How to Cleanse Your Calendar This Spring
We all know that if we aren’t careful our calendars can take control of us. It’s so important to be mindful of how we spend our time. Many of the clients I see live on auto pilot and forget to take the driver’s seat in their lives when it comes to managing their time. You and only you can be responsible for how you spend your days. Not taking responsibility of your calendar is also a choice you are making. It’s a choice to let everything and everybody else decide how you will spend your time.
Do you live a hectic life? Do you feel like you are just going through a daily grind of one unfulfilling task after another with no hope for having time to do the things you really enjoy? Are you running from one activity to another and feel like you aren’t fully living your life?
Below is an activity I’d like you to try to cleanse your calendar of as many unnecessary activities as possible to free up time for you. Imagine how you would feel if you cut out the things you don’t like to do and filled your days with the things that really bring you energy, joy, passion, connection, health or whatever matters most to you.
Three Steps to Help Cleanse Your Calendar
This activity is designed to help you cleanse your calendar of all unnecessary activities, plans, tasks, events, and meetings.
Write an obligations list
Write down all of the things that you feel obligated to do. These are the things you don’t want to do but feel like you should or have to do. Are there people you feel obligated to spend time with but you don’t actually want to? Perhaps there is a family event you don’t want to go to or an exercise class you don’t enjoy. Are you taking you children to multiple activities that take up too much time or cost too much?
Include all of your “I shoulds” in the list: I should go for a run every morning; I should take my kids to as many extra-curricular activities as possible to ensure their success. Take your time with list and add to it throughout the week to see if there are things that don’t immediately come to mind.
Change your “I shoulds” to “I wills”
Review your list and see if there is anything that you can change into an “I will” that feels right for you. Look for ways to cleanse your calendar of the obligations or the things that you don’t enjoy but cutting them out entirely or changing the plan to work for you. For example: I will stop spending time with that friend because they are toxic and are not healthy for me; I will spend a few hours going to dinner with my family instead of spending the entire weekend with them; I will pick exercise classes that bring me joy or spend time swimming or walking in nature because that feels right for me; I will hire cleaners every other week; I will order a healthy meal service if I really hate cooking every night.
You will most likely experience guilt as you make these changes. It’s important to work through this. No one ever lived a happy life by allowing guilt to guide their choices. You deserve to live a life that is right for you. You do not need to do things because you think you are supposed to or because it is what everyone else does. You can march to the beat of your own drum and do what is right for you. Everyone around you will benefit from the way it changes your mood and how that mood change impacts them.
Choose what is most important to you and prioritize these things in your calendar
Think about the things that make you your best and happiest self. What energizes you? What makes you excited everyday? Who do you love spending time with? Put these things in your calendar and do not let anything get in the way of them. Know when to say no when other things come up. You can do it!
What obligations do you wish you could cleanse from your calendar? What would you rather be doing instead? Let us know in the comments!
)
