Ep 113: Self-Care That Actually Holds Up When Life Gets Busy | Ask Charlotte
By Charlotte Cummings | Feel Better Podcast
How to Plan Self-Care That Holds Up When You’re Busy
When life gets busy, self-care is often the first thing to go.
And yet, those are the moments when you need it most.
Self-care isn’t a luxury or a reward for getting through hard seasons — it’s what helps you cope, regulate, and keep going when pressure is high.
If you want self-care that actually works in real life, here’s how to plan it.
Busy Seasons Require More Self-Care, Not Less
When pressure increases, your capacity decreases.
That’s normal.
The problem is that most people respond by dropping their self-care and pushing through — which leads to burnout, emotional overload, and poor decision-making.
The goal isn’t to survive busy seasons.
It’s to support yourself through them.
Step 1: Pressure-Map Your Life
Look ahead and identify when you’re under the most strain:
work deadlines
school terms or holidays
financial pressure
family commitments
Once you can predict pressure, you can plan extra self-care around those times, instead of reacting once you’re already exhausted.
Step 2: Decide What You Add — and What You Remove
When life is full, ask two key questions:
What do I add when pressure is high?
Extra support, rest, help from others, or nurturing routines.
What do I take away?
Lower expectations, simpler meals, fewer decisions, less perfection.
Reducing load is a powerful form of self-care.
Step 3: Create a Simple Self-Care Menu
When you’re overwhelmed, it’s hard to know what you need.
Create a short list of activities you already know help you feel grounded — your personal self-care menu. That way, you can respond to yourself in the moment without overthinking.
Don’t Underestimate “Boring” Self-Care
Effective self-care is often:
small
routine
predictable
unglamorous
Micro self-care — the five-minute resets — often do more for your wellbeing than occasional big efforts.
Consistency matters more than intensity.
Plan It So It Actually Happens
Rituals, routines, and pre-booked care make self-care more reliable — especially when you’re busy.
If it’s planned, it’s protected.
Final Thought
Self-care is deeply productive.
It helps you think clearly, regulate emotions, and show up better for your life.
You deserve care now — not just when things slow down.
And yes, even when you’re busy.
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Well welcome along to this episode of Ask Charlotte where I'm answering a listener question about how to plan your self-care in a way that it holds up even when you are busy. Now if you've been following along with the podcast for a while you will know that I am a big advocate of caring well for yourself and the reality that self-care is not a luxury and something that you need to earn and something that you just do when you're stressed or under pressure. It is something that is deeply capacity building, that you deserve, that you can safely enjoy at all times and I've done two episodes on self-care.
One all about the concept and topic of self-care and another one where I let you in on all the things I do for self-care. That episode was 45 minutes so it's fair to say my regime when it comes to looking after myself is actually pretty sophisticated but it's how I keep up with having a busy life. Now one of the key things I think we need to remember when it comes to self-care is that actually if we're really wired our capacity reduces and at times when we're really busy our self-care actually needs to increase.
So so often what I see happen for people is that the pressure on them increases and their self-care decreases. Now that is not what we want. Times of increased pressure call for increased self-care.
That is a really important thing to understand if you're a busy person and if your life carries extra demands then you need more self-care than other people and the place of that in your life is really, really important. I know lots of people who want to live in the fast lane when it comes to life, they want to juggle multiple demands or they've got lots of things on their plate that perhaps are even beyond their control. Now what that demands is having self-care that stands up when you're busy that is regular and routine.
So let's talk about how you can plan your self-care so it stands up for those busy times in life. One of the key things is seeing this as functional. So if you're looking after yourself well then you're able to keep your emotions regulated, you're able to think more clearly, to make better decisions, to look after other people better and I know that it is a bit of a catch but sometimes we have to lure ourselves into looking after ourselves well for the benefit of other people or because we can see that it is actually essential to do what it is that we need to do.
Now I'm totally okay with that so long as it leads to you doing the things you need to do to look after yourself. So I encourage you if you know that life is busy and full or if you're looking ahead at the rest of the year thinking there's actually lots on my plate to do what I call pressure mapping. So look ahead and think about where are the times and places in my life that I'm particularly going to be under pressure.
What is that going to look like and how can I forecast that and plan for increased self-care around those times. So that might be thinking about the school terms, about times of particular financial pressure, about work deadlines, about family visiting or school holidays but think about those times when you're going to be under increased pressure and map that out so you can plan your self-care accordingly. The next thing I encourage you to think about is what do you do more of when the pressure is raised.
So what is it that you add into your life when things are difficult? What extra supports can you draw on? How can you ask for help? Because remember self-care doesn't all have to be a solo effort but think about what is it that you add in when the pressure is heightened? So if I know I'm going into a particularly busy time I plan extra things to look after myself. For so many people they do the opposite and the self-care drops back and they hold their breath through those busy times but thinking about what do I add when I'm under pressure is really important and then the other side of that is thinking about what do I take away? How can I reduce the load that I am under? How can I lower my expectations and have a mode that I flip into that is what I do when the pressure is high and I'm needing to take some things off my plate. I know clients who do things like order pre-prepared meals for those times or have their kind of like default emergency meal that's really nice and easy and doesn't have many dishes but thinking about how do you reduce expectations when the pressure is up, how do you increase self-care when the pressure is up is really valuable planning to do and particularly predicting when those times are going to happen will help you to map out what your self-care might look like.
I really encourage you too to have a list or menu of activities that you find nurturing because so often when we're under pressure we need to be responsive to ourselves so as much as some scheduled self-care is really helpful and having plans that are prepared and in place is really great to do, sometimes when we're under pressure we just need to be responsive to ourselves. We need to be in the moment and recognizing that right now what I need is this and not that. So having a menu before you if you are overwhelmed, if there is lots going on is really helpful because then you can pick from those things that you have predefined that are helpful and useful for you and you're not having to sit at a blank drawing board thinking what am I going to do now but a menu of those things that you've tried, that you love, that feel nurturing for you, having that list there is so helpful.
Now for people who are not so great at self-care one of the things they tend to do is make big dramatic efforts in this space and it might be that your only version of self-care that you really know is those times when you're making big dramatic efforts and not doing boring things. I am a believer that so much self-care is really boring it's not necessarily flashing lights, ultra fluffy things, things that necessarily look good on the outside. For me one of my top self-care things is cleaning out my handbag.
Makes me feel on top of things, means I don't have random receipts flying around, it just makes me feel grounded and in control and it's a task that takes me five minutes that I try to do regularly especially when I'm under pressure. So think about are there actually boring things that I'm missing here and how might I schedule those boring consistent routine things. So not thinking about self-care so much as the big dramatic spa day version of self-care or some extraordinary exercise routine that nobody can keep up but thinking about the little things, the micro self-care, the best bang for your buck things that are efficient when it comes to looking after yourself.
So thinking about the boring, consistent, predictable things and how you schedule or get into a routine around those. Now I make no secret of the fact that if I didn't pre-plan my self-care so much of it wouldn't happen. Some of it is ritualized like my Thursday night baths that happen like clockwork and other parts of my self-care are pre-booked.
So booking out appointments for massages for the year, that is already done. I know that that is going to happen. I know that I don't cancel those appointments because I love them so much and even if I'm busy I will make it happen.
So think about the rituals and the routines and maybe some pre-booking that goes ahead of you and makes sure that those systems are set up to support you through the year. The other thing I love when it comes to self-care and doing more of it, especially when you're busy, is having some partnership or accountability around this. Now I often say to people in counseling when they've got some goals around self-care, can you think about anyone else around you in your life who might actually also want to be working on this? And so often they've got a sibling, a friend, a workmate who would also love to be working on their self-care in the same kind of particular areas often that they're wanting to work on.
Whether that's leaving work on time or having some more regular exercise or having some space for themselves in the middle of the day so they're not flopping on the couch exhausted at the end. But think about whether there's anyone around you who might also want to join this buzz with you that you can have some support and accountability with. That is so helpful and sometimes you can get that from an outside professional for a while but it's really great as well to find friends and family that you can bring with you on this journey.
I had some conversations earlier this year with some great people who've got awesome goals for the year but one of the things I said to them was, I don't really care about your goals, I want to know about the self-care that you're going to do that will support you to achieve those goals. Now self-care is something really worth putting your effort and attention around if you know that this year is going to be busy, if you've got goals that you want to achieve, if you're wanting to improve your life and how you're feeling in some way. Effort in the area of self-care is deeply productive, is valuing yourself, is helping you to be able to support other people around you and helping you feel good in your life.
Which by the way, just a reminder, you deserve. So you can get great at self-care this year, let this be your year where this is an area that you put some big attention on. No matter how busy it gets, no matter what stands in your way, this is something that you can test out this year and come up with some new strategies, implementing some of these tools and ideas to map the pressure to work out how to increase the self-care and know what to do more of, what to take away and what routines and rituals support you even when it's busy.
I love this question, thank you so much the person who offered this and I hope that this has inspired lots of you to take a fresh look at what you're going to do for self-care this year.
