Breaking Through

By Roy Assad

The majority of us are living lives that have hit the ceiling of complexity. We have personal and business cell phones, home and office faxes, home and office email addresses, and endless to-do lists scribbled on sticky-notes that occupy every available corner of our lives.

When we see another professional strolling along with an attitude that screams No worries it makes us wonder how do they do it?

I can tell you that peace of mind isn’t something that comes naturally. You’ve got to work for it just like you work for everything else. Here are a few simple strategies, based on the Mission Control (HCG partner, www.missioncontrol.com) principles, to help you break through your chaotic outer life to the other side of inner calm:

• Make a list of all the incompletes in your life.
• Make a list of all the things you tolerate in your life
• Make a list of all the things that are repetitive in your life

Let me explain what this means.

Incompletes are things that haven’t been done but need to be done. They can be big things like I haven’t spoken to my daughter in a year and I need to call. Or they can be little things like I need to change the light bulb in the lamp on my night table. List everything. Don’t worry about how you’ll fix it, just write it down.

The second list is a list of things you tolerate. We typically tolerate people – you know that guy or girl who always dampens your spirits but you hang around anyway because…well, you’re not sure why but you do? That’s toleration. Put him or her on your list. Sometimes we tolerate things like an old car with no heat or air or a house that’s too small for our family. Again don’t worry about how you’ll fix it, just write it down.

Finally, make a list of all the things you do every month that you’re going to do next month and the month after. Things like get my hair cut, pay the rent, tune up the car etc, are monthly events. Spend some time with this list because it’s important to write down everything. Don’t skip anything, no matter how mundane or silly you think it is.

Now that you have your lists create three folders labeled as follows:

• Things I am doing NOW
• Things I am NOT doing now
• Things I am NEVER doing now

Okay, time to put our lists to good use. Go back through your three lists and start dropping each item in the appropriate folder.

A word of caution about the folders: The NOW folder can only be filled with items that you’ll actually do – today, now. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can do more today than you really can. Otherwise, you’ll feel guilty and that defeats the purpose of this project.
Everything that doesn’t go into the NOW folder goes into the other two. The NEVER folder is reserved for far-fetched things that are neither urgent not important.

Once you’ve filed everything into your folders, your job is to complete what’s in the NOW folder. At the end of every day the NOW folder should be empty. This will give you a great sense of satisfaction because you’ll actually see what you’ve accomplished that day.

In the morning, review your NOT folder to see what you are choosing to do that day. This is a deceptively simple mind trick you’re playing on yourself. Instead of beating yourself up for things you couldn’t find time to do each day, you’re telling yourself that you choose to do certain things and choose not to do other things.

If you commit yourself to this easy system you’ll begin to see your attitude change dramatically. You won’t feel overwhelmed any more and you’ll face each morning with a sense of possibility and wonder instead of stress and dread.

This, my friends, is just the beginning. In the next article I will address how to deal with the things we tolerate and how to automate and delegate to make life simpler and find loads of free time we didn’t know we had.

So stay tuned!