An easy-to-implement guide to handling all of the stress and chaos

Life is crazy. Not just right now in the peak of summer when kids are out of school and vacations are piling up. Life is always crazy.

Our minds are always running, attempting to keep track of all of our goals, plans, obligations, and clutter.

Especially for those of us who are prone to anxiety and racing thoughts, just the appearance of too much to do can throw us wildly off our game — often leaving us with even more to do.

“Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over.”

In a world of fast-racing technology, break-neck pace productivity, and the pressure to do and be it all, how do we rein it back?

When even one of our “spheres of life” is thrown off, our life goes into a tailspin and we have to react quickly to realign before we hit the ground.

Read also: How to change your life in the next 6 months

While the following ten suggestions don’t single out any particular part of your life, understanding how to get control of your life as it pertains to your whole self is the goal of this list.

1: Set routines to manage your finances

If you have yet to read I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, I give you full permission right now to run as fast as you can to the nearest bookstore (or to open another tab/phone on your computer/phone) and buy this book.

I have been listening to the Audible book chapter by chapter for about a month now and it is changing my life.

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.” — Ayn Rand

The Illusion of Money by Kyle Cease, it is the single most transformative finance book I have read this year.

He gives you a step-by-step guideline to transforming your finances and taking control of your money for the better.

After you read it, I’d definitely send you over to Cease’s book, an informative guide about how to transform your mindset about your finances.

In order to gain control over your fears, anxiety, and everyday concern, you need to own your money, instead of letting it own you.

2: Habit track intentionally

I had a shower thought today that almost made me slip and fall with how mind-blowingly simple it was. What if we tracked habits that directly corresponded to our quarterly goals?

I can assure you that I’m not the first person to think of this, but I can also assure you that I had never thought about it before.

“It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” — Henry David Thoreau

The question is, are we tracking all of the right things?

We habit track all of the time, whether it be on paper, in our minds, or with an app on our phones. We keep track of how many times we do things, and all good self-help gurus have detailed records.

Ever since I came across the work of Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington in their book The 12 Week Year, I’ve been fascinated by the concept of quarterly goals.

While I haven’t completely implemented this technique in my life, the bits and pieces I’ve been able to use have proved remarkably useful.

“I recommend that you look at the tasks you are doing throughout your day and ask yourself if these things are bringing you closer to your goals?” ― Richie Norton

In order to gain more control over your life and to feel more organized in terms of your future plans and action steps, consider habit tracking the activities that directly correspond to what you want to achieve.

Examples:

Want to run a 2 hour half marathon? Track your running.
Want to write a book? Make sure you’re writing a chapter every day.
Want to have a $1,000 in the next three months? Make sure that you’re setting aside $12 every day.
The onslaught of Pinterest-y ideas for habit trackers might be pretty and fun to look at, but most of these habit trackers aren’t actually very helpful. Habit tracking is a sacred art and you can only do so many things and check so many boxes every day.

You need to select what you track and keep up with carefully and ensure that you’re taking daily steps towards your most important and personal goals. In short, habit track intentionally.

3: Evaluate the voices/influences in your life

One of the things that few of us pay attention to on a daily basis, particularly in our loud and busy world, is what we consume.

Whether it be on YouTube, the ads we see on the street, the posts we like on Instagram or the articles and books we read, we hear hundreds if not thousands of voices every day.

“One day you will look back and recall all the time you spent on social media and wonder why you didn’t invest that time someplace else.” ― Germany Kent

All of these voices, whether we notice it or not, are influencing the way we think about the world, ourselves, and what we do.

That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing — what’s bad is allowing things to seep into our lives and minds that never belonged there in the first place.

“In this day and age, we’re all slowly becoming social media addicts. Whether it’s scrolling down our bottomless Facebook feeds on the subway, or posting the perfect brunch photo on Instagram before eating, social media has become inescapable. This social media statistic uncovers that an average of 3 hours are spent per day per person on social networks and messaging.”

Oberlo: 10 Social Media Statistics You Need to Know in 2020

An incredible way to exercise agency over your life is to do a specifically planned out curation. Go through every app on your phone, unsubscribe to email lists and blogs that you don’t need anymore, unfollow people on Instagram, and do whatever else you need to do to establish boundaries.

You don’t let just anyone come up to your and say things on the street about your ability, your work, or the world without trusting them first. M

ake sure that you apply that same natural standard and barrier to your online and content-consuming life — you’ll be better off for it.

4: Establish “Lady/Gentlemen of the House” days

Jess Connolly, author of You Are The Girl For The Job, posed an interesting idea on her Instagram several months ago that has transformed the way I see the “little tasks” in life.

She proposes using a “lady of the house day”, a day she suggests that (specifically to the women she’s writing to, but this can apply no matter who you are), whether they live alone, with their family, kids, or with roommates, should set aside one day to get things done.

“Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.” ― José Saramago

These tasks can include getting groceries, cleaning, preparing for the week, and completing all of the little tasks that don’t require deep work but did require quite a bit of time. Essentially, it’s an errand day.

This idea can be used by people of all genders, ages, and life situations.

The goal here is to get control of the crazy. Whether you realize it or not, having a dirty bedroom, bathroom, storage closet, etc. can really cause stress in your life.

The same things happen when you have a housekeeping task that has been left undone for weeks and you know needs to happen eventually. Whatever you’ve got on your plate, set aside at least half a day to get all of the little things done. Make a list throughout the week and knock it out like a champ during your “lady/gentlemen of the house day at the end of the week.

5: Establish a morning ritual

People talk about morning routines all of the time. But honestly? The most successful people in the world, those who have an uncanny amount of agency over every part of their life, don’t have “routines”. Instead, they have rituals. This may just seem like semantics to you, but there really is a difference.

“The difference between a routine and a ritual is the attitude behind the action. While routines can be actions that just need to be done — such as making your bed or taking a shower — rituals are viewed as more meaningful practices which have a real sense of purpose.”

Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Routines are habits, they are things you do and boxes you check.

I used to do my morning routine like this, checking off boxes and making sure I did everything I was supposed to do. Brushing your teeth, making your bed, drinking water, and other simple tasks like that are all routines.

Conversely, Tony Robbins’ meditation practice, the ritual of jumping in a cold pool, and setting up his mind for the day are rituals — intentional practices with deep motivation behind them.

To gain more control over your mind and your attitude at the beginning (and possibly end) of every day, start your day not by checking boxes but pursuing a ritual that primes your mind to achieve.

6: Do some serious goal planning

Most people have no idea what they’re trying to do this year. Most people don’t even have clear life goals. At the beginning of high school, I read a book by Tommy Newberry, titled Success Is Not An Accident and the goal-setting formula he sets up at the beginning of the books os one that I have yet to forget.

Here’s how he breaks it down:

Life long goals — Newberry suggests writing out 150 goals you want to accomplish in your life. Some of the goals on my 150 list include becoming a New York Times Bestselling Author, compete in a triathlon, become a doctor, and give a TED talk. These goals are things that are going to take about 10–30 years, or goals that you’re not ready to pursue immediately but still want to accomplish.
3-year goals — These are the goals that you plan to accomplish in the fairly short term. These are the goals you’re actively working towards, and the ones that will help you reach the life long goals.
90-day milestones — 90-day milestones line up nicely with the idea of the 12-Week Year I discussed earlier. These are things you’re working on in the next three months. I’m working to run a marathon and eventually a triathlon, but I need to run a 10K first — one of my 90-day milestones.
Daily habits — I’m working towards writing and running goals, which means I need to run and write daily.
This ties in well with the intentional habit tracking. You have to have a vision — and you have to know where you’re going. Do some serious goal planning, spend a day, and think about where you’re going in life.

7: Clean out your phone and laptop

It’s kind of insane how much pressure can build up in the back of our mind when there’s clutter that we haven’t dealt with. A lot of times, we have all of this build-up, thinking about the things in our digital world, and it gets in the way of both our mental clarity and our digital workflow.

Only recently did I finally sit down and deal with the issue of my digital notes. I kept documents on GoogleDocs, book outlines on Pages, personal notes in Apple Notes, business notes in GoogleKeep, and had all kinds of random pieces of information and ideas stored in Microsoft’s OneNote.

My ideas and plans were literally scattered everywhere.

“Every minute spent in organizing is an hour earned.” — Benjamin Franklin

When I had an idea, I didn’t know where it was supposed to go or what was supposed to be done with it — resulting in quite a few things I have yet to act on. It wasn’t until I found the Notion app that I was able to consolidate.

I still use GoogleDocs for my notes, but everything else has been condensed on to Notion — where I can see it all in one place.

While your digital clutter might be stored in a bit of a different way, it’s worth evaluating how much time and energy your spend consciously or subconsciously thinking about all that you have on your computer/phone / online. There’s no reason to worry about it — you just need to figure out how to act on it.

8: Do a deep clean (and plan to do one monthly)

We compile papers, and books, and clothes, and receipts like nobody’s business. At the end of the month, pull a Marie Kondo and pile everything that you’ve accumulated into a big pile. Go through the notes that you’ve taken, the books you’ve read and taken notes in, the papers you’ve received, and written on, whatever you got.

“The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t.” — Marie Kondo

Make sure that you are heading into the next month with the lessons from the last. While you’re cleaning, you can look at the clothes that you’ve worn, think about things that you need, evaluate your fridge, and otherwise set things straight again in your life for the next month.

For the bigger things, you can wait for bi-monthly or quarterly deep cleanings.

The goal here, no matter how you do it, is simply to reset every once in a while. When you do this enough times, you’ll start doing it little by little during the days and weeks in your months — taking care of things as they come in.

9: Solidify your planning system

Finding the planning system that works for you is definitely near the top of the list of habits that will completely transform how and how well you work. I used to be all over the place.

I would sometimes plan in GoogleCalendar, sometimes on a random piece of paper, sometimes in my notes, and sometimes in an actual planner.

I worked and worked and finally found a system that works for me. Is it subject to change? Sure. Do I want to keep improving it? Of course. But day in and day out, this system shows up for me — and because it’s reliable and keeps track of everything, I show up for it too.

“The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.” — Marie Kondo

I do use GoogleCalendar for planning out everything I need to do in a week, and also to do a reality check on how much I actually have time for. I schedule things here in tandem with my weekly habits and also with the weekly list I have in my Productivity Planner. Then, every night, I plan the following day (based roughly off of my GoogleCalendar) on a small notebook with times and checklists and track how much time I spend on each task in my Productivity Planner.

That may sound complicated, but it doesn’t take up much time and the pieces work together, instead of being useless duplicates.

GoogleCalendar handles scheduling, my small notebook keeps me on a time table each day, and Productivity Planner helps me achieve my weekly goals and stay focused on the task at hand.

No matter what system or assortment of materials/planners/apps you settle on, make sure it’s something that works for you. Find a system that you enjoy using, and one that allows you to stay in alignment with what you want to be doing with your life. It might take some work up front, but it should get easier with time, allowing you to be your most productive and effective self.

Read also: 7 signs you are moving in the right direction

10: Start a journaling practice

Alright, let’s be real, you’ve probably heard this before. But the question is, have you done it? I have made more progress in my self-development in the past months than I have in years because of one key reason — my journaling practice is much more intentional.

“Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have — you.” — Stephen R. Covey

I spent quite a bit of time every week evaluating my planning system, reviewing my week, writing about what works and what doesn’t, and what I’m learning about myself. At the end of my day, my organization, whether it be that of my desk, my office space, my closet, or my digital footprint, is all governed by one system — my brain.

If my brain isn’t at its prime, if I’m not staying on top of my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health, most of my systems are destined to fail. I keep the system working well, and I sharpen the saw by staying on top of myself and making sure that I’m growing, learning, and doing what’s best for me.

It plays a more significant role in getting your life together than you may think.

At the end of the day, even with modern conveniences and all the information we have at our fingertips and the technology we have available to us, life is hard.

It’s messy, complicated, and hard to keep up with at times. But with some intentional planning and preparation, you can find rhythms, routines, and practices that will help you keep it all together and enjoy life a little more.

I hope these tips have been helpful. Best of luck!

Kindly, Katie

🟢Contributed by Katie E. Lawrence

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