10 Key Principles to beating busyness

According to Dr Edward Hallowell, author of Crazybusy: Strategies for coping in a world gone ADD (Ballantine, 2007), the most important thing to keep in mind to avoid becoming a busyholic are:

1. Do what matters most to you (the most common casualty of an excessively busy life):
Don’t spread yourself to thin. You must choose and you must prioritise. “In order to do both well and to be happy, you must say, ‘No, Thank you,’ to many projects, people and ideas,” says Dr Hallowell.

2. Create a positive emotional environment wherever you are:
“When you feel safe and secure, you feel welcomed and appreciated, you think better, behave better, and are better able to help others,” says Dr Hallowell.

3. Find your rhythm:
Get in the “zone”; follow your “flow”. Research has proven that this state of mind elevates all that you do to its highest level.”When you find rhythm, you allow your day to be taken care of by the automatic pilot in your brain, so the creative, thinking part can attend to what it is uniquely qualified to attend to,” says Dr Hallowell.

4. Invest your time wisely so as to get maximum return:
Try not to let time be stolen from you or let yourself fritter it away. Assess your time wisely to guide you in what to add, preserve, cut back on and eliminate altogether.

5. Don’t waste time screensucking (a modern addiction – the withdrawal of looking at a computer/BlackBerry/etc. screen):
Break the habit of having to be near your computer all times by changing your environment or structure. “Move your screen to a different room, schedule an amount of time you allowed to be on the computer and plan mandatory breaks,” suggests Dr Hallowell.

6. Identify and control the sources of gemmelsmerch in your environment:
Gemmelsmerch is the force that distracts a person from what he or she wants to or ought to be doing. It is as persuasive and powerful as gravity. For example; the little customisation bells and whistles on a treadmill often delay you from starting your workout. Ignore these kinds of distractions once and for all.

7. Delegate:
Delegate what you don’t like to do or are not good at if you possibly can. “Your goal should be not to be independent, but rather effectively interdependent,” explains Dr Hallowell. “You do for me and I do for you – this is what makes life possible.”

8. Slow Down:
Why wake up, already impatient and rush around and try to squeeze in more things than you should, thereby leading you to do all of it less well? “Your hurry is your enemy,” warns Dr Hallowell.

9. Don’t multitask ineffectively ( avoid frazzing):
Give one task your full attention. You will do it better. You may eventually get so good at it that your conscious mind can attend to other aspects of the task other than menial ones. This is the only way a human can multitask effectively.

10. Play:
Imaginatively engage with what you are doing. This will bring out the best part of your mind, focus you on your task, and make you more effective and efficient.