About three years ago a lot of things fell on me, with which I had to cope. At the same time I wanted to keep the balance so that the work did not swallow it. I had to do the basic work, prepare the program of the training course and conduct classes, go to training, learn English, communicate with friends, have fun and, most importantly, rest from it. It must also be taken into account that I was freelancing and had to organize my work. And basically, I managed to develop a simple system.
I do not want to go into the theory: I’m a practitioner, not a theoretician. I just share the basic ideas and principles. This is not a dogma, and not everyone can do it. But who knows, maybe this article will be useful to you.
Theory
Then I still did not know about the now fashionable GTD and other methods of personal effectiveness, but I got information about the spheres of human life. It’s great when you do everything, for example, at work, but all these successes do not bring satisfaction and do not make much sense, if in other spheres you do not have any movement.
Usually people think that in life everything happens by itself, money falls from the sky or they are given by a rich uncle, health does not go anywhere, good relations are built on their own, success chooses an accidental person and falls on him and so on. This is a child’s vision of reality, you need to gradually get rid of it. A little more about this – in the article on cause-effect relationships.
According to psychologists, there are eight main areas of human life: family, relationships, health, finance, career, growth and development, spirituality, recreation. It can not be said that one of the spheres is more important than the other. They are all pieces, from which a harmonious and interesting life develops.
I will explain what is included in every sphere:
- A family: children, parents, relatives, close friends.
- Relations: a close person, a partner.
- Health: energy, well-being, a healthy lifestyle.
- Finance: salary, expenses, income and so on.
- Career: profession, skills, colleagues, place of work and career growth.
- Growth, development: learning, reading, personal achievement, realization of creative potential.
- Spirituality: the state of mind, emotions, the joy of life, relationships with the universe (God).
- Recreation: hobbies, travel, entertainment.
In all these spheres you need to direct your energy, in each of them movement must occur, otherwise there will be distortions and problems in life. This means that in order to maintain a balance, for each sphere it is necessary to make a list of tasks and goals.
But life is such a thing, in which something is constantly happening and this balance is very often violated. Moreover, the head is always stuffed with different thoughts, current tasks and information garbage and it is simply impossible to remember everything and feel calm. As a result, you begin to understand that almost all the problems in life happen due to the inability to control your mind and your time.
Instruments
It is important to understand that a person at a particular moment can effectively perform only one task and this is the task on which he is concentrated here and now. Multitasking does not exist, you can only quickly switch between tasks. In addition, the purer the head, the less it is clogged with tasks and thoughts, the more effectively it understands. As a computer can hang, if you run a huge number of programs, so a person who has taken on too much starts to slow down. Hence the conclusion: in the head it is better not to keep lists of tasks, schedule, plan for a year – in general, everything that eats resources and prevents focus on the current moment.
Thus, we need to organize external storage (outside the head) of the task lists in the spheres and keep all the necessary information there. For this, any simple task manager is suitable.
Every time a thought or idea comes to mind, we add it to the list of tasks for the desired sphere. If necessary, add a reminder. Not always this task will have to be done, because after a while it may lose its relevance, and this is normal. The main thing is that it does not sit in our head and does not consume resources. It makes sense to have a separate list for ideas, in which everything that comes to mind falls down. Later, after analysis, ideas turn into tasks or go to the trash.
It is important to understand: when we add a task to the list, the brain remembers it and reserves resources for it, and when we mark the task as done, the brain releases these resources. By doing physical action and noting fulfillment, we help the brain to understand that the deed is done. Otherwise, the brain may not realize the fact of the task.
The beauty of the list is that you can always look through the list of tasks already performed and wonder how much you actually do in a day, month, year. And how many things can you manage to do in a lifetime?
From this perspective, working with mail in Inbox instead of the classic Gmail interface is much more effective: thus, the letters turn into tasks.
The reason why many people are suffering, if they could not cope with the task, is simple. The brain continues to allocate resources for it, and the more such unresolved tasks are accumulated in the head, the stronger the person brakes. Therefore, it is so important not to take on too much and bring all the cases to the end.
Next, you need to allocate your time between tasks and ensure movement in all areas. For this we need a calendar.
For each sphere a calendar is created, time for tasks is assigned. Thus, we ensure a harmonious movement in each sphere. Usually it is worth to start from the hours that are assigned to work, because this time is most often fixed and you can not influence it.
If you think about it, in childhood, everyone had a daily routine in kindergarten, then – a schedule at the school and university, thanks to which much could be done. But when a person grows up, he thinks that everything will turn out by itself, because before that someone made this schedule. In principle, this is how it happens, only this one takes into account his interests, not yours.
Separately, I would like to note that it is necessary to separate common life tasks from workers and, for example, educational ones, you should not store them in one list. For work, separate tools are used that are sharpened for specific tasks and help to better track their implementation.
For training online courses, we develop our own environment, which allows us to track progress. For other spheres, there are tools, for example, for accounting for finances or for tracking physical activity. The main thing is not to go too far with them.
The brain understands that the tasks are recorded and a certain time of the day is allocated for them. This gives a sense of control and allows you to direct all resources to the solution of the problem that you need to think about at the moment. This is the very state of presence here and now, which enlightened masters say.
And still need to organize some external storage of information and knowledge, so that you can always find something that can be useful. Most often these are technical articles and other rubbish, which should not be kept in mind, but which sometimes need to be re-read.
This does not apply to fiction, which is recommended to periodically read for the development of the imagination and in order not to become a highly productive robot.
How to use
I hope that the general logic of the work is clear: tasks are collected in pools tied to certain spheres, for each sphere a calendar is created and time is allocated to which the intended one will be executed.
Thus, we calm our brain, which understands that for all tasks there is a specially allocated time, and if the specific hour is not occupied in any way, then you can relax and lower your eyes.
Even if there is an unexpected event that breaks the schedule, you can always go back to business and the normal daily routine, because you have everything recorded. The main thing is not to allow the brain to be soared, if something goes wrong.
An example of a task pool … I often receive mailings from various online learning resources, and I add interesting courses to the list of “Learning, development”. As soon as I finish one course, I immediately move on to the next one. Thus, continuous training is provided.
About goals
Goals set the direction, give energy, so it makes sense to consider these tools in the context of the movement to the conceived. Even if a person has one global goal, it consists of smaller ones that can be changed and supplemented. Therefore, it makes sense to customize your schedule for different periods of life.
To move in certain areas, you need to set goals. In others, it is enough to perform routine tasks in order to keep the state. For example, to develop and grow, you need to constantly learn something new, and to be healthy, you need to brush your teeth, do simple exercises, eat well and eat regularly and so on.
Lifeflowers
Everything that is written below is taken from our own experience and tested more than once.
- To feel the changes, you need to try using these tools for 3-6 months. Such a period guarantees the development of a habit.
- Most often there is no need to set hard deadlines. But if a task has to be completed on time, then perhaps it will take more time per day, which will entail the reorganization of the schedule. Perhaps, it is necessary to temporarily sacrifice some spheres.
- Periodically, you need to look through lists of tasks in the spheres and clean them: often the lists cease to be relevant. Also, you need to change the schedule in the calendar, when you can not stick to it. If the real chart does not match the plan, the brain begins to worry.
- If you share a calendar for family members or friends, they will be able to see when you are busy, and when you have time for meetings. So does the famous drummer Dom Famularo (Dom Famularo).
- In the morning it is better to disperse the mind and body, and by the evening they brake: this mode is much more productive and corresponds to biorhythms. As my practice has shown, it is better to carry the training in the morning, while the head is fresh. For example, it is enough every morning for an hour without straining to learn a foreign language, so that during the year it is essential to raise the level. I also noticed that if after training to give a body a light physical load, knowledge is better absorbed. Evening is better to devote only to physical exercises and rest, and the brain does not load.
- To feel good, it’s better to get up early, about 5-6 hours. And to easily get up, you need to plan for the morning meditation, training, gymnastics and the like. Many people in the morning spend a lot of time in bed, and then in a hurry they gather and resort to work with a lousy mood. In this case, they still need some time to the brain fully awake. And now imagine with what attitude a person comes who, while everyone was asleep, had time to learn, make exercises and have a good breakfast – all this without haste and with pleasure.
- In certain periods, priorities can change, so you need to periodically review the distribution of time between spheres and adjust the schedule.
- To feel good physically, it’s enough to do an easy exercise or swim every morning, and devote 3-4 days a week to something more active: yoga, dance, TRX and so on. It is also important to eat regularly 3-4 times a day. When I lived in India for five weeks and practiced yoga 2-3 times a day six days a week, my body felt fine.
- Books that you want to read, and movies that you want to see, it is better to write down in separate lists.
- Sometimes, by procrastinating on the Internet, you can accidentally see the advertisement of some product and realize that it needs to be bought urgently, otherwise life will lose its meaning. In this situation, you need to add a thing to the shopping list and wait a week: usually within a few days the desire disappears itself.
- Many people share their work and life: they say, now I’m going to work at work, and in the evening I will live … But if you think about it, work is an integral part of life. Life begins when you are born, and ends when death comes, and it does not matter what you are doing at the moment.
- It is important to be able to remain flexible. Even if you overslept and do not have time to do the exercises, or if some task took more time, you can always meet the schedule, reducing the time allotted for the next sphere, or moving the task the next day. You can not become a hostage to your own routine, in life, everything rarely goes well according to plan.
- It takes a certain effort to reorganize life and manage your time more efficiently, but even more effort is needed to make the found optimal mode habitual.
- By and large, it does not matter what you do and what you do. It is more important to focus on the current task 100%, to be present in the present moment, to feel and to realize what you are doing, to receive feedback from the surrounding world and to adequately assess it. I can really reach this state, and I do it periodically, but for this I need to unload my brain.
Afterword
This article does not give a ready-made recipe, how to maintain a balance, to achieve success and to remain happy. This is just one of the tools of organizing time, which helped me to do a lot of things in a certain life period. To understand whether this works for you or not, you need to try. Good luck!
Books on the topic:
- “Think like a mathematician. How to solve any problem faster and more efficiently, “Barbara Oakley.
- “How to put things in order. The Art of Productivity without Stress, David Allen.
- “The brain is liberated. How to prevent overload and use your potential at full power, “Theo Compernol.
- “What can be done in 100 days,” Armen Petrosyan.
