In her book on simplifying your life, The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work, Christine Carter, PhD, has many great suggestions on how to scale back your commitments, implement new habits, and rework all of your drudgery-filled "must-dos" into only "want-to-dos." She teaches us how to make changes to create our Sweet Spot to carve out the life we want, not the one we feel chained to.
In the book's introduction she discusses the fact that even though we have created many technological advances that make our daily lives easier, those automated processes have also made it easier for us to think we should be working more, not less:
"Life today is a pressure cooker. Even the most talented -- and privileged -- people are struggling to "balance" relentless work with family commitments, to manage a constant flood of information and emails, to cope with extraordinary stress levels.
"Most people have actually lost time for pleasure compared to our ancestors a hundred year ago -- despite the fact that in the olden days, they had to hand-wash their laundry."
"This common sense is so widely ignored that overwork -- and the problems with health, happiness, and productivity that it brings -- is epidemic. At the same time that our lives have gotten easier in many ways -- with devices to wash the dishes, learn just about anything, have our groceries delivered -- it has also gotten easier to work more."
Although she is speaking here of employment -- working for money -- many of us today are overworked with other types of commitments as well: community work, kids' scheduled activities, social events. So, how to fight the epidemic? Carter suggests:
- Implement daily unplugged times: no computer, phones, or screens of any time to give your self (and your device) time to recharge
- Scale back on commitments: try to make a list of your top five priorities in life and only commit to activities that support these priorities. For example, maintaining your own health, spending more time as a family, helping to feed the hungry, and a professional goal -- and then align your calendar with commitments that help you spend time on these goals.
- Take recess: if you make time for what you love or need (even if this is just a nap) you give yourself a chance to recharge. If you spend even a small amount of time focusing on what you want to do you actually will be more productive while tackling your must-dos.
- Accept your routines -- so what if you like to eat the same thing for breakfast everyday. Or you like to wear one type of outfit. Or take the same vacation every year. Accept these routines and enjoy them and it will free up more time in your life instead of feeling like you should be doing things the way someone else is doing them.
These are just a few easy-to-implement ways you can begin to find your sweet spot in life. Small changes add up to big changes.
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