You’re on holidays, your first getaway in ages actually, brimming with tension and residual fatigue; a good time seems almost impossible, as smart devices introduce your boss to the concept of unlimited availability. Pity your salary doesn’t meet similar expectations.
The sun rises and sets, over and over, yet you never seem to make it far from the hotel; wi-fi is rarely portable and your inbox is flooding. Letting go is hard to do and you’re tied up inside and out with stress and responsibility. Too busy.
Once described as happy-go-lucky, the life of the party, a lover of life and all things wonderful, you suddenly find yourself without a moment to spare and lose touch with everyone and everything. Including your spouse, children, friends and family. Your life has become a task list, mediated by an ever increasing expectation of right-here-right-now and the joys of technology; a relaxed lifestyle, or any lifestyle other than work, becomes a distant memory to take off the shelf from time to time.
Stop mourning what you’ve lost and find your inner energy again; here are some ways you can begin to un-busy your life.
Life Coaching
Life coaching has recently experienced a renaissance. Think about it, our lives often dangle by tenuous threads, threatening to unravel at anything unexpected or over-weighted. And you know you’re the monarch of taking on too much. Have you seen those successful people on the TV, crowing and grinning, content with their lucky break or long term investment? Everything seems to just fall into their lap, doesn’t it? You can’t help but wonder how they did it; after all, they aren’t any different from you when you get down to it. Secret truth? Almost every successful person in any context has a life coach or a business mentor. Having an outside perspective on your life can be one of the most helpful steps you take. The life experts at Talking Minds list some of the areas that life coaching focuses on:
- Strengths building
- Focussed goal and outcome setting.
- Values assessment and alignment
- Communication and rapport skills.
- Motivation building and overcoming procrastination
- Identifying blockages to success.
- Work/life balancing exercises.
- Time management and self-management
Declutter your home
There is a huge connection between your internal and external environment. If your house is a mess, chances are your mind is a mess. One area of life spills into another. Go through your home and get rid of anything that you have not used in over one year. A spacious and clean living area will have a significant impact on your psyche and your emotions.
Less Multitasking
There is a ton of conversation brewing over the validity and effectiveness of multitasking. The consensus in research is affirming that multitasking only weakens your focus and ability compared to doing one task at a time. A balanced approach is to narrow all of your tasks down to 3 things. So whichever you determine to be most important and most relevant to your desires, go ahead and prune your work down to three. Then get them finished and out of the way before you move onto anything else. You will want to do this also with your daily tasks- get up in the morning and after you have made your list, underline the three most important that you will want to get done for the day.
Embrace solitude
Take some time out each day to spend by yourself. It is intriguing to see how many successful entrepreneurs attribute meditation as a key to their success and allowing them to feel less busy and stressed. Whether you decide on a ritual in the morning or later in the evening, completely disconnect from all forms of social media and take ten long deep breaths. Notice when thoughts enter into your mind and distract you and pull your mind back to solely focusing on your breath.
Remember that it is a daily challenge to deal with busyness in life, but putting into place these habits will certainly allow you to gain the upper hand and control the day rather than have the day control you.
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Doggy Day Care is another way of helping un busy your life. Paddington Pups helps people every day with the worries of what they are going to do with their dog if they have trades men coming into the house or they are away for a long period of the day. Grooming your dog can be quite a bit of work so our clients love that we can help them with that as well.