As we move from the lazy days of summer into the crisp autumn air, energy starts to shift, we move though the natural cycles of the year and within us we start to feel urgency. Suddenly we re-connect to all that we were doing before the lazy days kicked in. Maybe it’s an old pattern ingrained in us from our childhood days that September is about the excitement of new beginnings. With new beginnings naturally there may be more to do, and the need for more discipline. September is the stepping-stone to the final quarter of the year. It seems just yesterday that we were so clearly setting new goals to achieve just a few short months from now.
How are you doing with those goals? How are you doing with fitting in time for yourself, your home environment, your career, your family and friends? How are you doing on your own personal development, your connection with something greater than you, with your health and well-being? Do you integrate time for fun in your life?
How are you doing fitting this all into 24 hours per day and the 7 days per week that we get on a steady basis? Does just reading this have you feeling overwhelmed?
Are you generally in the state of overwhelm or are you someone who feels like you’re in the flow of life?
There are many ways to approach overwhelm. At the foundation of overwhelm is the simple fact that the details of our lives require our attention and focus. Additionally we sometimes have an actual crisis happening, and generally people don’t have time allocated for most of this or we create overwhelm by putting too much pressure on ourselves and our time by the demands we put on both.
Here is one way to organize yourself and your time in order to reduce overwhelm in your life while allowing for all areas of your life to be satisfied. It’s important to create a relationship with time and to set an environment for your goals and desires to be met.
Starting today, you can look at your calendar and optimize its use. I’m talking about the actual calendar you use to schedule with.
Now that we’re entering a new season, this is a great time to re-visit your schedule and block out chunks of time for the things in life YOU want to give priority to; the details of life you want and need to allocate time for. I like to use color for this and suggest you try it also to see what you think. (Please note that this is quite easy to set up with a calendar application on a computer like iCal on a Mac, Outlook on a PC, or any other application that allows you to assign colors to events.)
Action Steps:
Choose some colors to work with. E.g.:
Green = Work
Red = Appointments
Blue = Child related
Orange = Personal fun and relaxation
Pink = Vacation
Purple = Helpers (bookkeeper, assistant, housekeeper, gardener…)
Think about the hours you need to be at work or the times you prefer to work if you create your own work schedule and block out those times in your calendar. Be honest. If you’re meant to work from 9-5, but actually work 9-6:30, block out what is typically true. If you’re self employed, break your blocks up by client time and office time, and if you go back to work at 9pm to do some office work for an hour three days per week you might want to block that off too. You ultimately want your calendar to represent what’s accurate.
Continue the process and add your appointments, the times helpers come to your home or office that you want to be aware of, add your fun activities, etc. Go through your own set of categories using your chosen colors.
When you’re done with this process you can start to notice and evaluate a few things.
Are your colors balanced? Do you have enough and not too much work time in, pleasure time, do you have appointments set to take care of yourself and the details of life, do you have the help you need set up and do you have any vacation time coming up? Again, using your categories look to see if you have balance in your life, which will give you renewal and eliminate overwhelm.
Next, look to see if there is enough space in your calendar that is void of color blocks. You actually need to have empty blocks each day and I would suggest throughout the day leaving mini empty spots. This is for the mental and emotional renewal and for the spill over, for the unexpected, for the unanticipated, and for the crises large or small that might show up. If you don’t have open un-scheduled time, you are bound to feel overwhelm sooner than later.
Take some time with your calendar; create it to reflect all that you love in your life. Revisit and edit this as you go through your days and weeks, always giving yourself some fun and recreation, time with your family and friends and open unscheduled time for the unexpected good and challenging moments of life.
Enjoy your days,
Maria
Overwhelm and Your Relationship to Time
As we move from the lazy days of summer into the crisp autumn air, energy starts to shift, we move though the natural cycles of the year and within us we start to feel urgency. Suddenly we re-connect to all that we were doing before the lazy days kicked in. Maybe it’s an old pattern ingrained in us from our childhood days that September is about the excitement of new beginnings. With new beginnings naturally there may be more to do, and the need for more discipline. September is the stepping-stone to the final quarter of the year. It seems just yesterday that we were so clearly setting new goals to achieve just a few short months from now.
How are you doing with those goals? How are you doing with fitting in time for yourself, your home environment, your career, your family and friends? How are you doing on your own personal development, your connection with something greater than you, with your health and well-being? Do you integrate time for fun in your life?
How are you doing fitting this all into 24 hours per day and the 7 days per week that we get on a steady basis? Does just reading this have you feeling overwhelmed?
Are you generally in the state of overwhelm or are you someone who feels like you’re in the flow of life?
There are many ways to approach overwhelm. At the foundation of overwhelm is the simple fact that the details of our lives require our attention and focus. Additionally we sometimes have an actual crisis happening, and generally people don’t have time allocated for most of this or we create overwhelm by putting too much pressure on ourselves and our time by the demands we put on both.
Here is one way to organize yourself and your time in order to reduce overwhelm in your life while allowing for all areas of your life to be satisfied. It’s important to create a relationship with time and to set an environment for your goals and desires to be met.
Starting today, you can look at your calendar and optimize its use. I’m talking about the actual calendar you use to schedule with.
Now that we’re entering a new season, this is a great time to re-visit your schedule and block out chunks of time for the things in life YOU want to give priority to; the details of life you want and need to allocate time for. I like to use color for this and suggest you try it also to see what you think. (Please note that this is quite easy to set up with a calendar application on a computer like iCal on a Mac, Outlook on a PC, or any other application that allows you to assign colors to events.)
Action Steps:
Choose some colors to work with. E.g.:
Green = Work
Red = Appointments
Blue = Child related
Orange = Personal fun and relaxation
Pink = Vacation
Purple = Helpers (bookkeeper, assistant, housekeeper, gardener…)
Think about the hours you need to be at work or the times you prefer to work if you create your own work schedule and block out those times in your calendar. Be honest. If you’re meant to work from 9-5, but actually work 9-6:30, block out what is typically true. If you’re self employed, break your blocks up by client time and office time, and if you go back to work at 9pm to do some office work for an hour three days per week you might want to block that off too. You ultimately want your calendar to represent what’s accurate.
Continue the process and add your appointments, the times helpers come to your home or office that you want to be aware of, add your fun activities, etc. Go through your own set of categories using your chosen colors.
When you’re done with this process you can start to notice and evaluate a few things.
Are your colors balanced? Do you have enough and not too much work time in, pleasure time, do you have appointments set to take care of yourself and the details of life, do you have the help you need set up and do you have any vacation time coming up? Again, using your categories look to see if you have balance in your life, which will give you renewal and eliminate overwhelm.
Next, look to see if there is enough space in your calendar that is void of color blocks. You actually need to have empty blocks each day and I would suggest throughout the day leaving mini empty spots. This is for the mental and emotional renewal and for the spill over, for the unexpected, for the unanticipated, and for the crises large or small that might show up. If you don’t have open un-scheduled time, you are bound to feel overwhelm sooner than later.
Take some time with your calendar; create it to reflect all that you love in your life. Revisit and edit this as you go through your days and weeks, always giving yourself some fun and recreation, time with your family and friends and open unscheduled time for the unexpected good and challenging moments of life.
Enjoy your days,
Maria