How To Simplify Your Life

Stress and Calm: Balance Doesn't Happen Naturally

It's Sunday night and your mind is racing about the presentation you have on Monday afternoon. You don't feel it's ready or quite right. Maybe you took this past Friday off and got away to that bed and breakfast where you did nothing but sip wine and feel the breeze. Perhaps you spent a couple of carefree days in a nearby city, taking in a show, strolling leisurely to nearby bars and shops, and eating in your favorite spots.

Last Thursday evening Monday seemed so far away. Now it's Sunday, the day is passing quickly, and you start to tighten up. Tomorrow means getting up to fight early traffic to the airport, juggling your shoes, belt, jacket and laptop through airport security in addition to your suitcase, gather all of this stuff at the other end of the conveyer belt and get fully dressed again, lug your rollerboard and briefcase on the plane while checking last minute voicemail, sit cramped in a plane for three hours trying to make coffee suffice for the breakfast you didn't eat, wonder what voicemails will surprise you when you check them again, lug your stuff off the plane, hustle to the rental car counter, get directions to the meeting, and rush away to be there in time for a sandwich before you present. And remember - you still are worried about that presentation...

Stress and Calm: Find Balance by Simplyfing the Little Things

In my life I have often been caught in the trap of swinging between both extremes. I either have too much unhealthy stress, or I have total downtime where worries melt and calm envelopes.

The trouble with simply accepting the extremes as a way of living is that achieving total downtime is not often, while the stress of day to day life is constant.

And yes, I have heard of simplifying my life to add peace and calm. But don't tell me to quit my job and move to a Bed & Breakfast in Vermont. First, after a few weeks of making beds and breakfast, satisfying demands of unreasonable guests - themselves all hyped up on stress when they arrive - and trying to sell enough bookings to pay the bills, I think my stress level will have simply moved to a Bed & Breakfast in Vermont.

The strategy I use to get more peace and calm is based on eliminating or reducing the myriad "little" things that add up to cause unnecessary stress. Focus on simplifying the things you do every day to increase peace and calm. It's more practical than chucking it all or thinking there is a mystical place or occupation with no stress.

Organize the Little Things to Simplify

It helps me to organize the little things into main categories. For example:

1. Simplify Space
2. Simplify Work
3. Simplify Reaction
4. Simplify Eating

Organizing the little things that add up to big stress into "stress reducer" categories makes the strategy I illustrate applicable to others. What stresses me may not affect you, but the approach is the same to eliminate or reduce it. Organize your stressors into main "stress reducer" categories that fit your life. Ask how can I simplify what I am doing in this category by simplifying how I deal with the things contained within it? Before you know it, you may have one category under control with another getting better. The big payoff is increased peace and calm.

Notice that the categories I show above all begin with the word "Simplify". It describes what I am going to do about Space, Work, Reaction or Eating. It is not simply a list of my "stressor complaints". It is organizing my stressors into categories that I take action to fix.

Examples to Ilustrate "Simplifying the Little Things"

Let's look at some examples using the four "stress reducer" categories listed above to show how this works.

Simplify Space: Desk Surface

I have a job where I have to choose between multiple things that have to get done. When my desk is strewn with papers, folders and office supplies sharing the same space with a phone, laptop and notepad, it does not induce calm or efficient action from me. I look at my desk when it is like this and begin to panic - so much to do...where do I start...I am already behind!

When my desk is a clean, sparse surface with only a laptop, phone and the papers for the immediate task at hand, I am calm, focused and efficient in finishing one thing before moving on to the next.

I found a good book that helps me to not only get my desk to that clean, organized surface for my peace of mind, it also helps me resolve the underlying reasons for why my desk gets that way to start with. The book's title is "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. The focus of the book is establishing a way of working that is productive yet stress-free.

Simplify Space: Futon example

My wife and I raised our three children in a house that was less than 1500 square feet. The house naturally provided a simplification of space in that the small quarters we had were not chopped up into a separate living room and den. Instead, there was one "great room" in the center of the house. We could all sit comfortably in there and did for many years - removing the stress of needing a bigger place but not being able to afford one.

One area of the house that did cause me stress was the bedroom for my two sons. Because there were only three bedrooms - one for my wife and I, and one for my daughter - my sons had to share a room that grew smaller in useable space for both of them as they got older.

Looking back, I realized I could have solved the problem of growing the amount of useable space even as my sons filled it. I could have grown the space by being smarter about how the existing space was used.

I should have considered the use of futon furniture that could have efficiently served two purposes in the room. One piece of futon furniture for each boy that would convert to a sitting area during the day and a bed at night.

One of my stressors about that bedroom - useable space for both boys - could have been reduced through the simple use of futon furniture instead of worrying about what I could not solve - having useable space with traditional beds and chairs for two boys in the same small room.

Now - if only there was furniture that could have solved their differences in sleeping patterns!

Simplify Work: email Illustration

Email is the biggest source of unending stress for me because it is the biggest and most efficient conduit for delivering stressful information and communication - constantly and directly to my attention.

Before email was common, there was voicemail and before voicemail there was the receptionist noting calls on a pad. Back when it was not so common to simply type a message into an email program on your computer and hit "send", people had to check themselves. Is the hasty note or urgent message that will cause the receptionist to get up and physically alert the recipient at that moment really necessary? Are the bells and buzzers justified?

Years ago when my office still depended upon a receptionist for voice messages, I received them quite infrequently. Most of the time, people would get up to visit my office if they were in the same building or would call back.

With voicemail, the amount of messages left with me increased, but nothing unreasonable. There is something unseemly and quirky about leaving tens of voicemails a day for the same person or group of people that naturally prevents people from doing this. People were also more careful in the voicemail-only days to not be too urgent too much of the time. Maybe something about leaving a message in our actual voice recalls lessons learned in kindergarten from reading stories like "Chicken Little".

Enter email in every office and between every office. Suddenly, the natural barriers to us are not so taboo. After all, I am sending messages to be read when the person has time, so what's the problem?

With email, the burden and responsibility shifts 100% to me for how I let email affect my peace and calm. There are no longer any inhibitions at the sender side of things. I can either let the unceasing flow of messages containing urgency, panic, unnecessary or too much information, or plain old rudeness destroy my peace and calm, or not.

I am still working on simplifing the email work stressor. Strategies such as not checking email in the morning or only one time at the end of the day do not work for me. I have the good fortune to work from my home office and do not have to physically commute to an office location every day. Part of the unspoken deal is that I need to be available for the normal, impromptu day to day communications that happens when people are located in the same building. In this case, I much prefer to substitute email for physical presence.

So, for me, there is a discipline that I am learning to apply through trial and error and practice. It is forming to look something like this:

• Check email first thing in the morning. Only answer urgent emails. (Part of the "art" to this method is discerning what is truly urgent and what is not "chicken little". This gets easier the more I get to know my colleagues and understand their tendencies with email. For example, I work with people who mark messages urgent to indicate "excitement" for an idea rather than true urgency of action.)
• If I find I am answering too many "urgent" emails in the morning - too many being more than 1 or 2 each day when I first check email, then I need to check my filter for what is really urgent. Is it simply me not being able to let go and deal with this message later?
• Archive informational messages into an email folder for that person.
• Put emails I need to answer that day into a folder marked "answer today".
• Put emails I can answer within 48 hours into a folder marked "answer within 48 hours".
• Put emails that require me to do something today besides simply responding, or before I respond, into a folder marked "emails to handle today". (For example, if I need to send an attachment or read a report. This is an email to handle - I have to do something else before I respond.)
  
• Log off email and do work.
  
• Log back on to email to send new or respond to previously organized messages at no more than 2 specific times after lunch. Maybe once in the early-afternoon for those messages already sorted into folders and at the end of the day for processing new emails that came in later. Log off email after the early-afternoon session and do work. Log off completely after the end-of-day session and stop work.
  

The above is my strategy to simplify the email stressor at work by putting me in control of when or if I respond instead of allowing myself to be interrupted 50, 60 or 70 times a day to simply respond or read every email soon after it arrives in my in-box.

If I can do this, my mind is calmer, and my work day is more peaceful. This benefits not only me, but my employer. I am now focusing my attention on the task at hand and doing what I am paid to do - complete projects.

Simplify Reaction: Never Miss an Opportunity to Shut-Up

Words I have said in anger, either at work or elsewhere, almost always boomerang straight back to my internal stress generator.

I have discovered a pattern with myself over the years:

1. I get angry.
2. I suppress saying anything.
3. Depending upon how fast I get angry, I succumb to the momentary pleasure of speaking in anger. (This could be as short a time span from the beginning of a call to the end - where I simply cannot hold back any longer.)
4. I calm down and am assured I am in the right and that what I said was correct.
5. I realize moments, hours or days later that I was not fair and recall or realize the considerations for both sides. (This realization happens precisely because I have calmed down.)
6. I feel regret until I correct my stated misunderstandings or "grit my teeth" to let it pass. (Both approaches at this point are extreme stressors.)

My strategy for this one? The bolded title for this section says it all. How to accomplish this strategy? Count to ten, twenty or thirty - whatever it takes to avoid a response in anger. Then write the response if it is still bothering me that I did not say something - but don't send what I wrote. Let it get "cold" and reread a day or two later. Is it still important that I respond? If so, is my response fair now that it is "cold"? Can I reword my response, either verbally or in writing, to be objective and focused on the topic, not the person?

Another way to simplify your reaction is to be rested from a good night's sleep.  I more often miss those opportunities to shut up when I am tired. A good, restful sleep is one achieved naturally and without sleep aids or alcohol. When my mind is refreshed from rest, I am calmer and more apt to watch how I react to conversations and messages.

There are times when I do have trouble sleeping. I find that a cup or two of sleepytime herbal tea from Celestial Seasonings really helps. I look for the box of this tea that contains both Chamomile and Valerian. These are herbal supplements that have long been used as sleep aids.

Simplify Eating: Exercise to Improve Diet

I am overweight and I want to correct that. This means that while eating used to be a source of peace and calm for me, it is now a source of stress.

I am achieving peace with food and calm about eating through exercise. It is a simple strategy - when I have just sweated for 45 minutes on a treadmill to burn 300 calories, that beer or glass of wine with dinner is not worth the 100 calories I will immediately take away from my effort in the gym. I opt for the water instead.

Hating to exercise but doing it anyway is a discipline worth pursuing for me. It is the one thing I have found that will put my appetite in check.

Simplify Achieving Peace and Calm: Remember the Little Things Add Up

Big changes to our lives to achieve peace and calm are not always possible or immediate.

Simplifying the little things that make up our daily lives is always possible. If how we simplify is practiced consistently and with persistence, we learn how to build a more lasting peace and calm, regardless of the changes that will come.