No matter how hard I try, it seems I’m always racing out the door – squeezing into five minutes about 30 things I need to do before I hit the road. My whirling headspace looks something like this:
“OMG [expletive]…It’s late!…Gotta… put the laundry in the dryer, wash out the coffeepot, put the food away, fill up my water bottle, get my grocery list in case I have time to hit Trader Joes on the way home, brush my teeth, write the reminder note to take shirts out of the dryer, Mapquest and print out the directions, plug in my laptop, make sure the front door is locked… Darn, what was the other thing I needed to do?…I know I left iPod somewhere, where is that thing?… Oops, [expletive] forgot to put on the sunscreen…”
It’s a miracle that I can make it to my appointments on time. Early even. But I rarely leave room for error, and it’s anything but calm.
Laura Moore, a colleague and owner of the Boston-based clutter-clearing business ClutterClarity, has a system to help people find that calm. In the excerpt below, Laura helps her client, Sarah – an accomplished musician, teacher, and mother – inject spaciousness into her otherwise chaotic, multi-tasking, stressful life:
Sarah needed to learn how to protect her time. When she pulled out her calendar, I was surprised to see how small it was: about 4 X 8 inches when open, showing only months with little blocks for days. There was room to scribble in only a fraction of her days. It was crammed and chaotic, just like how she felt…
We talked and began to schedule her next three weeks. We first scheduled ‘fixed’ things, such as work and when to pick up her son from school. As I learned more about her ‘out of control life’ and what she wanted, I showed her what she could control:
- Travel – schedule at least 15 minutes more than you think you need
- Transitions – schedule at least 15 minutes open time between commitments
- Food – schedule regular times to eat and prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner
- Planning – schedule at least 30 minutes a day to take care of schedule and lists
- Sleep – Go to sleep by 11:00 PM, not 1:00 AM
- Morning – get up 1⁄2 hour before family for her important, quiet cup of coffee
- “Sacred bubble” time – schedule a 2-3 hour block of time per week to be alone and think
– Excerpted from “Creating a Spacious Calendar” by Laura Moore
Ahhh, thank you, Laura. I feel better already.
P.S. Need help creating and managing your to-do lists? I recommend Teux-Deux, which I wrote about in my post: To-Do List Made Easy. It’s an application that goes on your computer desktop. It’s insanely simple and I’m totally hooked!
Thank you and Laura for this posting. Just this morning I found myself having the frantic “chatter” in my mind about all that I had to do. And when I got to work, I reacted quickly to an email that I got. When I became aware that I was in “frantic mode,” (without being angry at myself) I stopped to think about whether all this was really necessary. Yes, I am busy, but I am not being chased by a man-eating lion here. Deep breath….frantic makes matters worse, calm makes things better. Everytime!
You’re going to love my next post, Patti, including the man-eating lion part. It’s like you were tuning in as I was writing it! Thank you so much for your regular messages. just putting a name to the feelings helps us all iighten our load.