The mind requires a balance between work and leisure activities. You need to feel pleasure, challenge, reward, failure (in order to appreciate success), and so on. Unfortunately, we feed our minds very poorly. In the last decade, workaholics abound, with people working two and three jobs just to make ends meet, or 60 to 80 hours every week for fear of losing your job if you don’t.
You need to gain a new perspective on the needs of the mind — it needs to be exercised vigorously (work) and relaxed often (leisure activities and rest), just like a muscle in the body. Too much work causes your mind to produce stress and fatigue, regardless of how much sleep you get. Too much leisure, your mind produces depression and apathy. It’s easy to see why an imbalance is detrimental to achieving your success.
A balance allows your mind to function at peak performance, including that Johari Window Quadrant that No One Knows, the area that you go to between your thoughts during meditation. A balanced life allows you to more easily connect to the universe, the core element in achieving your success.
The key to achieving a balanced lifestyle is to eliminate chaos from your life. Chaos not only takes up time in your physical life, it takes up mental time and capacity. Chaos is the element that generally induces stress. It causes sleepless nights and interferes with meditation. It keeps your mind moving a mile a minute.
Eliminating chaos from your life and achieving balance eliminates stress and mental fatigue, allowing you to focus on important things. It gives you the freedom to create, a necessary element of success. Another great thing about eliminating chaos is that it frees up time that may be used in other endeavors, including working toward your success. How do you eliminate chaos? By simplifying your life. Clutter causes chaos. Get rid of clutter, and you simplify your life.
Eliminating Chaos at WorkWhen you simplify your work life, you work smarter, have more time to do what’s important, and work less hours. Though your work situation is different from anyone else’s, here are a few ideas to consider for simplifying your life and reducing or eliminating chaos, clutter and stress:
• Work less hours by working more efficiently. If you’re working all the time, you have no time to be still, allowing your mind to think or create successfully.
• Schedule time (or just take it when necessary) to be still in order to clear your head and allow the “creative juices” to flow. You’ll find that ideas and solutions formulate much easier and faster.
• Use time more efficiently. Clean your desk at the end of each day and put away papers and files. Create a to-do list, too. The next workday, you’re ready to start fresh, can find everything you need, and know where to begin working immediately. All you need do is get your coffee and get started.
• Take your vacations and stay home when you’re ill. You do not work effectively or efficiently, when you are fatigued or not up to par. Plus, you give your illness to others at work, costing the company in more lost production than just your one or two days sick leave. Vacations rejuvenate you, if planned correctly (don’t wear yourself out doing more than time allows or working at home the whole time — do something fun and relaxing).
• Consider the different work alternatives (against your chosen success): full time, part time, telecommuting, don’t work, flex time, or working for yourself at home.
• How about a different job or different line of work to accommodate or add to your success.• You may need to simplify your work life by finding another job with a worker-friendly environment.
• For all meetings, always ask, “Do I really need to do this?” Avoid needless meetings that drain time and energy.
• Minimize the number of lunch dates and work-related gatherings (either during or outside of work). Take your lunch every day and do something relaxing. Don’t work through lunch, and don’t eat at your desk.
• Give yourself a break each morning and afternoon, even if only to get your own coffee. Take a couple minutes to chat with co-workers (but don’t overdo it). Write the breaks “inconspicuously” into your schedule, or use your computer’s calendar alarm and label it CB for coffee break.
• Take an occasional pause and breathe deeply; stand up and stretch. It’s easy to work for over four hours without realizing it. Use that computer calendar alarm to alert you periodically throughout the day.
• Eliminate distractions. Do your personal business at home, including personal telephone calls and emails. Minimize co-worker socializing. If you have a secretary, have him/her screen your visitors. Stand when someone enters your office — invite those you need to do business with to sit; all others, continue standing, and (after they have a quick say) let them know you’re on deadline and would love to talk later, hinting that it’s time for them to leave.
• Manage the people you work for, with and supervise by setting boundaries. Never automatically say yes. Don’t accept unreasonable requests or problems from others — let them solve them or, at least, bring you a reasonable solution. If you don’t have a quick answer for someone requesting something unreasonable, say, “Let me think about that, and I’ll get back to you.”
• Manage your workload. Many people do more than their boss expects, either thinking they have to or that it will impress the boss. Eighty percent of your boss’ satisfaction is related to only 20 percent of your work performance. That means you should focus 80% of your time on that 20% of work. If necessary, ask your boss what’s important to him for you to accomplish.
• Don’t make promises you cannot keep, especially meeting impossible deadlines.• If you get overwhelmed at work, stop and leave your desk for a few minutes. Walk around the block or up/down a flight of stairs, or go for coffee. Breathe deeply and relax your mind. If frustrated, laugh out loud until your body relaxes and your feel refreshed.
• Don’t procrastinate. Handle a piece of paper only once, whenever possible. You’ll find the work flows more smoothly, there’s less frustrations, and your inbox gets cleared faster.
• Cut down on the paper. Take your name off “nice to have” routing lists. Cancel any subscriptions (including those through the Internet and email) that aren’t absolutely necessary (magazines, business reports, and so on). If you have a secretary or assistant, train him/her to read any media you need and highlight important information for you.
• Reduce the business junk mail that robs you of time and energy9. Send personal mail to your home address, and work mail to your work address. Whenever you order anything or make charitable donations, request that your information not be sold or passed on to anyone else.
• Eliminate email overload. Be selective about giving out your email address. Don’t put it on your business card. Ask to be deleted from email mailing lists. Keep a Hotmail or Yahoo mail account to use when signing up for anything on the Internet. Keep your emails focused only on work. Ask co-workers to keep emails short and for business only. Turn off the beep that announces each new email. Schedule email checking periodically, using your computer calendar alarm. Unsubscribe to spam or ask your IT person to catch it at the server and report it to the appropriate Internet abuse web sites (they can get this information from your company’s isp).
9 Go to www.metrokc.gov/dnrp/swd/nwpc/bizjunkmail.htm for resources to get your name off mail lists. Do a search for “reduce junk mail” (in quotes) for other resources. Call 1-888-5OptOut to request Equifax, Trans Union, Novas and Experian not use your name for credit card offers. On junk mail you receive, call the 800 number they provide and request to be taken off their list and not to sell it to anyone else.
• Cut down on your telephone time. Don’t give out your cell phone or beeper number at work, and don’t have them printed on your business card. If you use your cell phone for both home and business and must give someone, including a client, an alternative contact number, use a beeper number (otherwise, they will continue to use your cell number, even when you’re away from work). If your company supplies your cell phone for business use, you will have a harder time eliminating this time consumer.
Have your secretary or assistant screen your calls and take messages. Just like emails, schedule time to listen to telephone messages and do call backs periodically during the day. Don’t play telephone tag, use voicemail and leave messages.
Eliminating Chaos at HomeIf you review the listed items above, many translate effectively to your home life.
• Do you schedule “think” time? How about not trying to do everything in one day?
• Are you always on the run? Must each of your children participate in five different activities each week? Can you combine errands together? Shop only once weekly or every two weeks, rather than daily? What else can you eliminate or reduce?
• Leave your briefcase at work. Don’t bring it home, and don’t work overtime (especially, weekends). Work shouldn’t cut into your leisure time, especially when you have a family. (Many workaholics work to avoid these relationships; or they believe they must continue to provide “more” for the family, who would much prefer the person at home.)
• Take the path of least resistance that still satisfies the situation.
• Develop a quality home life. Do fun things with family and friends.
• Cultivate new friendships and interests.
• Screen phone calls at home. Use a message machine or the telephone company’s voice messaging. Eliminate call waiting telephone features — always know who is on the other end of the line before answering. Don’t feel that you need to speak to every person that calls. Leave call backs to convenient times. No matter how upsetting, never take business calls at home, unless a case of life or death. Handle all business during work hours.
• Turn off the cell phone, when enjoying leisure activities. It’s not only annoying to other people, but it stops the flow of creativity and relaxation of the mind.
• Get rid of junk mail. See the work section on this.• Control your email and spam. See the work section on this.
• Cut down on your television time. Do activities that are more pleasurable. Spend time with your family.
• Make several copies of the following table.
• Using a different table for work and home, do the following for each.
• In column one, list all the events or situations that take up your time, especially if they use a lot of it or cause energy drains.
• In column two, list for each item in column one what you might do to change the situation. Like the examples in this chapter, what alternatives might you put in place to get rid of the clutter and chaos?
• In column three, make a plan of action and do it.
Current Situation Possible Alternatives Plan of Action