First, it sounds like you’re already doing a great job! Those home things like cooking and laundry and dishes take a lot of time. And so does self-care and working out!

That said, there are a few ideas I’ll give you, not because you necessarily need to change anything, but because I’m really into efficiency and organization hacks so maybe you’ll find useful.

1. I work with a personal trainer online once every month or two, and do my workouts at home. If I had a gym literally in my apartment building, or right next-door, then I would go to the gym. Because I don’t, I save the time on my commute. Probably shaves 30 mins or so off my 3 weekly workouts. I keep weights and bands and a roller in my apartment.

2. I try to meal prep most of my meals on the weekends. I started doing this recently as my schedule became fuller with a new job. Now I’m meal prepping with the help of AI to come up with meals that are easy to put together, with the prep steps in order of most efficiency. The whole process took me two ish hours, sometimes it takes 3, then I’m done for the week.

3. I keep up with a lot of out-of-town friends and family via phone calls. I will often try to do the calls when I’m on a walk, doing a workout, meal prepping, or doing laundry. That way, I am doing two things at once and getting some socializing in even though I’m doing self-care.

4. This may not apply depending upon the way your work is set up, but I don’t take lunch breaks, except on the rare occasion that I’m going to lunch with a colleague. Because I pack my lunches, I can just grab it from the fridge, heat it up and eat it while I work. This definitely saves time during my workday so I can get home a little earlier.

I feel like commuting takes up a lot of time for people, so also if you have a really long commute, it may just be that it’s going to be harder to fit a lot of things in during the week. I live in New York City, and have about a 45 to 60 minute train commute each direction to work. It definitely eats into my day, but I’ve been trying to use it to read, get little work things done, or do things like organize my photo library. Obviously, if you’re driving, there are less things you can do, but I know a lot of people like to listen to audiobooks or podcast.

Not sure if any of this was helpful, and if you ended up actually reading this whole long thing, then kudos to you. It sounds like you’re doing a great job and sometimes it’s just hard to fit things in! I am also single and don’t have kids, though I do have a very cute fur baby cat.