Blog

flickr.com/bradley j

How do you decide what to spend time on? How do you go about deciding what you should you do today, over the next week or month, or – in the big picture – over the coming years and decades? And how’s that working for you?

Take a look at the tagline to our e-book:

Delete the Stress. Do What Matters. Enjoy Life.

Since we started developing Time Native, we’ve heard from hundreds of people about their frustrations and aspirations in the realm of time. Virtually all of them pointed to one of the three categories in our tag line.

• I’m always worried about being late.
• I don’t have time for my husband and kids!
• Life isn’t fun anymore.

 
If these sound like you, you might want to get curious about whether the things you do delete stress, matter to you, or are enjoyable. Yes, I know, this sounds almost too simple, but sometimes our brains thrive on the simplest approaches.

If what you”re doing isn”t deleting any stress…

and doesn”t matter to you in the short term or long term…

and isn”t enjoyable…
 

Cut It Out!

Really. Cut it out of your life. Why choose to do something that doesn”t meet at least one of these goals?

And wouldn”t it be nice if you spent the vast majority of your time doing things that fill more than one of the goals? … things that delete stress AND matter … things that matter AND ?????? ?????? you enjoy them.

Let’s get curious about the three:

• Deleting stress includes things that obviously and immediately reduce your stress (cooking, gardening, playing an instrument, biking, spending time with friends…) as well as activities that make your life work smoothly (clearing out that overflowing file cabinet, using a calendar so that you don’t miss appointments, taking a half day to think about your goals for the year).


flickr.com/ Ernst Vikne

• Doing what matters includes handling the nuts and bolts of life (brushing your teeth and doing taxes) as well as more deeply meaningful activities (working on a project you may not enjoy right now, but that will help you achieve an important goal). If something matters in the small picture (I’ve got to finish this report or get chewed out by my boss) but isn’t meaningful at all in the larger picture of your life… that’s a useful thing to notice.
• Doing what you enjoy is straightforward: if what you”re doing makes you happy, and you can put your full attention on it, that”s perfect.

Getting Curious About Your Choices

Here’s a simple exercise for making enlivening choices about where to spend your time:

One
Make a list of the things you do over the course of the day. The list can be fine-grained (brush my teeth, reply to emails, practice scales on my guitar) or be done I broad strokes (personal hygiene, work requirements, music).
 
Two
For each item, ask this multiple-choice question:

• This thing I do (check all that apply):
• __ Reduces stress
• __ Matters or is meaningful in the short term or long run
• __ Is something I enjoy
• __ None of the above

 
Three
Now, make a second list of things you could be doing, but don”t do (swimming, working in the garden, painting, making sales calls, writing a new business plan, painting the living room). Ask the same questions.

• This thing I do (check all that apply):
• __ Reduces stress
• __ Matters or is meaningful in the short term or long run
• __ Is something I enjoy
• __ None of the above

 
With these lists in hand, you can play with designing and living your life: see what happens when more and more of what you do falls into at least one of those categories (better yet, two or all three). Start cutting out the “none of the above.” Playing with the redesign of your life can easily take years. But it”s worth it.

Remember, even little steps can delete stress, and make your life more meaningful and enjoyable.