Your days fill up so quickly and they’re so rushed and full of distractions – sometimes they seem to literally burst at the seams.
I know exactly how you feel. That was my life too.
Before I started simplifying my life, I was pulled in dozens of different directions every day and never had enough time to do everything. Of course, I wanted to do a great job with every commitment I had, and somehow I was convinced that I could do anything. But the reality was that I was stretched way too thin, so I did a bad job with everything and completely emphasized myself.
This feeling of nerve-racking and overbooked is an enormous source of stress for most people, and stress is perhaps the most important factor in whether we are healthy and happy in the long run, or sick and tired.
If you don’t want your health to go down and your stress to skyrocket, you need to start simplifying.
How can you simplify your life? It’s not as hard as you can imagine …
- Know what your perfect day looks and feels like.
Visualizing your perfect day is not essential because it will be a recurring reality, but because it is important to understand what a “simple life” really means to you. It’s different for everyone – for me it means practicing my morning gratitude meditation, writing and reading calmly, and spending a few good hours with Marc and our son Mac. For others, it’s a long walk in the morning, afternoon yoga, a productive day in the office, and a hot bath before bed. And for others, it is simply a lot of time to concentrate on an important goal in life and at the same time leave enough time to find a good night’s rest.
Now take a moment to imagine what an “easy day” means to you.
- Determine what is most important to you.
In addition to the art of getting things done, there is the often forgotten art of undoing things. The simplicity and efficiency of a day depends heavily on eliminating the unimportant.
The basis of the simplification is as follows:
Identify what’s most important to you.
Eliminate as much as possible from everything else.
So take your time to identify the most important projects, people and experiences (maximum 5) and then see which activities, tasks and commitments fit this list.
- Reject unnecessary commitments that don’t support your priorities.
Once you have figured out what is important – your priorities and your vision of the “perfect day” – you need to start saying no to things that do not support what is important to you and that stand in your way of a perfect day .
The best thing you can say “no” to is an unimportant obligation. Think about it…
Today you say yes to a Facebook party invitation, tomorrow you say yes, if a neighbor asks you to help him move furniture, you will be invited to a quick lunch and then you decide to volunteer with your son’s youth group Report to. Yes after another, and soon your days will be too busy and complicated and you won’t know where you went wrong.
List and evaluate your commitments (professional, personal, civic, etc.), especially recurring ones, and say no to at least one of them today. All it takes is a quick phone call or email and you will immediately feel the weight lifting.
- Limit your daily tasks.
Take time each morning to identify 1-3 of the most important tasks (MITs) for the day and cut out the rest as much as possible (without small, necessary things like tying your shoes or handing the kids in the school). Immediately respond to your other commitments and tell the connected people that you really want to help but your plate is full today. You can’t serve them well, so unfortunately you have to say “no”.
Once you’ve got a manageable list of tasks (1-3 is ideal, but don’t try to do more than 7), it is best to give everyone some time – a few hours for one and then a few hours for one others, etc. Instead of being in a stressful state of changing tasks, just take on your next task, let go of everything else, and stay with that one task for the time allotted.
If you do this, you will notice a difference. By limiting your tasks in this way, you can focus on reality and assume that you cannot do everything in one day.
- Plan at least one distraction-free time block every day.
Once you know that you are actually working on the right tasks, eliminating all distractions for a set amount of time while you work is one of the most effective ways to get things done. So lock your door, log in, turn off your phone, close your email application, disconnect your internet connection, etc. You can’t hide forever, but you can be twice as productive while They are.
Do everything you can to create a calm, distraction-free environment where you can focus on what’s important.
- Do ONLY one thing at a time.
Let yourself be immersed in the task at hand by letting go of the feeling that you have to hurry through the task quickly – that you have to continue with the next task that is waiting for you. There will always be a next task because that’s the nature of TO-DO lists – they never end. Let these later tasks come later. Just be 100% in this one task as if it were your whole world.
Conclusion: drive slowly. To breathe. Review your commitments and goals. One after the other. Complete one task at a time. Start now. Take a 5 minute break in an hour. To repeat. (And remember, results matter more than the time it takes to reach them.)
- Stack the smaller, less important tasks.
There are many small tasks that you have to do all day. Don’t let them bother the more important things. To be more productive, stack them and do them all at once, preferably later in the day. For example, instead of reading your personal emails all day, edit them once a day, possibly at 4:00 p.m. when the day ends. Complete all other formalities at once (invoices, forms, etc.). And when you’ve completed a number of small tasks (e.g. processing all of your email), cut yourself off and move on to the next small task if necessary.
The key is that you don’t let the small things get in the way of the big ones. DO NOT get stuck on a small thing all day or even half a day.
- Leave space between everything.
I may sound like a broken record at this point, but it’s important to understand that tie-up is the biggest mistake most people make against a simpler life. It is tempting to fill tasks with every waking minute of the day. Don’t do that to yourself. Leave room.
The space between the things we do is as important as the things we do. So leave some space between your tasks. Take a break to stretch, take a short walk outside, drink a glass of water, maybe do some simple breathing exercises. Enjoy the room and breathe.
Your overall goal is to live a life without most of the things that people fill your life with, and to give you room for what is really important. A life that is not always busy, hectic and stressful, but mindful contemplation, creation and connection with people and projects that you love. (Marc and I discuss this in more detail in the “Simplicity” chapter of the brand new volumes with 1,000 little things that make happy, successful people different.)
- Practice gratitude.
A simpler, more positive mindset can be created anytime, anywhere by rethinking. That’s right, frustration and stress come from the way you react, not the way things are. Adjust your attitude and the frustration and stress will go away. The simplest secret here is to leave every circumstance as it is at the moment instead of what you think and then make the best of it.
It’s about being thankful for what is and then working with it, not against it.
This kind of humble gratitude makes it easier to deal with life. Because happiness is easier when you stop complaining about your problems and you are thankful for all the problems you don’t have.
(Note: Marc and I adjust all of the above and implement them with our students in the “Back to Happy Course & Coaching” section.)
The floor is yours …
If you’re ready for that, I’d like to think about number 1 for a moment:
What is your perfect day like and how does it feel?
Please leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts.
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