If our life is hectic it is our own fault.

But the good news is that there are a few things that we can do to take the busy-ness to a much saner level.

Realise the Free Time within Busy Time

When I took the picture of the scurrying pigeons I was struck by how similar they were to the hundreds of people busily crossing the intersection.

Where the pigeons were after bread thrown out before them, us humans were after filling the responsibilities that we had chosen for ourselves knowingly or not.

The first step to removing our busy-ness is to remove the busy mindset.

Within every activity there are a few seconds where it is totally fine to lean back on your chair, put your hands behind your head, relax and just smile.

You can take one of these moments whenever you want. The hard part is remembering that you can take them!

At the very least you should wear a watch that beeps every hour to remind you not to be busy.

What we are trying to do here is to take your mind away from always being busy.

You can set up whatever reminders you want but just make sure you relax and don`t think about being busy in every moment of the day.

Eliminate Being Busy for Busy-ness Sake

Often we give ourselves more responsibilities than we can handle simply because we feel we should fill any time with something ‘worthwhile’.

What happens is we end up devoting ourselves to things that actually aren’t that worthwhile or are actually worthwhile to someone other than ourselves.

Pretty soon we find out we have no time for anything else.

To get out of this trap you first need to identify all the activities that you do. Make a list of all your activities during the week.

Next to every item write down:

1. Who you are doing it for
2. How much time it takes up per week
3. Why you are doing it (What value does it bring)

Once you have got the items on your list you need to go back and read through things to see if anything jumps out at you as unnecessary in your life.

If the ‘why you are doing it’ column is a pretty weak reason and ‘you are doing it for’ someone else then this is a good candidate for dropping the activity or at the least delegating it to another person.

When looking back over the list you really need to be asking yourself ‘do I really need to be doing this?’. If the answer is anywhere near a ‘no’ then you want to try and move the responsibility away from yourself.

Focus your Own Time on What you Really Want

In your list there will be a bunch of things that you have identified as doing for yourself.

These items will generally fall into the categories of either entertainment, relaxation or goal fulfillment. Do a quick allocation of the tasks you do for yourself into these categories.

Now you want to ask yourself which category do you want to spend more time engaging in?

With this answer in mind you can make a value judgment on your activities and cut out the ones that you don’t feel that strongly about.

This is how you reallocate your own time to where you want it rather than where you happen to be spending it. By spending more time where you think it is worth more to you, you will feel as if you have more time to yourself. Simply because it is more valuable.

Wrapping up, the process is:

• Relax! There is always time for it
• Eliminate activities that provide little value
• Spend your own time on the things you really want

How do you detract yourself from being too busy?