning Walk Can Boost Energy and Brain Health

Regular, moderate physical activity such as walking has also been shown in various studies to enhance brain function and it may help prevent or delay cognitive decline. The increase in blood flow to the brain and two key chemicals stimulated by physical activity can increase the size of the hippocampus, which is the part of the brain connected to memory and spatial awareness of your environment. I can’t guarantee that getting more exercise will help for those moments where you immediately forget why you walked into a room, but it will definitely help you think more clearly and remember more.

A short, moderate to brisk walk is enough to stimulate these benefits. In fact, excessive intense exercise can actually have a detrimental effect from age forty onwards, because it stresses the body and creates high levels of stress hormones like cortisol. As I noted before, high levels of cortisol can reduce the production of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone and can interfere with how they are utilised in the body. This is true of both male and female bodies, but female bodies become even more sensitive to stress during perimenopause and menopause.

4. Fuel: Why a Protein-Rich Breakfast Matters in Midlife

Protein is more than just a gym buzzword; it’s a cornerstone of health. It fuels muscle growth, strengthens bones, supports immunity, regulates hormones and promotes healing.

Erika Jimenez - The Power Of Protein: Why It Matters For Your Health

Protein provides the core building blocks for almost every part of your body. It builds and repairs skin, muscles, blood and bones, creates hormones and enzymes to run chemical reactions, and produces antibodies to keep your immune system strong. For ongoing renewal and repair your body needs a constant supply of quality protein. Protein also helps with keeping your energy levels balanced because it helps to regulate your blood sugar levels. As you get older your body starts to lose more muscle mass. To combat this, you need to consume more protein and engage in regular strength training exercise.

Starting your day with a high-protein breakfast is especially beneficial. Protein helps repair and maintain your muscles after an overnight fast, keeps you feeling full for longer, and gives your metabolism a helpful boost. A protein-rich breakfast can also help stabilise blood sugar and keep your energy levels steadier throughout the morning. Even if you don’t feel hungry first thing in the morning, your body still needs fuel. While your appetite may take a little while to wake up, your brain and body are already getting ready for the day ahead.

Eating breakfast helps support your body’s natural morning rhythm. If you regularly skip breakfast, your body may rely more on stress hormones to keep your blood sugar stable. Research suggests this can leave stress hormone levels higher for longer, making it harder to maintain steady energy, a calm mood, and healthy sleep patterns. A nourishing breakfast gives your body the fuel it needs so it doesn’t have to work as hard to keep everything in balance.

What About Intermittent Fasting in Midlife?

Personally, my metabolism is such that I don’t function well if I don’t eat first thing in the morning. There are other people who feel much better when they fast until lunchtime. I do not think there is one right answer as to whether eating first thing in the morning or fasting until later is the best or healthiest option. My advice would be to explore different options and test to see what works best for your body at this time and be aware that with fluctuating hormone levels that may change.

What can be agreed upon is that adding at least twenty-five grams of protein to the first meal of your day is key to giving your body the resources it needs to function well.

5. Connect: Why Your Mental and Emotional Wellbeing Matters Too

The first four elements of the LMW Morning Reset are designed to provide the key elements you need each morning for good physical health. The fifth element is to support your mental and emotional health. It consists of four questions that help you set an intention for the day by considering things that are often overlooked: how you want to feel, how you can nourish and support yourself, what you would like to do for enjoyment, and what matters most to you today.

These four questions go above and beyond the normal physical self-care that most people think about which is normally things like the first four elements of the Morning Reset. This last element prompts you to think about what you need today, what you enjoy and what you value. This is key to incorporating more YOU in your life.

If you want to know the specific four questions, then you can read about them here. They are also in the LMW Morning Reset online app.

How to Create a Healthy Morning Routine That Works for You

The purpose of a morning routine isn’t simply to make you healthier.

It’s to help you live better.

It’s to help you feel better.

The way you start your day matters. In midlife, when your body and life are changing, giving yourself the right resources and environment each morning can make a meaningful difference to how you feel and function throughout the day. The LMW Morning Reset is not about following a perfect routine or adding more things to your already busy life. It is about a few simple, natural habits that support your body’s basic needs: hydrate, calibrate, activate, fuel and connect. Most importantly, it is about listening to your body and finding a morning rhythm that works for you. You don’t need to overhaul your life to start living midlife well—you can begin by making your mornings work better for you, one simple step at a time.

I know from experience that you can have a morning wellbeing routine that is simple, and effective, and which can be enjoyable. It doesn’t have to be complicated or take a lot of hard work. Our ancestors maintained their health by simply flowing with natural rhythms. You can make life better AND easier.

Just One Thing

My Just One Thing action point for this week is to choose one of the five elements of the LMW Morning Reset and start incorporating it into your mornings.

Start with one.

See how it feels.

Pay attention to your body.

Then, when you’re ready, add another.

Remember, the goal isn’t to create the perfect morning.

The goal is to create a morning that helps you feel better and live better.

If you want more information about how to do that, then you can access the LMW Morning Reset online app via this link.

I would also love to hear any feedback you have about the LMW Morning Reset. Was it easy to use? What did you like about it? What would you change about it?

Aroha nui, much love

Janine

Frequently Asked Questions About the Healthiest Morning Routine for Midlife

What is the healthiest morning routine for midlife?

The healthiest morning routine for midlife is one that supports your body’s natural needs without creating additional stress. The LMW Morning Reset focuses on five simple elements: hydrate, calibrate, activate, fuel and connect. This means drinking water, getting natural morning light, moving your body, nourishing yourself with a protein-rich first meal, and taking time to consider how you want to feel and what matters to you that day.

What should I do first thing in the morning for better health?

A simple place to start is by drinking a glass of water when you wake up. Your body loses water overnight, so morning hydration can help support energy, brain function and circulation. From there, getting natural morning light and some gentle movement can help you transition into your day.

Is a morning routine important in midlife?

Yes. Your morning is an opportunity to support your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing before the demands of the day take over. In midlife, when changes in energy, sleep, hormones and metabolism can affect how you feel, establishing simple morning habits can help provide your body with the resources and environment it needs to function well.

Why is morning sunlight important in midlife?

Natural morning light helps regulate your body clock and supports the natural rhythms that influence sleep, energy and other bodily processes. Getting outside in natural light early in the day is therefore an important part of the LMW Morning Reset.

Should I drink water before my morning coffee?

If you drink coffee in the morning, having a glass of water first is a simple way to hydrate your body after sleep before consuming caffeine. You can also experiment with delaying your first coffee and pay attention to how your energy, mood and body respond.

Is a protein-rich breakfast important in midlife?

Protein is an important building block for muscles, bones, hormones, enzymes and immune function. As we get older and naturally begin to lose more muscle mass, getting enough protein becomes increasingly important. A protein-rich first meal can also help you feel fuller for longer and support steadier energy and blood sugar throughout the morning.

How much protein should I eat at breakfast in midlife?

The LMW Morning Reset recommends aiming for at least 25 grams of protein in your first meal of the day. Your individual nutritional needs may vary, so it is worth considering what works well for your own body and circumstances.

Is intermittent fasting healthy in midlife?

There isn't necessarily one right answer for everyone. Some people feel better eating soon after waking, while others feel better fasting until later in the day. The important thing is to pay attention to how your body responds and recognise that your needs may change as your hormones and circumstances change. If you do fast, make sure your first meal provides the nutrition your body needs, including adequate protein.

What is the best exercise to do in the morning in midlife?

You don't need an intense workout to benefit from morning movement. A short, moderate or brisk walk can get your body moving and support circulation and brain function. The key is to choose movement that supports rather than unnecessarily stresses your body.

Can a morning routine reduce stress in midlife?

A morning routine can support wellbeing, but it shouldn't become another source of pressure. A routine that makes you feel that you have to complete a long list of tasks perfectly can actually add stress. The aim of the LMW Morning Reset is to make your morning routine simple, adaptable and enjoyable, so that it supports you rather than becoming another thing you have to achieve.

How can I start a healthy morning routine if I don't have much time?

Start small. You don't need to completely redesign your morning. Try drinking some water when you wake up, stepping outside for a few minutes of natural light, taking a short walk, or asking yourself one of the Morning Reset questions. Small, consistent changes can be easier to maintain than an elaborate routine.

Other ways you can connect with me:

Website blog (includes copies of my second newsletter: Midlife Made Easier )

YouTube Channel videos and podcast episodes

Living Midlife Well Podcast via Buzzsprout

Pinterest

Why You Feel Like There is Never Enough Time

Listen to the podcast version here

Do you ever get to the end of the day and wonder where all your time went? You may have been busy from the moment you woke up. You answered messages, dealt with other people’s needs, worked through your list, did the things that needed doing and perhaps even squeezed in a few things you thought you should do. Yet, somehow, the things that mattered most to you didn’t get much of your time at all.

For years, I thought my problem was that I didn’t have enough time. What I’ve come to realise is that the problem wasn’t really time. It was what I was choosing to give my time to.

If your days are organised around everything that is urgent, expected, requested and necessary, there will always be more to do. The question isn’t how you can fit everything into your day. It’s whether the things filling your day are actually the things you want your life to be made of.

Do you get up in the morning and just launch into responding to other people‘s needs and calls for attention, and doing what you think needs to be done? Is checking your messages, email and social media on your phone the first thing that you do when you wake up? Are you constantly responding to what is urgent? Does your to-do list start forming in your head the moment your eyes open from sleep (or even in your dreams)?

I don’t ask those questions from a place of judgement. I ask them from a place of curiosity, and I invite you to do the same.

If you can identify with any of that, then here is my next question for you:

How does it feel to live that way?

For me it felt -

overwhelming

stressful

like I was constantly rushing

and running on a daily grind treadmill

It felt like there was never enough time.

Can you relate to any of that? If so, I am going to share one simple idea in this article that can help.

Stop Prioritising Your To-Do List and Start Prioritising Your Life

One of my favourite quotes from Steven Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is

The key is not to prioritise what‘s on your schedule,

but to schedule your priorities.

I love this idea because it sounds like a small distinction, but actually it’s quite a profound one. Prioritising what is on your schedule is about organising what is on your to-do list. Scheduling your priorities means consciously choosing what goes on the list in the first place.

Why Traditional Time Management Doesn’t Always Work for Life

To-do lists normally form around responsibilities, demands, requests, needs and what is urgent. They are normally compiled in response to the world around us. Task checklists have a way of snowballing, once they start rolling they tend to pick up any other task that needs to be done and we don’t usually stop to prioritise what is going on the list, we just organise how the list will be completed in relation to time. That is why to-do lists have a habit of becoming very long, sometimes even unending, and we feel like we are running on mouse wheel trying to keep up with getting everything done.

The most common methods for prioritizing tasks still work from this same principle of organising what the world is asking of you. For example, the following methods are all still largely focused on tasks that are urgent, important and must be done.

• The Eisenhower Matrix: Divide tasks into four boxes: Do first (urgent and important), Schedule (important, not urgent), Delegate (urgent, not important), and Delete (neither).

• The ABCDE Method: Label tasks from A (must-do, high consequence) to E (eliminate) to focus on what truly moves the needle.

• The 2+8 Rule: Pick just 2 must-do tasks and 8 should-do tasks the evening before so you start your day with clear focus.

Why Focusing on Urgent and Important Tasks Can Leave You Unfulfilled

I’m not saying the above methods are bad. They can be very useful, particularly when you’re organising work and trying to manage a large number of tasks. However, if you organise your personal life this way, you are likely to feel dissatisfied, unfulfilled and disconnected from yourself. That is because this way of thinking is centred around responding to what is happening in the world, rather than creating your life in terms of how you want it to structured, and possibly more importantly, how you want it to feel.

Living in response to everything around us often leads to a sense of there being no “you” in your life. It can result in a strong desire to escape your life, usually through things that temporarily help us feel good like sweet food, alcohol, drugs and impulse buying. When your life is constructed solely around all the things you must do, have to do, are responsible for, are urgent or are asked of you, then it is understandable if you procrastinate and avoid tasks, or feel anxious or depressed.

A Better Way to Prioritise Your Time: What Do You Actually Want?

One way that I have come up with to shift this, is a system that works more on scheduling your priorities. The key difference with this system is that I include a category that I haven’t seen on any other scheduling system - what you want to do. This category is probably not usually included because it is commonly viewed as selfish and/or unproductive. However, it is the key to feeling fulfilled in your life. You can feel a sense of satisfaction or success in ticking off the boxes for completing urgent, must do and productively or responsibly important tasks, but you will never feel truly fulfilled unless you include your desires in your to-do list.

I have named this system The Life Priority Method.  Here is how it works.

How to Create a Task Focus List Instead of a To-Do List

Firstly, a language shift, because the language that we use shapes how we think. I like to call a list of action points a task focus list rather than a “to do” list. “To do” sounds like a command. It has a heavy energy of effort and responsibility attached to it. Task focus list has an energy of choice – a sense of “this is what I choose to focus on today.”

There are two parts to creating your daily Task Focus List: categorising and prioritising. For the categorising part we create a category framework to brainstorm all the tasks for the day.

How to Organise Your Tasks for Better Life Balance

To create the Category Framework divide a piece of paper or notebook page into four even rectangles or squares. Give each of these boxes one of the following four life categories as a heading. The reason for this doing this is that thinking about tasks for each of these areas will help you to maintain balance in your life:

The Four Life Categories:

Personal (physical, mental, spiritual)

Relationships and social

Work and finances

Home creation and maintenance

I have included three sub-headings in the personal section: physical, mental and spiritual. These are to prompt you to consider all of these aspects of your personal wellbeing every day. You can interpret “spiritual“ in any way that resonates with you. It includes things like values, connection to nature, meditation, ancestors and heritage, life-force, soul or religious or spiritual beliefs.

Start by Getting Everything Out of Your Head

Once you have this framework drawn up, then brainstorm and write down everything you think you want to do as well as the tasks you think you need to do, have to do, or should do, in each of the four boxes. After you have done that, notice whether some categories have a lot more tasks than others and whether there are areas that you could bring more focus to. You don’t need to try and fix anything at this point. Simply, use it as awareness of ways that you may like to bring more balance into your life.

How to Prioritise Your Tasks: Want To, Have To or Should?

After you have brainstormed all the activities you have in your awareness to do, then colour code each item as being in one of three categories: “Want to”, “Have to” or “Should” i.e “I should do . . .” I find using a multi-coloured pen the easiest way to do this.

Tasks that can be categorised as “want to” are both tasks that you feel interested and excited to do, and tasks that you may not feel like doing, but they are connected to your personal desires. They are tasks that are related to what you are interested in and what you value and what matters most to you. For example, you may not feel like going to your gym class, but looking after your health and connecting socially with people may be a high value for you so it would be a “want to” task even though you may not feel emotionally excited about it.

Make the “want to” tasks into your priority for the day. This is backwards to what we are commonly taught, so it may feel uncomfortable, but give yourself permission to do what you want to do. Prioritise your top three “want to” tasks and schedule them into your day first. If you can do them at the start of the day, then do so to avoid them getting shunted because your time goes to other things over the course of the day.

Then, look closely at the “have to” jobs and decide if you do really have to do it, or whether it can be let go, or delegated to someone else (parents, think about things you are doing for your kids that they could be doing for themselves.) Many times, the things we think we “have to” do - we don’t really have to. Look at your final “have to” list and prioritise the top three. Focus on getting these done second, unless they have to be done at a certain time. Most of us rarely get through all of our daily to do lists. By prioritising the top three way, you know you at least have a good chance of getting the most important things done.

Completely let go of any tasks you have categorised as “should”. Cross them off your list. Whenever we think we should do something, we are responding to the desires and expectations of other people rather than our own. “Shoulds” are not actually your responsibilities to carry or fulfil. Let them go, or assign them to the person who is actually responsible for them. Also, be aware that we often create “shoulds” for ourselves based on what we think will please other people.

How to Put Your Priorities Into Your Daily Schedule

You now have a Task Focus List that is prioritised in terms of what is most important to you, and you can begin scheduling the tasks. Block in the tasks that have to be done at a certain time (like picking up your children from school) and then work through the other tasks in terms of their “want to” and “have to” priority order. Whether you assign set timeframes for each task is up to you. Personally, I find that if I give all my tasks a time schedule, then it creates pressure for me, and stress when I can’t keep to it - which is most of the time. Instead, I schedule by order rather than time; the order I do things in rather that the time I will do things.

I do this on paper because I prefer to be able to see the whole list at a glance and physically cross things off. However, if you have a digital scheduling system that you like using, then you can add your prioritised tasks to that.

What to Do When New Tasks and Demands Come Up

If other tasks or demands come up over the day, think about them in terms of these three categories rather than simply reacting to them automatically. Are they a “Want to”, a “Have to” or a “Should”? This is where the system starts to become more than just a planning exercise. It becomes a way of making decisions throughout the day. Instead of automatically saying yes to every new demand, you have a simple question you can ask yourself before giving it your time.

Above is a photo of my planning sheets for the day I was writing this article. The four category framework is on the left and then my ordered schedule for the day is on the right. I use scrap paper for my planning - I find it easier for my neurodivergent brain to freely create and make connections when I am not trying to be tidy. It is the process that is important rather than the prettiness of it, but for those of you who like things to be neat, then I have created a planning template which you can download as a pdf and print off here.  

I have also created a phone wallpaper summary which you can also download from the same link.

How Prioritising Your Time Can Reduce Stress and Give You More Energy

This planning process might sound quite complicated, but once you work through it, you will see that it is simple to use and only takes 5-10 minutes. You can do it early in the morning, or in the evening to prepare for the next day which may help settle your mind to sleep by getting the invisible load out of your head. If you are like me, then your active brain just wants to get stuck in to completing tasks and taking time to plan like this feels like time taken away from getting stuff done. However, I know from experience that it is definitely not. It is an investment of t  ime that reduces your stress and increases your productivity as well as your level of personal satisfaction and fulfilment. Planning your day in this way gives you clarity and focus. When you are clear and focused you are far more likely to give your time, attention and energy to what truly matters to you. You are also much more likely to receive or achieve your desires. In addition to this, I find that having a clear task focus list that is prioritised in terms of what is most important to me, helps me to be more intentional, and I am less likely to let days pass by doing ‘fluff’ tasks and spending hours being distracted.

Deciding what you want and moving purposefully towards it, sends a clear message for other people to respond to. It also helps you to let go of all the tasks and people that don’t contribute to that. It can act as a foundation which helps you to release expectations and responsibilities that are not in accordance with your authentic self (usually, these are “shoulds”). Additionally, it simplifies your life, reduces the amount of stress you feel, and opens space for creative flow.

Trying to keep an “invisible load” of tasks and responsibilities in your head uses up attention and brain memory and processing space that could be directed to other things. It drains your energy. Using this planning system helps you to reclaim your time and energy and direct them towards looking after yourself and doing what is most important. Putting more “you” into your life increases your level of life satisfaction. This has a bonus effect on your energy because when you feel more fulfilled mentally and emotionally, then you feel more energised, and you are less likely to engage in distracting behaviours which drain your energy like mindlessly scrolling your phone or watching T.V., eating or drinking things that harm your health, or managing your money poorly leading to financial stress.

How to Reclaim Your Time by Focusing on What Matters Most

Reclaiming your time doesn’t necessarily mean finding more hours in the day. It means becoming more conscious about what you choose to give those hours to.

When you stop automatically organising your life around everyone else’s demands, the things that feel urgent, and the endless list of things you think you should do, you create space to ask a more important question: What actually matters to me?

Your time is one of the ways you create your life. When you consciously prioritise the things you want, value and care about, you begin to put more of you back into your days. You will likely still have responsibilities, things that need doing and unexpected demands on your time, but they no longer have to determine the shape of your entire life.

You don’t need to do everything. You don’t even need to fit everything in.

You can decide what matters most—and give that your time first.

Just One Thing

My Just One Thing action point for you this week is to try this planning system out just once and see how you find it.

It may work for you.

It may not.

That’s okay. Either way, I invite you to think about what you learned from trying it out.

I would also love to hear any feedback you have about this planning system. Was it easy to use? What did you like about it? What would you change about it?

If you think it is a great idea, then I would appreciate you sharing it.

Frequently Asked Questions About Reclaiming Your Time

How can I reclaim my time when I feel like there is never enough time?

Reclaiming your time doesn’t necessarily mean finding more hours in the day. It means becoming more conscious about what you choose to give those hours to. Start by looking at everything competing for your attention and ask whether each task is something you want to do, have to do, or think you should do. Prioritising what matters most to you can help you stop automatically giving your time to whatever happens to be most urgent.

What is the difference between managing your time and prioritising your time?

Time management often focuses on organising the tasks already on your list—deciding when and how to complete them. Prioritising your time goes a step further by asking what deserves to be on the list in the first place. Instead of simply trying to fit everything into your day, you consciously choose which activities deserve your time and attention.

Why does my to-do list always seem to get longer?

To-do lists often grow because they are created in response to responsibilities, requests, demands and whatever seems urgent. Once one task is added, other tasks tend to follow, creating an ever-growing list. The problem is that we often spend our energy organising how to complete the list rather than stopping to decide whether everything on it actually needs to be there.

How do I prioritise what really matters to me?

Start by considering the different areas of your life—personal wellbeing, relationships and social life, work and finances, and home. Write down everything you want or need to do, then identify which tasks connect with what you value and what matters most to you. Make your “Want To” tasks your first priorities rather than automatically putting urgent tasks first.

What is a Task Focus List?

A Task Focus List is an alternative to a traditional “to-do” list. The change in language is intentional: “to do” can feel like a command, while “task focus” creates a sense of choice and encourages you to think about what you want to focus on. The list is created by first categorising your tasks and then prioritising them according to what matters most to you.

What are the “Want To, Have To and Should” categories?

The three categories help you distinguish between tasks that are connected to your desires and values (Want To), tasks that genuinely need to be done (Have To), and tasks you feel you Should do because of expectations or perceived responsibilities. The aim is to prioritise your “Want To” tasks first, deal with the most important “Have To” tasks second, and let go of unnecessary “Should” tasks.

How can I stop spending so much time doing things I “should” do?

When you identify something as a “Should”, pause and ask yourself whether it is actually your responsibility. Some “Shoulds” are expectations that come from other people, while others are expectations we have created for ourselves because we think they will please someone else. If the task isn't genuinely yours to carry, consider letting it go or giving responsibility for it to the appropriate person.

How can prioritising my time reduce stress?

Having a clear sense of what matters most can reduce the mental effort involved in constantly deciding what to do next. A Task Focus List gives you clarity and focus, helping you direct your attention and energy towards what is important rather than continually reacting to distractions and new demands.

Do I need to schedule every task at a specific time?

No. You can schedule your tasks by order rather than by exact time. This can be a less stressful approach if tightly scheduling your day creates pressure when things don't go according to plan. Tasks that have to happen at a particular time can still be blocked into your schedule, while other tasks can simply be worked through according to their priority.

How long does it take to create a Task Focus List?

Once you become familiar with the process, creating a Task Focus List should only take around 5–10 minutes. The purpose isn't to spend more time planning; it's to make a small investment of time that gives you greater clarity about where you want to direct your attention and energy during the day.

What should I do when unexpected demands come up during the day?

Rather than automatically reacting to every new request or task, pause and ask whether it is a Want To, Have To or Should. This gives you a simple way to decide whether the new demand genuinely deserves your time or whether it can wait, be delegated or be allowed to go.

Is reclaiming your time about becoming more productive?

Not necessarily. The purpose of this approach isn't to help you squeeze more tasks into your day. It is about making sure your time, attention and energy are being directed towards what truly matters to you. The goal is not to do more—it is to put more of you back into your life.

What is the simplest way to start reclaiming my time?

Start with one day. Write down everything you want and need to do, divide the tasks into Want To, Have To and Should, and then prioritise your top “Want To” tasks first. You don't need to completely change the way you organise your life. Try the process once, notice what you learn, and decide whether it helps you.

Kia ora and hello valued reader

I have a template that I use for this newsletter and it starts with the phrase

How are you?

It is from one of my first newsletters, but today, I am going to include it again because the topic of my article this week is authenticity.

So, Instead of skipping over that, let my question of "how are you" be an invitation to take a moment to notice what you are feeling in your mind, body, heart and gut.

And I will too.

As I write this, honestly, I feel pretty exhausted. I have had a busy week with a lot of extra activities with my son, and found out that he is probably going to need to have orthodontic work done. I am feeling the weight of the potential cost of that. I have also been working on setting up two new platforms for my business.

This morning I recorded my podcast and then forgot to save the first copy. The editing went awry and now I have to re-record the whole thing.

I wanted to get it done today. It is my commitment to get it done and posted by the end of my Saturday so that people can listen to it over the weekend, and so that I can put the link in this newsletter.

The temptation I feel is to just push and force myself to get it done, AND to hide the struggle. To pretend I have it all together, or am at least pulling it all together. To present as a competent coach and business person.

The story in my head is that I won't be respected if I don't get everything right.

On one level, all that is me being honest. We could say that it is me being authentic.

However, all those things - the need to pretend and present and the story I am telling myself about the need for respect - that is all part of my ego, not my true self.

If I go deeper and ask what is under all of that, I recognise fear that I am not good enough.

Even that is not my true self though.

My true self is the part of me that knows all of that is a conditioned story.

My true self is the part of me that holds those other parts of me that feel the fear - holds them with acceptance, understanding and compassion.

My true self is that one who takes a breath, and asks what I really need in this moment - asks, what would I do if I truly loved myself, and then responds,

"Take a break and reset"

"Let go of the need to get it all done today."

​

How about you,

How are you?

What is under the surface of the thoughts and emotions you are feeling?

What would you do today if you truly loved yourself?

​

If you want to understand more of what I am talking about here, then reading this week's article (or listening to the podcast when I have re-recorded it) will help.

Also know, that wherever you are at, is completely fine.

You don't need to be anything more to prove yourself or keep up.

Living life well is not about everything being sunshine and roses and you being on top of everything all the time. It is about having the resources and understanding of how to hold yourself when life throws you curveballs and things don't go according to plan.

. . . as I was writing that my internet connection cut out - I think the Universe is telling me to take a break and go eat my lunch . . .

Time to reset. Catch you next week.

Aroha nui, much love
Janine

Let's Connect

Your feedback helps me to serve you in ways that are valuable to you. This week I would love to know what being true to yourself means to you.

You can comment below or email me directly at support@janinelattimore.com

Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to my Midlife Made Easier newsletter to get this newsletter sent straight to you every week

A quote for the week...

“Genuine people know who they are. They are confident enough to be comfortable in their own skin. They are firmly grounded in reality, and they’re truly present in each moment because they’re not trying to figure out someone else’s agenda or worrying about their own.”

—Travis Bradberry

Weekly Article: Being True to Yourself: What Authenticity Really Looks Like in Midlife

My article this week was about the three key ways that stress affects us in midlife and the three elements of complete rest.

Listen to the Podcast Version - a link will be on the article once I have posted it

Remember:

Simple can be effective.

You don't need to know everything. You just need to know and do the things that are important to you. One simple thing practiced daily is enough.

That's how effective change happens.

Until next time,

keep living midlife well.

Aroha nui, much love
Janine

Janine Lattimore | Living Midlife Well |

What Does It Really Mean to Live Authentically?

Listen to the podcast version of this article

Have you noticed yourself caring less about what other people think as you’re moving through midlife? Perhaps you've started setting firmer boundaries, saying no more often, or questioning whether the life you've spent years building is actually the one you want. Many people describe this stage of life as becoming "more authentic" or "finally being true to themselves," but what does that actually mean? Is authenticity simply caring less about other people's opinions, or is something much deeper happening? I believe that midlife gives us a unique opportunity to peel back the layers of conditioning, expectations and roles we've accumulated over the years, and reconnect with the person we are underneath the masks we have worn. Before we can do that, though, it helps to clear up a few common myths about what living authentically really means.

3 Common Myths About Living Authentically

Myth 1: Does Speaking Your Truth Mean Saying Everything You Feel?

Let’s begin with dispelling a common misconception about what it means to “speak your truth”. Something that is repeatedly seen in the media at the moment is where speaking your truth is shown as being freely expressing your thoughts and emotions without holding anything back. Speaking your truth is not venting your thoughts and emotions, and feeling authentically does not mean letting your emotions run the show. Your emotions are not your truth. What is underneath the emotion is closer to your truth. From an evolutionary perspective, emotions developed to give us information and motivation. Emotion is your brain telling you something and motivating you to respond to that information. To discover what your truth is, it is helpful to ask yourself: “What is this emotion telling me? Why do I feel this?” The emotion is a signal. What is it signaling?

Myth 2: Does Living Authentically Mean Setting More Boundaries?

The second misunderstanding that I often see in media is where people confuse living authentically with another thing that happens for many people in midlife, which is that our tolerance for BS shrinks. The two can be related, but they are not the same thing. Creating a boundary because you have made a loving and conscious decision that something is no longer serving your wellbeing, is very different from saying “no” to things because you can’t be bothered dealing with them any more.

Most of us have reduced capacity in midlife. It results from decades of managing multiple responsibilities, problems and organizational loads. By our forties, the majority of us have bodies that are functioning in survival mode because of ongoing stress. Couple this with the effects of body wear (aging) and hormonal changes and we end up like an old cell-phone that never gets fully recharged, has a battery that drains quickly, and which can barely run the apps it has loaded let alone download new ones. In that state, being honest feels like telling the world it can just “F*^k off”.

While this may feel like your truth, authenticity is not actually linked to what you won’t tolerate anymore. It is linked to your joy. Telling the world to “F” off after decades of running yourself ragged looking after everyone else may feel empowering, but it is not being true to yourself. Your authentic self is who you are when you are fully connected to love, appreciation, peace and joy. It is who you are when you are fully relaxed, and not just being more strongly reactive.

Myth 3: Are Your Personality Traits Really Who You Are?

The third myth that I would like to address is that many people believe that the common personality traits that they exhibit are “just who they are”. That is not entirely true. I believe that there are some personality tendencies that we are born with, but most are learned. We learn behaviours and the beliefs that anchor them, from mirroring the people we grew up with. We also develop a lot of behaviours based of what we think we need to do to hide, perform or please in order to survive.

What Is the Difference Between Your Ego and Your Authentic Self?

All of the aspects of our personality that I mentioned above are connected to a part of us that we can call the ego. You can think of your ego as being like your storefront. It is the part that you package, present and market to the world and which develops to allow you to function in the world. It is the roles that you play and the behaviours that you perform. It is the conditioning that you take on from other people, society and media about how to behave, what is right and wrong, and what you need to have. Our ego is also what drives us to compare ourselves to others and to want to achieve things. Your ego is the part of you that wants to prove your ability and worth, and which seeks approval and validation from others.

Some people talk about the ego as a bad thing, but I think it is simply one part of our mind; one part of our awareness. It helps us to function in the world and we can’t participate in everyday life without it. However, it is not your true self, and a key part of personal growth is learning to identify what is attached to your ego, and who are you underneath that. Who you are underneath your emotions, your behaviours, your roles and even your thoughts, is your true self.

I think this is what many people do mean or want in midlife when they talk about living more authentically. It’s this shedding of the old identity that we built to please other people and follow society’s definition of success, but which we realise didn’t actually satisfy us or make us happy. It’s the desire to be and do the things that you have been putting on hold - the things that have lived under the surface for years because they didn’t fit the “storefront” the outside world was directing you to be. It’s the realisation that you have been living your life for someone else and building someone else’s dream, rather than your own.

How Do You Know Who Your True Self Is?

I often talk about living in alignment with who you truly are, but how do you know who you truly are? In order to understand what your true self is, it is helpful to clarify what it is not, as well as what it is.

What is not your true self:

• anything that comes from comparing yourself to someone else

• anything that comes from achieving a level of performance or recognition

• anything where you are trying to prove something

• anything that comes from pleasing others

• anything that comes from fear - including to hide parts of yourself or limit yourself in any way

  
  

What is your true self?

• who you are when you are operating from deep self-acceptance, self-love and self-respect

• who you are when you don’t need to prove or explain yourself to anyone

• what energises you from your centre core outwards

• what comes from a place of love as pure, positive energy

The Three Parts of Yourself: Conditioned, Protective and Authentic

I think that it is also helpful to break this down further and categorise it in terms of three parts of ourselves: The Conditioned Self, The Protective Self and The Authentic Self. We can connect The Conditioned Self and The Protective Self to the ego, and The Authentic Self to our true self. I like this framework because it shows that each of the different aspects play a part in helping us function in life. They are all valid. I think that personal growth is not about getting rid of any of these parts of ourselves, but rather understanding how and when each one is operating. That understanding gives us more choice in terms of how we live our life.

The Conditioned Self

The person we’ve learned to become.

Formed through...

• family

• school

• culture

• expectations

• fear

• success

• basic survival

This self asks: “What do I need to do to be accepted?”

The Protective Self

The habits we developed to keep ourselves emotionally safe.

Examples:

• people pleasing

• perfectionism

• overachieving

• controlling

• avoiding conflict

• staying busy

• never asking for help

These aren’t who we are. They’re protective strategies.

The Authentic Self

The person underneath all of that.

The person who naturally values...

• curiosity

• kindness

• honesty

• creativity

• humour

• calm

• generosity

• adventure

• connection

This is the authentic self we desire to reconnect with in midlife.

How Can You Discover Your Authentic Self?

Now that we have clarified conceptually what your true self is, the next question is how do you connect with your own personal authentic self. Again, it is helpful here to start with identifying how you are not being true to yourself. To begin doing that you can ask yourself questions 1-3 below to help you identify where you are hiding, performing or pleasing. The information from those first three questions will help you answer the last one and identify your true self.

I invite you to take your time with these. Let the first three questions sit with you over a few days or more as you observe what you are thinking, feeling and doing as you move through your daily life. Holding these questions in your mind may help you to notice things about yourself that you hadn’t noticed before. I also encourage you to write down your responses and observations. Writing things down helps you to externalize your thoughts and see things from a different perspective.

Four Questions to Help You Discover Your Authentic Self

Where am I hiding?

In what ways do you hold back or hide parts of yourself?

Where am I performing?

In what ways are you trying to earn approval?

Where am I pleasing?

In what ways are you saying yes when you really mean no?

Once you have the information from reflecting on those questions, ask yourself this to identify your true self:

Who am I when I stop doing those things?

What Does It Mean to Be True to Yourself?

Being authentic isn’t about becoming someone different.

It’s about removing everything that isn’t really you.

It’s letting go of the roles you’ve been playing for decades.

It’s making decisions that align with your values instead of your fears.

It’s choosing what brings peace rather than what wins approval.

It’s connecting to your joy.

It’s appreciating your innate talents and interests.

It’s recognising your own beauty.

It’s flowing in your creative energy.

It’s coming home to yourself.

Just One Thing - One Simple Practice to Become More Authentic

My “Just One Thing” action point invite for you this week is to notice what emotions you feel today and to see them as a signal rather than who you are. To do this, when you feel something, name it as an experience you are having and then be curious about what it might be signaling to you.

For example, if you feel sadness

1. Name the experience using the phrase, “I am feeling . . .”

I am feeling sadness

1. Ask yourself: “What is this emotion telling me about what I want or need?”

Recognising that you are not your feelings, but rather that your feelings are something you experience, is an easy first step to becoming more self-aware of your true self.

If you have any comments or questions in response to this post then I would love to have a conversation with you about them in the comments.

Like what you’re reading? Subscribe to my Midlife Made Easier newsletter for more great tips on how to slow down, feel better and enjoy midlife more—one simple step at a time

Aroha nui, much love
Janine

Frequently Asked Questions About Being True to Yourself

What does it mean to be true to yourself?

Being true to yourself means living in a way that reflects your own values, interests and inner wisdom rather than being driven by fear, people-pleasing or the need for approval. It isn't about becoming someone different. It's about reconnecting with the person you already are underneath the roles and expectations you've accumulated throughout life.

What does it mean to live authentically?

Living authentically means making choices that feel aligned with who you really are. Rather than constantly trying to meet other people's expectations, you begin making decisions that support your wellbeing, bring you joy and reflect what matters most to you.

Why do so many people want to live more authentically in midlife?

Midlife often brings a natural period of reflection. After years of meeting responsibilities and following expectations, many people begin asking deeper questions about how they want to spend the next stage of their lives. This can create a strong desire to let go of old roles and reconnect with what feels meaningful and true.

Is setting boundaries the same as being authentic?

Not necessarily. Healthy boundaries are an important part of looking after yourself, but authenticity goes beyond simply saying "no." Authenticity is about understanding why you are making your choices and ensuring they come from self-awareness rather than exhaustion or emotional reactivity.

Are my emotions my truth?

Emotions are important, but they are not your truth. They are signals that provide valuable information about your experiences and needs. Instead of reacting immediately to an emotion, it can be helpful to become curious and ask, "What is this emotion trying to tell me?"

What is the difference between my ego and my authentic self?

In this article, the ego refers to the part of us that develops to help us function in the world. It includes our roles, learned behaviours, desire for approval and the ways we adapt to fit in. Your authentic self is the part of you that exists underneath those learned patterns—the part that naturally expresses your values, interests and unique way of being.

How do I know if I'm living according to other people's expectations?

You may notice that you often seek approval, compare yourself with others, say yes when you really want to say no, or make decisions based on what you think you "should" do rather than what genuinely feels right for you. Becoming aware of these patterns is often the first step towards greater authenticity.

How can I reconnect with my authentic self?

A good place to begin is with gentle self-reflection. Ask yourself:

• Where am I hiding parts of myself?
• Where am I performing to gain approval?
• Where am I people-pleasing?
• Who am I when I stop doing those things?

You don't need to answer these questions immediately. Simply holding them in your awareness can help you notice patterns and begin reconnecting with yourself over time.

Can I become more authentic at any age?

Absolutely. While many people experience this shift in midlife, authenticity is not limited to a particular age. At any stage of life, greater self-awareness can help you make choices that are more aligned with your values and the person you want to be.

What is one simple step I can take today to become more authentic?

The easiest place to begin is by becoming curious about your emotions rather than being controlled by them. When you notice a strong feeling, pause and ask yourself, "What is this emotion trying to tell me?" That small habit can help you develop greater self-awareness and gradually reconnect with your authentic self.