Cheryl Wright

The pace of mod­ern-day life can suck the joy, en­er­gy and en­thu­si­asm out of us. As it races on, at break-neck speed, it leaves us ex­haust­ed; over­whelmed with rac­ing, anx­ious thoughts and spi­ralling emo­tions and at the mer­cy of every­thing that de­mands our at­ten­tion. Does your life feel like a run­away train? It could be head­ing for a crash, leav­ing you phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly bro­ken.

At­tend to your pri­or­i­ties.

Take some qui­et time and ask your­self if the way you cur­rent­ly spend your time, caters to your pri­or­i­ties. Then, ma­nip­u­late your avail­able, pro­duc­tive and cre­ative hours to ac­com­mo­date the re­la­tion­ships, leisure ac­tiv­i­ties and per­son­al goals that are im­por­tant to you. You don't have to shelve oth­er in­ter­ests or com­mit­ments. In­stead, list and pur­sue them in the or­der and time frame they de­serve.

Change how you live and work.

For the next 2 weeks, write down every­thing you do and the amount of time you spend do­ing it. Some prob­lem ar­eas might be: (a) work­ing through your lunch hour and stay­ing late. (b) spend­ing sev­er­al hours do­ing house­hold chores each day and even longer hours on week­ends. (c) not say­ing "no" to re­quests that you know will eat up the lit­tle time you have left over from an al­ready packed life. (d) spend­ing hours surf­ing the In­ter­net or watch­ing tele­vi­sion. Use your log to de­ter­mine how you can stream­line cer­tain ar­eas of your life.

At­tack clut­ter.

Phys­i­cal clut­ter gen­er­ates men­tal and emo­tion­al clut­ter. At­tack one and you will cre­ate a por­tal from which to launch a com­pli­men­ta­ry at­tack on the oth­ers. Whether it is pa­per, clothes, bills or just stuff, the worst thing you can do is let them pile up. Not on­ly will the pile keep grow­ing, it will seem a mon­u­men­tal task to sort through. Re-or­ga­nize your clos­ets. Re­move clothes you no longer wear. It is bet­ter to have a few good, well-fit­ting pieces to mix and match than a clos­et full of ill-fit­ting clothes. Sim­pli­fy kitchen and bath­room cab­i­nets. Weed out ex­pired food­stuffs, cos­met­ics and med­i­cines. Keep the items you use fre­quent­ly with­in easy reach. Stream­line your work­space for ef­fi­cien­cy and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Keep every­day items - sta­tionery, ref­er­ence books, price lists, etc. near­by. Store the things you use oc­ca­sion­al­ly in a draw­er or cup­board. Old e-mails clut­ter your com­put­er. De-clut­ter you In­box - read, re­spond, file, delete.

De-clut­ter

(1) Phys­i­cal space to cre­ate an en­vi­ron­ment for liv­ing com­fort­ably and work­ing pro­duc­tive­ly.

(2) Men­tal space to cul­ti­vate pos­i­tive thoughts.

(3) Emo­tion­al space to nur­ture lov­ing re­la­tion­ships and in­spire cre­ative pur­suits.

Sim­pli­fy and del­e­gate.

Shake off the pen­chant for per­fec­tion and su­per­woman pos­tur­ing. Sim­pli­fy house­hold chores to com­plete them faster and more ef­fi­cient­ly. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it will be eas­i­er and more fun for young chil­dren to help. Old­er chil­dren could keep their rooms rel­a­tive­ly neat. Then you can go in on week­ends and do a gen­er­al clean up. Every­one at home could help with some as­pect of do­ing dish­es, laun­dry and bath­room clean-up. Make "Clean­li­ness is next to god­li­ness" a house­hold mot­to. If you are al­ways work­ing late, del­e­gate some du­ties so that you can leave the of­fice at the stip­u­lat­ed time, at least a few days a week. Get tech-savvy and com­put­erise some tasks.

7. Cap­i­talise on wait­ing time

Make wait­ing time me-time. Breathe deeply. Re­lax. Read. Plan. Write. Lis­ten to a ser­mon, mo­ti­va­tion­al speech or your favourite mu­sic.

A run­away train can plough through bar­ri­cades. A run­away life will mow you down, crush you and leave you bro­ken. Curb your run­away life be­fore it is too late.