We Get 168 Hours.

We get 168 hours a week. That’s it. With every new year comes the decision to go for GOALS, and the determination and commitment to reach them.

While you’re saying YES to your resolutions, here are 10 behaviors to say NO too. Otherwise, they will devour time and prevent you from hitting those goals.  

1 Doing too much at once turns your brain into a frozen blue screen.

Release the valedictorian dream of multitasking. Task-switching leads to wasted time because our brains need more time than we think, between switching gears to prepare for the next task.

2 Being unclear on priorities, so you hit everything with all you’ve got.

Decrease frantic behavior, which often comes from not knowing where to start! Increase proactive behavior. Invest 10 minutes out of your morning to design who you are going to be.

3 You let people interrupt you all the time.

Set boundaries, if someone calls you, remember 9 times out of 10, it can wait. Designate a time in the day to check email, return phone calls, send texts and take care of other minor interruption style tasks.

4 Being in love with YES, AND...

Practice delegating every day, as if your life depends on it because frankly, it does. Pleasing everyone is impossible, but saying the word NO can sometimes be hard too. If this is you, say: YES, AND . . . “if I commit to doing this I will need to remove something from my goal list. I can’t do that right now, but I will get back to you once I have space.”

5 Thinking BS thoughts makes you feel bad.

Every time you bust your brain allowing BS thoughts to prance across it...like all the reasons why you won’t hit your resolution...stop and put 50-cents in a piggy bank. After 30 days donate the money to your LEAST favorite organization. Then ask yourself, are you ready to stop punching yourself in the face? Ouch!

6 Hanging around people that exhaust you.

Bow out of long conversations with people that affect you in this way. Note: just because being in someone’s presence has you feeling exhausted doesn’t mean they are terrible people. It's simply important to know when you can and cannot be around their energy. Stop letting yourself be sucked dry.

7 Miscommunication. Misperception. Misbehavior. Messy Conflicts.

Manage other people’s expectations of you to the best of your ability and be humble. Just because you think you, said something clearly, does not mean someone heard you clearly. Listen more, speak less, and invest in the first conversation to save time in the following ones.

8 Your cell phone is a dominatrix.

Stop being a slave, an addict, a victim, a doormat, a loser when it comes to your devices. Train yourself to check digital dominatrixes periodically instead of constantly. If it's at all humanly possible, set a timer to get your stuff done and then get out of the time vortex!

9 Always on.

You need me at 10:30 pm, of course, I’m free! What would I be doing? Certainly, not sleeping! STOP. If you can’t stop, then you probably haven’t been beaten down enough to learn this valuable lesson. So take your beatings and call me in the morning. Then I will ask you again if you’re ready to locate the power button and shut yourself down for 7-8 hours?

10 Thinking you never have enough time.

I would exercise but I’m too busy. Terminate the BS. You’re more powerful than that! Don’t fall for the drama your mind is drumming up. Recognize that what you are likely trying to say is: I don’t feel like that's enough of a priority in my life to allocate my time for ‘that’.

You have 168 hours in the week to eat, sleep, work, and do everything else. We can never get back minutes. If you want to reach your goals this year, know that time is on your side if you keep your distractions in check. Life is too beautiful, too big, too short to get devoured by empty minutia.

This year, you get another chance to claim WHO YOU WANT TO BE. When you declare this, you will make time for what is important and let all other details to find their proper place; perhaps they’ll even move right off your plate!

Want to kick stress & burnout to the curb? Book a FREE call with us: movethinksmile.com/talk

Get the book Move Think Smile BurnOut to BadAss on Amazon in paperback, epub, or as an audiobook. 

Check out other articles written for Oblique Magazine in Charleston SC. 

Part 1: Is Stress The New Norm?

Part2: Why Is Negativity Like SuperGlue? 

Part 3: Feeling Out of Order?

Part 4: Why I wrote BurnOut to Badass

Part 5: Cone of Shame

Part 5: Doing Hangover