#2 TIME FREEDOM: Letting go of what's cluttering your time.
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“We have if we're lucky, about 30,000 days to play the game of life.
How we play will be determined by what we value."
~ Arianna Huffington
TIME FREEDOM
The Key Is Optimizing Your Energy
Do you have time for what really matters to you in life? If not, you’ve got Time Clutter.
Rest Assured. In this ZEN practice we’ll learn how to create sacred spaces in our personal and professional lives to cultivate an authentic, positive well-beingness.
This will allow you to experience time expansiveness; the fulfillment of knowing you are spending your time on what really matters.
This can range from being still and doing nothing to being radically creative and productive.
If you are unclear on what really matters to you right now you can learn about Vision Freedom.
Do you have enough time for what really matters in your life?
Are you aware of how you are contributing to time clutter in your life?
Are you ready to have time for what really matters?
A common response I hear from new clients is, “I don't have time for what matters let alone organizing (my home, office or life) but I know I need to."
The essential need here is not about having enough time but being able to experience time in expansive ways that allow you to feel like time is on your side for what really matters.
Are you ready to learn how to master your time rather than feel like a slave to time?
TIME IS ON YOUR SIDE
With tears in her eyes, papers piled all over her office desk and frustration in her voice, she looked at me and said,
"I need more time, I don't have enough time to get everything done here, I'm drowning. I try to work harder, faster, longer hours and I just can't seem to have enough time. I can't get off this hamster wheel. All I do is work. I have no time for my husband. Now I've given up my weekends to work and my home is in shambles. I have no time to myself. I'm exhausted. I don't know what to do. How do I get more time? Please help."
My heart, so compelled as this is not the first time a client would come to me in tears of frustration feeling pressured by time and endless obligations, unfortunately. And it wouldn't be the last.
When I hear my client's cry out for help like this I become very present to allow them to hear their cries for themselves as well.
A cry like this is a signal that an unmet need exists subconsciously from within.
Although the cry may sound verbally like, "I don't have enough time" the underlying need maybe something as simple as, "I need to be able to breathe again. I need quality time in my life to feel relaxed, accomplished, and peaceful without worries or stress."
When we feel like we don't have enough time the pressure can trigger a response within us similar to the emotional experience of losing something special.
When we are triggered into a state of losing something we become immediately induced into scarcity mindsets. And when we react from our scarcity mindsets we are creating future scarcity experiences.
This is time clutter.
The truth is, it’s not that we don't have enough time - we all have the same amount of time as Oprah, Eckhart Tolle, and the Dalai Lama - it's that we need a new paradigm for being empowered to spend time on what really matters.
This is what Time FREEDOM is all about. The more we become aware of what really matters to us and what contributes to time clutter, the quicker we can make changes to in our personal and professional lives.
""For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned."
~ Benjamin Franklin
WHAT IS CLUTTER?
Clutter is anything that blocks your flow in life and the joy in you.
Clutter is the result of prolonged indecision, avoidance, and/or procrastination (unwilling to confront pain).
Clutter compounds your free time.
Clutter is an annoyance and is distracting (consciously and subconsciously).
Clutter takes up space in 7 forms including: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
WHAT IS TIME?
One of the simplest ways to think about time is in reference to the past, present or future.
Time is something we create a relationship with. How do you talk about time? Is it an abundant relationship or a scarcity based relationship?
WHO EXPERIENCES TIME CLUTTER
People Who:
Suffer from a scarcity mindset believing there is never enough time for what really matters.
Pride themselves with taking on high levels of responsibilities which can cause avoidance and procrastination in other important aspects of life.
Are unable to set or communicate boundaries to take care of their priorities and needs first.
Lack time freedom wisdom, skills and mindsets; all which are learnable!
People who:
Are constantly busy. Doers who can’t be in stillness. Therefore, they aren’t present living in the now; where time is expansive. They get stuck in the illusions of the material world.
Are incessantly late yet
Constantly lose things.
May identify themselves as people pleasers.
Struggle with one or more types of clutter.
React impulsively rather than respond peacefully.
WHAT IS TIME FREEDOM?
Time Freedom is a positively uplifting, expansive state of well-beingness, living in the NOW. This evokes appreciating what is and the ability to be receptive to higher power wisdom and guidance to manifest the destiny of our Soul. This leads to an experience of faithful certainty in life. A knowing remembrance that all is occurring in divine timing and with an omnipresence of divine love, for our highest benevolence.
Time Freedom is the ability to enjoy quality time with the people, places, and things that matter.
Time Freedom is the ability to live in the present moment; being in sync with the natural flow of life.
Time Freedom is the result of being conscious of what really matters. Taking inspiring guided actions that feels expansive.
Time Freedom is an abundant and peaceful way of being; letting go of resistance. Being present, accepting and loving what is. Destiny is divinely-guided willpower. Fate is ego-driven willpower.
ARE YOU STUCK IN THE PAST?
This is where emotional clutter exists.
ARE YOU PRESENT NOW?
This is where TIME FREEDOM exists.
ARE YOU FUTURE TRIPPING?
This is where mental clutter exists.
HOW DOES TIME CLUTTER MANIFEST?
How we respond to our circumstances dictates the relationship we have with time and future potential outcomes.
Imagine you are getting ready to drive out to a career-changing business meeting. Their one request is to bring your business cards.
You got a good night's sleep, ate a healthy breakfast, had an amazing meditation, body feels flexible and alive, and you are ready to Rockstar your day.
You walk out the door but realize you forgot your business cards. You can’t remember where you put them and don’t want to show up appearing unprepared or unprofessional without them.
You run back into your home and begin to look for your business cards. Five minutes have passed and you can’t find them. You don’t want to risk being late to this meeting so you decide to leave without your business cards.
You keep thinking about the business cards and remember where you put them but it’s too late to turn around.
As you are driving you are thinking about this meeting are feeling the pressure of stress because feeling unprepared without your business cards, the one request they made clear.
You take a breather and an idea comes to mind. You decide to let everyone know you have gone paperless so your business cards are now exchangeable electronically.
Awesome, ok you are back in your groove. You crank up your music and feel enthused and ready for this meeting.
All of a sudden you notice traffic ahead has come to a complete standstill. (If you’ve ever lived or traveled in LA this is a very likely traffic scenario that happens unexpectedly.)
You see construction workers ahead and anticipate miles of a standstill from what your GPS is showing.
Now you are on the verge of being late due to a circumstance outside of your control.
You feel annoyed and panic begins to set in...what do you do?
ARE YOU CREATING A TIME FREEDOM RESPONSE?
What are time clutter causing reactions to this scenario?
What is a Time Freedom response example?
HIGH STRESS REACTION
You have racing thoughts and feel stressed and pressured by time and how these people might respond to this unpredictability. You speed up in traffic to arrive on time feeling unprepared, frazzled, and have a difficult time being present and focused.
SURVIVAL REACTION
You turn up the music and hope for the best.
CONFIDENCE RESPONSE
You call ahead and let a key person know you are going to be (xxx minutes) late but will be ready to go upon arrival. You remind yourself everything happens in divine timing, you are supported and people understand unexpected things happen. You trust this scenario and are confident, calm, and present.
WHAT CLUTTERS OUR TIME ?
1. Physical Clutter And Distractions. This is the number one thing that causes us to feel powerless to our time. For every “thing” you own add one minute to your life.
DID YOU KNOW?
The average search time for a misplaced item is 5 minutes and 20 seconds.
The objects American's spend over 15 minutes looking for are:
Cell Phone
House keys
Wallets & Purses
Searching for lost items have time costly consequences
Have you been late to work or school?
Have you missed an appointment or meeting?
Have you missed a plane flight?
The average American spends one year of their life looking for lost or misplaced items at home and in the office. (PR Newswire)
Office workers waste an average of 40% of their workday. Not because they aren’t smart, but because they were never taught organizing skills to cope with the increasing workloads and demands, (Inc.com)
People who multi-task decrease their productivity by 20-40% and are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time. Time lost switching among tasks increases the complexity of the tasks. (Forbes.com)
You can create a solution in a shorter period of time if you are rested and rejuvenated. (Entrepreneur.com)
Studies show executives will pick up a single piece of paper from their desk thirty or forty times before acting on it. (Seize the Day)
PRO - TIP: The Best Times To Let Go Of Time Clutter. One of the quickest ways to experience more time on your side is be clutter-free and organized.
2. Obligations. When we feel obligated it's easy to say yes when we actually mean no to things that take up our time.
3. Overwhelm leads to procrastination. When we feel overwhelmed it is an indicator we are taking on too much. It's important to look at ways to delegate and break down the overwhelm into smaller chunks to stay focused on what's important right now. Overwhelm can also be an indicator we are future tripping (we have mental clutter) and it's blocking our ability to think clearly and spend our time wisely.
4. Over-committing can be a deeply (hidden) result of not feeling good enough, and so we need to do more in our lives. To overcompensate for not feeling like we are doing enough, we create mile long to-do lists only to not get things done and feel like failures because we set ourselves up for it.
Overcommitting can bring up very difficult challenges for people pleasers and people who have a difficult time setting and communicating boundaries. It can be especially difficult when we feel like we are disappointing people we love so we can take on additional responsibilities to help.
These additional responsibilities can compound the problem. We can easily forget that we are the masters of our time.
BOTTOM LINE: If we want people to value our time we have to value our time first.
5. Under guesstimating. Time guess-estimating is a practice of anticipating how much time something will take, then blocking this time out on your calendar.
6. Feeling pressured by time. The most common reaction is to try to multitask, work harder, and faster to get caught up.
7. Stuck in the past or future tripping. Being stuck in the past can cause us to react to time in ways that our old self would.
Future tripping costs us time when we are worrying about things that haven't happened and spend time over preparing for something that is highly unlikely to happen.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Creating Space For Time Freedom
Ask yourself these questions:
Do you have difficulty prioritizing your time for what really matters?
What are your top 3 priorities in your personal and professional life?
Do you often find yourself running late?
Do you check messages on your smartphone or email more than five times an hour?
Do you underestimate the length of time it will take to complete a task?
Do you have "one-more-thing-itis" when it is time to leave for an appointment?
Do you have difficulty saying "no" to people, including dearly loved ones and things you truly don't want to do?
Are interruptions making it challenging to follow through and meet deadlines?
Do you keep appointments, lists, and other important information in your head?
HOW TO CREATE TIME FREEDOM IMMEDIATELY IN YOUR LIFE
1. Identify Your Time Clutter. Make a list of how you are contributing to wasting time or valuing your time Choose one time waster to practice replacing.
2. Declare your priorities and what really matters to you by tracking how your time is being spent. If you want to measurably transform something in life we must track it so we can monitor our progress and observe what is contributing to our success.
PRO-TIP: When I first began reclaiming my time I stopped using my online calendar and went back to using a hand written appointment book.
I needed to align with my integrity by honoring my word, and following through on the commitments I agreed to. My online calendar kept having glitches and would lose saved appointments so it was blocking integrity alignment.
I came across two very incredible time systems that helped me identify my essentials in life. 1) The Passion Planner 2) The Daily Planner by Jessica Mullen
I utilized the daily planner for one month and the passion planner for one year.
These planner systems helped me get clear on my priorities and how I was spending my time. I developed new mindsets and practices that allowed me to reintroduce myself back onto an online calendar system that I could trust and use effectively.
If you are ready to create time freedom in your life, you will need one reliable calendar system you can trust with the days and hours listed in detail. This will provide you with the ability to look at your past days, weeks, and months to evaluate how you are spending your time and if adjustments need to be made.
3. Prioritize What Matters First. Make a list of your top priorities in life (be sure to add self care, this is often last on the list.) Build your time around your priorities first, then work your busyness around it.
4. Time Guesstimating. Begin practicing to guess how much time activities, projects, and tasks will take. Be clear on an agenda and what you need to accomplish.
Give yourself extra cushion time if you are unsure how much time something will take to set yourself up for success. This is key.
5. Time Blocking. Now that you've time guesstimated an appointment, block it out on your calendar. Many times we try and keep too much in our heads trying to remember appointments, dates, and important events. Once you've time guesstimated a special event immediately reserve this time on your calendar.
PRO-TIP: There are days I'll reserve "Exquisite Self Care and Dates With Myself" to ensure my core needs are getting met so I can feel balanced and have more to give in other areas of my life.
6. Setting a Timer. This is a great tool for valuing your time. Whether you are working on a task at work or meeting with a client or a friend, setting a timer allows you to be present with someone without the distraction of having to check your watch every five minutes.
7. Honoring Your Time. This requires communicating healthy boundaries and communicating them. Saying, "No" may disappoint someone else's expectation of us which can make it much more difficult to uphold boundaries.
Honoring our time comes down to this - your needs are non-negotiable. If you aspire to live to your highest potential and be a force of positive change in your world, you must ensure you are overflowing with your needs getting met. If we spend our lives pleasing others with our time we won’t have any left for ourselves.
Most time sucking habits are reactions to not being clear on what our true needs in life are. When we are clear we are able to utilize our time wisely while inspiring and empowering others in ways beyond our imagination.
