If you are like most human beings your answer to the question above was probably “Yes”. As each new day begins we find ourselves thinking about a thousand things that have to get done before it ends, only to find after arriving home that most of what was supposed to get done had to be postponed to the next day. So we keep living, doing what we can and postponing what we couldn’t find the time to tackle. What a way to clutter our minds.
I myself used to do just the same thing, but after reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” I found out that most of the things that bothered me through the day would not even exist if I took a few simple steps each time a new situation presented itself in my life. I can’t say that I am 100% worry free, but I can tell you that I worry a lot less nowadays.
First of all we have to realize that we are the only species on the planet that worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow, 1 year from now, 30 years from now, we put pressure on ourselves to try to control events that we can’t even possibly predict. Have you ever seen a bird worrying about if it will have food to eat the next day, or whether it will find a suitable mate? That’s the good side of not having the ability to think and analyze facts and events. Worrying about things that could happen in the future is something that has to be controlled or else you may find yourself not living the present for fear of what will happen in the future.
If you have the time , be sure to checkout Winston Churchill’s “Memoirs of the Second World War
“. It’s a great book where he talks about how he led England during WWII, especially during the period where they were left alone (USA wasn’t at war yet). You will find that he speaks about how he used to work more than 12 hours a day and still manage to sleep well, even though England was being bombarded day and night by Germany. Can you imagine the pressure he dealt with? What would have happened if instead of getting a good night’s sleep he went all night worrying about the next day or the war? Let that be a lesson to us all, if he was able to achieve that during a war I am sure we can handle it in our daily lives.
One of the ways to avoid getting worried about things is by dealing with them when they first show up. How does this work? Well, let’s say someone talks to you about a phone call you should make but that isn’t urgent, what would you do ? Most people would keep the reminder in their minds, a second group would write a note to make the call later and a third group would just make the phone call right away. Which of them did the right thing? Well, it depends. If the phone call takes less than 5 minutes then we should go ahead and just make it, otherwise, we should make a note about it and call when we have more time. So what’s the thing you should never do? That’s right! You should never keep a commitment stored only in your head, you know why? Since we forget a lot of things, chances are that your mind will keep reminding you of the phone call you have to make. Now imagine going through the whole day with your mind telling you “Hey, don’t forget to make that phone call!”, this is where the problem starts. By writing a note and keeping it in a safe place your mind knows that you won’t forget about it, so it’s stops bugging you with the reminder.
First Tip: if you have a lot of commitments that are stored only in your mind, write them all down and store in a safe place, that way your mind will be free to act upon your current activities.
What about the 5 minute rule? It’s just a neat way of getting rid of small tasks that can become a hassle during the next days.
Second Tip: if it takes less than 5 minutes, do it now in order to save time and energy.
If you’ve already made your list, be advised that you should check it at least once a day. The reason for this is simple: if you just write everything down and don’t manage to review it, there is a good chance that your mind will start bugging you again “Hey, how about those notes you wrote, shouldn’t you do something about them?”.
Third Tip: review your list of commitments at least once a day.
Now that you already have everything written in a list that is reviewed daily, how do we keep it from growing too large ? The answer is simple: learn to delegate and learn to say “No!”. One the biggest problems most people encounter is the will power to say “No!” when someone asks for their help. This is the turning point, if you can manage to separate what you absolutely have to do from what you could do, you’re on your way to a better life.
Saying no doesn’t not imply being selfish or arrogant, it just means that you are not accepting tasks that you know you probably won’t have the time to do with your best effort. Since you have the list with all your commitments, you have a rational, clear argument as for why you can’t help the other person. It’s treating the other person’s needs with respect. You could also say “Yes!”, but that can lead to frustration, since the person now counts on you to help him/her. If you just say no then they have a chance to go look for some other people that might have the time to help them.
Along with the ability to say “No!”, you must develop the ability to delegate certain tasks. If at your job you are overloaded with work, chances are you are not delegating tasks. I’ve seen many professionals doing this and the most common reason is not trusting the other colleagues. Next time you find yourself thinking this way, try changing the habit, delegate the task and at the end check the results. If your colleague makes a mistake it’s ok, you will catch it and they will learn with it. This approach will free up a lot of time in your daily schedule and, as time goes by, you will find much easier to delegate more complex tasks.
Fourth Tip: learn to say “No!”. Learn to delegate.
The last tip I have for you is learning to become proactive. Most of us work with a reactive pattern, which means that we work upon situations and events that our daily lives bring to us. If you find yourself in this situation, be advised that you’re probably working with the consequences of a problem, not the cause of the problem itself. Can you see why this approach isn’t good for you and your life? If you never fix the cause of the problem you will probably live the rest of your life dealing only with the consequences. A nice way to turn this around is to identify problems that keep repeating themselves and then look for the cause. When you find the cause, brainstorm in order to find a solution to fix it. I can assure you that the time spent fixing the cause with save you a lot of energy that would have been used to deal with the consequences. In your job you might even get promoted, since your solution might affect not only you but all the other employees, raising the performance levels of the whole team!
Fifth Tip: Be proactive. Find the cause of the problem and fix it!
Now that you know a few tips, get to work and be sure to check out Dale Carnegie’s book!
