An Alternative to Calendar Bankruptcy

I couldn't have said it better myself! Thanks to Erin for this insight.

Four steps to uncluttering your schedule

1. Lose your calendar.
2. Recall very little from your lost calendar.
3. Have people in your life who are laid back and won’t send you reminders about your upcoming engagements with them.
4. Don’t call anyone to see if you have upcoming engagements planned.

Obviously, these four suggestions are a joke. You should always keep a copy of your calendar — a daily backup for a digital calendar and a regular scan/copy of a print calendar — so a situation like this would be avoided.

However, I think we can all recall a time in our lives when we wished we could lose our calendars. We feel so overwhelmed by our obligations that we long for a way to be set free of obligations without any guilt.

Instead of chucking your calendar out the window, the next time you feel overwhelmed by your schedule try these steps to alleviate some stress:

1. Say “no” to as many future offers as possible until you feel things are becoming manageable again. You’ll need to say “yes” to things that keep you out of jail and from being fired, but most everything else can temporarily be put on hold. You’re also free to change your mind, just remember there is much less stress involved with changing your “no” to a “yes” than having to back out of something you’ve already committed to.
2. Review your schedule and see if there is anything you can gracefully back out of without much guilt or repercussions. Then, cancel the obligation. At this point, it’s probably best not to reschedule.
3. Review your schedule and see if there are any appointments that can be moved to a better time. An early morning appointment might be more manageable as a lunch meeting.
4. Identify the obligation on your schedule that is causing you the most dread, and make a plan to eliminate or reduce the stress surrounding it in the future. Knowing that something you dislike will be minimized in the near future often makes it easier to address in the present.

None of these steps will completely eliminate stress, but hopefully they will help to reduce it to a manageable level. Once you feel that things are back under control, you can start to say “yes” to non-essential obligations again, if that is what you wish to do.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland's Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

http://bit.ly/h5beSQ

How Many Tools in your Toolbox?

If you're like me you have about a gazzillion tools in your toolbox - everything from hammers, to electrical tape, to some strange little tool that measures the diameter of things. But how many do I use on a regular basis? What are the core tools that I just cannot do without?

Well, I'm not an electrician, so the electical tape is out. I'm not a whoever-it-is that needs to know the diameter of things, so that's out. Even the allen wrenches and those coveted channel-lock pliers aren't used that often. No, the basics tools for me are a hammar, a pair of pliers, a flat-head and philips-head screwdriver.

These are the things that go in the top section of my tool box - that part that's the first place you go to for tools, the most accessible, and it usually even has a nice little handle so you can lift it out and take it to where the work is.

Now that's not to say that the other tools aren't useful. I dare say that I bought them special in order to do specific jobs and without them my life would have been very ... well... annoying, to say the least. But they don't sit in the top section - I don't use them all the time.

I learned a long time ago to keep them out of the top section for the simple reason that if they're there, they crowd out those tools that I need most of the time and makes it impossible to find them. I scrape my knuckles looking for them, get frustrated, starting dumping things on the floor and generally waste a lot of time.

The same is true for Time Management tools.

There are a myriad of tools, tips, and tricks out there. And they're all wonderful. They are especially rampant in electronic systems, but even paper systems can begin to overwhelm you with different pages and sections, and if you're not careful, they will crowd out your basic Time Management tools and you will soon get frustrated and stop doing your Time Management all together.

Pare down! I continually focus on the three main tools that will ensure that my day is organized and my time is managed efficiently:

• A Task List
• A Calendar
• A Journal

When I get overwhelmed and Time Management has escaped me, it's usually because I've cluttered up my tool box. When this happens to you, take control - clean out your tool box and get back to the basics. You'll find you're back on track in no time.

The Biggest Enemy

I have found that the biggest enemy to Time Management is that sense you have at the end of the day that you got absolutely nothing accomplished; that your day has just been a waste of time.

You can combat that with one easy exercise: pick a time each day at the end of the day (if you're an office oriented person, that might be around 5:30; if you work at home or freelance, it might be later in the day - closer to supper) to review your day. Make sure it's the same time each day.

Take just 15 minutes to review your task list, calendar and journal for the day. Look over your task list, add those myriad of things that you did do that didn't start out on your list. Check off the things you accomplished, delete the ones that are no longer relevent, and schedule forward the ones that must be relegated to another day.

Now take a fresh look at all that you did accomplish today! Smile! You did a great job! You've gained back control of the day and you can look back with pride in a job well done. Now go get a good night's sleep... you deserve it!