“Agh! I am so busy and stressed out! I have no time and it seems that I am always running around like a crazy person! Can you give me one or two simple tools, one or two simple concepts, or tell me one or two simple things I can do differently that will make things better?”

I hear this plea all the time – and the good news is the answer is YES. Yes there are two simple things that you can do that will make a tremendous difference in how much time you have available and how much stress you experience: 1. Take control of the “when,” and 2. Take control of the “how.”

What Does It Mean to “Control the When and the How?”

Let’s start by drawing an important distinction between “controlling the what” and “controlling the when and the how.” In each of our lives there are lots of things that need to get done – these are the “whats” - what we have to do. For example, we need to eat, shop, work, pay bills, drive the kids around, etc. The “whats” are the things that end up on your To Do list. Each of us has our own list of “whats” and it would be unrealistic for me to tell you that to create more time in your day or to lessen your stress level all you need to do is simply “take control of the whats – just drop some of them – don’t do them.” The problem is that most likely you have already tried this route – you have tried to pare back your To Do lists as far as you can (usually by dropping all of the pleasurable “whats” that you would actually like to do!) Yet even with your most paired down list you are likely still overwhelmed. So what can you do? Get control of the When and the How.

Controlling the When and the How means simply taking control of When you do things (i.e., controlling the timing) and How you do things (how you respond). And as simple minded as this sounds – it can make an unbelievable difference in your life.

Much of the time we unconsciously adopt the approach that, “I will take care of things when I need to.” We do everything on a “demand” basis – on a reactive basis. What ever gets to the top of our list of priorities – what ever seems the most urgent in the moment - gets our attention. But that means we are always operating in a sort of crisis mode. And when we are in a crisis or reactive mode we tend to do just the minimum that is required and no more – we get very focused on just getting through it - just doing “the one thing” that is screaming at us to get done.