We often choose to spend our time without thinking about it. Our lives are filled with external distractions - advertising entices us, our bosses ask us to work late, and our tech bings and flashes with news and updates.
Getting a bit of head space, then, is a challenge. With the constant distraction and the endless ways we could spend little bits of our lives, how to choose? How to decide?
I went to a time management seminar at Inner Space. The seminar details were posted at work, but I think our HR team didn't know that Inner Space is a hippy haven. This wasn't to be your typical time management seminar, drawing grids and deciding if something is both important and urgent or not.
Instead, the seminar leader encouraged us to focus on our ultimate aims in life. Not on hitting targets. Not on achieving the highest profit in time for quarter end. Instead, she suggested the following 3 aims:
- Unconditional contentment
- Unconditional love
- Unconditional peace
These 3 aims are focused on your internal state rather than on the external world. They are also achievable, regardless of what is going on around you.
The seminar ended with the leader advising that, if we consider our aims in all that we do, and if we let go of the things that won't help us achieve these aims, many things on our to do list will fall away.
Think about something on your to do list right now. Ask yourself - will doing this thing lead me closer to a state of internal contentment, love, and peace? If it won't, then is it truly necessary?
The more you do this, the more you may be surprised to learn how many things on your to do list are externally motivated and directed:
- Are you chasing that promotion to increase your esteem in the eyes of others, or are you doing it because you are passionate about it, and it will bring you contentment in your work?
- Are you trying to lose weight to appear more attractive to others, or are you trying to improve your health and fitness so that you can pursue your passions and show yourself love?
- Are you buying things for your home in order to display it with pride to others, or are you working to create a space where you can find peace?
Following this simple self interrogation technique, you may find that some items remain on your list, but the motivation behind them is clarified. By knowing that you are working on something that will bring you closer to your aims, you will find that life becomes less of a chore and more of a joy.
Take a look at your to do list right now. What will those things help you to achieve?
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