3 Actionable Strategies to Create a Calmer Life

Adulting can be exhausting! Work (including household managers), paying bills, car maintenance, caring for others (children and/or parents), not to mention sleep and doing something fun. There just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day! And it’s even more complicated if you have a diagnosis that impairs your life.

What would it feel like if you had actionable strategies to make your life more calm? I suspect you’d breathe a sigh of relief!

I highly advise you to take a moment or two to take part in the Your turn exercises below. It will make a difference!

#1 DELINEATE BETWEEN REQUIRED AND OPTIONAL ACTIVITIES. I’m not saying that you actually want to do all of these things! However, some of them are non-negotiable as an adult: home maintenance, eating, regular doctor appointments, etc. Others are voluntary, though highly recommended: hobbies, social activities, and pursuits that fill your soul. Furthermore, in your professional life there is a difference between what is mandatory vs. discretionary.

That being said, those that are required don’t necessarily have to be done by YOU!

This is where the skill of delegation comes in handy!

My personal examples:

• As a homeowner with a yard, living in a neighborhood that has a Home Owners Association (HOA), I’m obligated to keep my grass a reasonable height. Since I don’t like yard-work, I elect to pay someone to mow my lawn. I have neighbors who take care of their own yard because they find it restful. Others in the neighborhood mow their own lawn because they don’t want to pay someone to do it.
• I have bills to pay. Don’t we all! It’s important to me to pay bills on time and not to be overdrawn in my checking account. So I have a bill-paying system. I also have a bookkeeper for my personal fiances. (Not to be confused with the bookkeeper for my coaching business.) While I can balance a checkbook and reconcile a credit card, I choose to delegate those tasks so I have time to do things that interest me.

My professional examples:

• Above, I briefly mentioned that I have a bookkeeper for Janice Russell Coaching & Consulting. This was my first hire when I was able to add staff in 2005. Whew, was I glad to get that off my plate!
• Having a social media person is highly recommended for many businesses. While I am able to use several social media platforms, I choose to delegate most of this to my virtual assistant (VA). And I plan to increase what I assign! Just because I allocate, doesn’t mean that I can’t do it when I want or need to, it just takes the burden of doing it on a regular basis off my plate.

Some of my clients choose to delegate housecleaning, certain errands, content writing, website development, and more.

In these examples, the “what” is essential and “how” is a choice.

Your turn! Create a list of required vs. optional activities in your personal life.

#2 DIFFERENTIATE IMPORTANCE VS. URGENCY. Did you immediately think of Steven Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey promoted a system that many people believe was originally created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and aptly called the Eisenhower Box. Want to know more? Check the article links about the Eisenhower Box below this article.

Important tasks gain their significance because they are directly related to our personal or professional values and long-term goals. Importance is all about relevancy and results. This is why I encourage my clients to complete a values activity. When their values are clear, it’s much easier to determine the most important tasks.

Urgent tasks get their pressing nature because we feel their immediacy. Examples include emails, texts, phone calls, etc. While they are about immediate action, these activities often seem more burning because they are right in front of you or because they are “driven” by someone else. However, urgency is only about time and specific deadlines.

While a task can be both important and urgent, it’s not as common as we believe. The issue is that we let outside forces influence our perception of the significance and time-driven nature of many activities. This misunderstanding often results in a frantic lifestyle.

Here are several examples:

• Medical: In December, you get a notice that your primary care doctor will no longer be in your insurance network starting January 1st. If you stay with that doctor, you’d need to self-pay, which is expensive. So it’s both important and urgent to find a new primary care doctor. You have a deadline and you don’t want to wait until you are sick to search for a new doctor.
• Tech: If your internet service isn’t reliable, moving to a different provider is both important and urgent. However, if you’re only looking for better pricing, the time and effort to research and then switch services may outweigh the monetary savings.
• Professional: You publish a monthly online newsletter with three articles. It’s the middle of the month and you haven’t written any articles yet! You feel it’s important to send the newsletter, because you said you would. And it’s becoming urgent because the end of the month is quickly approaching. However, you’re also meeting with clients (making money!) and fulfilling other obligations. You could decide to only publish one or two articles this month and fill in the other space with links to related information. You could decide to skip a month–after all, you’re the boss!

Your turn! Take that list from #1 and differentiate the importance and urgency of each activity.

#3 DEFINE ACTIVITY SHIFTS DURING LIFE-DISRUPTING SITUATIONS.

It’s important to periodically re-evaluate your activities since your perception of what’s significant to you will change. This doesn’t mean that an endeavor is right or wrong. It simply indicates that something in your life has changed and adjustments need to be made accordingly.

Here are some examples:

• If you’re involved in a Thursday night book club and you change to a job with a longer commute, you’ll have to evaluate if that alters your involvement in the book club. You might be able to leave work early on those days and still participate. You could persuade the group to move to a weekend meeting time. Another choice is to leave the book club and change to another enjoyable activity.
• You have a group of friends you play tennis with on a regular basis. It’s great to get exercise and have time together. Then the aches and pains of aging set in. Some people aren’t able to play as often. Others need to stop altogether. You could “dissolve” this tennis group. The ones who are able might continue playing. Or the group might decide to find another type of exercise in which they can all participate.
• A friend invites you to an immersive art experience which includes a light and sound show. You have chronic migraines that would likely be triggered by the show yet you haven’t seen this friend in a long time. You can either go to the experience and hope it doesn’t trigger a migraine. Or you could tell her that while the show sounds like fun, since it might lead to a migraine, you’d like to suggest all alternate activity.

Your turn! Review the lists from #1 and #2. If there are activities that no longer serve a purpose at this time, discontinue them – temporarily or permanently.

What is one insight you got from doing the “Your turn!” exercises?

Leave your insight below. Questions are also welcome!

Articles about the Eisenhower Box

• How to be More Productive and Eliminate Time Wasting Activities by Using the “Eisenhower Box” by James Clear
• How to Prioritize Tasks With the Eisenhower Matrix Productivity System from MakeUseOf