A stress free life and time management are inextricably linked. You cannot have one without the other. But perhaps not in the way you would first imagine a stress free life or understand time management.
In talk therapy, my free lifecoaching sessions although I am not a doctor or qualified psychologist I get many of my patients to do this exercise.
Close your eyes and imagine your life with no clocks. Just all the time in the world for you. Imagine what you would do. For many it's takes time ironically for people to think about their answer.
The truth is, you would walk more, relax more, think more, enjoy more and stress would become a thing of your past. Stress happens when we or others place unnecessary pressure to get a task accomplished in a given time frame and then allow fear of failure instead of rational thinking to generate varying degrees of anxiety or panic depending on our level of desire for a positive outcome and our personality type.
If we can accept that adrenaline surges in the body cause fat and sugar to be released into your blood stream with stress, which produces adrenaline, we are going to get fatter and more miserable.
So common sense tells us if we make time to meditate in our daily routine, just like doing the washing up or taking the kids to school, peace and quiet will become a part of that routine too and our life will become stress free.
Peace and quiet equals NO STRESS.
So how to make time for ourselves?
Venus Cow says “Delegate, delegate, delegate.”
As long as you just begrudgingly keep doing things for others you will always be a slave. If you are a busy mum with a hectic household, start a rota and get everyone working as a team, building new confidence and life skills for everyone involved. If you are a workaholic and find yourself just wanting to drop and flop in front of the box with a TV dinner get up one hour earlier in the morning and go for a run. Just by changing one thing like that will change the rest of your day. Mixing things up is not only fun but really empowering. When you manage to get up earlier than scheduled check how you're feeling that evening before you go to sleep. Chances are it will be more empowered and accomplished and you deserve that pat on the back.
We are all slaves to the clock, working to live but most of us are not doing the living bit. There is no point in working 24/7 to get money to buy things you never have time to use or enjoy, the job, the possessions, the lifestyle, the treadmill just causing you unnecessary status anxiety.
Venus Cow says, "Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."
A good thing to change, that will make your time feel more like your own, is if instead of killing yourself all year to pay for one two week holiday somewhere in the middle, that you are so exhausted by the time you get there you miss the holiday recuperating; take a bunch of long weekends instead and spread the two weeks over the year. Doing this will also allow you to take up a hobby or activity, anything you like or have always wanted to try, running, cycling, tennis, swimming, yoga, windsurfing, water skiing, surfing, skateboarding, slack lining etc and keep it up throughout the year.
Think about it this way. Getting fitter and healthier will save you time on your life and less stress will also prolong your life. If you can find time for yourself you will be amazed at what can be achieved slowly over time, getting the body you want, the lift you need and the life you desire.
Venus Cow says, "Commit 10,000 hours to anything and you'll become a master."
If you continue to spend your life saying I don’t know where the time went I can guarantee you will wake up one day old, tired and regretful.
Photo by: Raphaël LR Unsplash