Time and space are our most precious assets. Money can’t buy you more of either, in fact, spending money often takes up our time and space. The things you buy can get excessive leading to clutter, storage and upkeep issues. How do we protect our time and space?
Carefully managing our time and space leads to less stress, which protects what most call the penultimate asset: health. Good health means more time—less time at doctor’s offices, less time at the pharmacy, etc., and barring an accident, more time on the planet to do the things you want to do.
To de-stress, you can manage time by cutting any non-essential tasks and obligations from your calendar. As they say in co-dependency programs, “No” is a complete sentence. “No” saves a boatload of time.
Supermodel Kate Moss has a motto that has made her the queen of cool: “Don’t complain, don’t explain.” Not complaining just makes a person more pleasant and popular in general. As far as explaining goes, we don’t usually owe people an explanation for opting out of something we don’t want to do.
Using e-mail and text instead of phone calls and meetings can save a ton of time. Face to face time is important for occasions that are meant to be social or to handle complex logistics. Otherwise, meetings can be time-wasting excuses to snack and chat. If you have to make calls, set a time limit, use a timer and get to the point quickly. If you require efficiency over social bonding for a particular meeting, don’t serve food or drinks and be sure the purpose and scope of the meeting is clear. Provide an agenda in advance if you are handling multiple or complex topics.
You would think that people who manage their time well also manage their space efficiently. This is often not the case. In fact, many of the highly effective people I have met are hiding incredibly dysfunctional offices and vehicles. Some of the most vivacious and successful people I’ve worked with have pristine offices but surprisingly cluttered, unorganized homes.
It looks like these people have it all together, but we only see the presentation, not the messy process. For example, the attorney tried on ten outfits in the morning, finally chose something fabulous (what you see) and left a pile of clothes and hangers on the bed (what you don’t see).
The wedding planner shows up with a flawless face and great hair (what you see) and left a bathroom counter strewn with dripping potions, hair brushes and various make-up compacts (what you don’t see).
The real-estate agent pulls up in an immaculate sports car (what you see) and leaves a disorganized, spider-web filled garage and a desk at home littered with coffee cups, old magazines and unfiled papers (what you don’t see).
To create the space to give these people even more effectiveness, not to mention peace of mind and the final death of the “imposter syndrome,” requires work. We start with cutting inessential activities to create some time so that they can slow down and start to change some behaviors. Once organized systems are in place, putting things back is the number one habit to implement. That means hanging up clothes that didn’t make that day’s cut, putting laundry in the hamper, clearing the kitchen counters after breakfast, etc. Even 20 minutes a day can start to create some real organization and space.
Set your timer for 20 minutes to an hour and see how much organizing you can tackle. Pick one area: filing papers; answering, deleting and organizing e-mails; putting away clothing or going through the closet; cleaning out one drawer or cupboard. If when the timer rings you feel you can do more, great! But if you don’t feel like it, you’re still golden—just commit to another 20 minutes tomorrow.
I like to handle organizational chores I’ve been putting off by not letting myself have my meal until I’ve tackled at least a significant chunk of the chore. It’s not exactly a reward—it’s lunch—but it tastes so much better and is so much more enjoyable without an undone task hanging over my head.
I guess that’s the point—everything looks lighter and brighter when things are tidied up with no loose ends. All of a sudden you have more time, more space and yes, peace