If you think you’re too busy to read this article, then perhaps you should take time out to do it anyway! Recently I have been far too busy.
On a Mission
Typically working on far to many things at the same time, with a million others on my mind. Even in my sleep I am on a trip, giving a talk or simply meeting deadlines. Projects and tasks were blurring into one another. I was simply too busy to even write a ‘to do list’. I conned myself into thinking I could remember everything. One thing was for sure; I had a mission: To get things done, no matter the price. One day a close friends pointed out the risk of expiring as a result of work overload.
Burnout
I did remember reading about ‘burnout’. People driven by ‘Getting There First’ thinking it is ‘now or never’. Often far too little sleep to avoid wasting any time, this so-called fast-track lifestyle led to an untimely death for some. I recalled some of the symptoms:
• A compulsion to prove oneself by working harder
• Fatigue and run down – neglecting one’s own needs
• Anger at those making demands
• Cynicism, negativity, and irritability
Take your Time
When thinking of time as a given we perhaps exactly therefore manage it so badly. ‘Hurry Slowly’ is the key and I decided to make my own list:
Personal
• Take time out to think
• Listen rather than talk – breathe
• Take a relaxed bath instead of a hurried shower
• Meditate or have a massage regularly
• Don’t feel responsible for things outside your control
Family
• Make a to do list, then cut it by 50%
• Tidy up and give things away you don’t need
• Don’t procrastinate, get unpleasant tasks done first
• Don’t plan everything, be spontaneous
• Sit down and eat your breakfast
Friends
• Throw a party and order food in
• Meet one to one at times
• Don’t do things you don’t like
• Say no once in a while
• Leave a party if you are bored
Work
• Turn off your mobile phone from time to time
• Love your job or find another
• Only do one thing at a time
• Always take a lunch break
• Work late if necessary, but don’t take your work home
Food
• Buy in bulk online
• Top up with fresh quality food locally
• Bake a cake or cook a nice dish, make some extra for the freezer
• Don’t eat on the go
• Chew your food properly before swallowing
My Future Mantra
It used to be: ‘I think and therefore I am’, then it was ‘I shop and therefore I am’, and then it was ‘I work and therefore I am’. My new mantra has recently become ‘I feel and therefore I am’. I now know that one should never be too busy to simply BE.
