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time management

Step 4: Go Gently into That New Life

Conscientious, yes. Firm in resolve and consistent in action,
you bet! But judgmental and unforgiving, never! As you seek to
change the way you live, remember one of the lessons we learned
at the beginning of this journey: all change, including changes in
personal habits, is stressful.

Old habits are hard to break, and daily life patterns are the most
deeply ingrained habits of all. (To illustrate this truth for yourself,
simply try putting on your pants “wrong leg” first.) You’re going to
forget, and you’re going to slip back into the old ways.

You’re also going to be overpowered by life at times, no matter
how carefully you’ve planned and how well you’ve anticipated.

Don’t berate yourself. Gently remind yourself and do differ-
ently next time. Slowly the new way will become the “right” way,
the “natural” way.

Give yourself credit for what you do; don’t just blame yourself
for what you fail to do. If you finish fifteen of the seventeen items
on that to-do list, rejoice in what you’ve done. Those other two
items are what tomorrow was invented for.

Do one thing at a time, with all your energy, your attention,
your heart.

And finally, with all the planning and evaluating and schedul-
ing—don’t try to do too much.

Time management isn’t about maximizing the number of items
you can check off in a day or a life. It’s about living fully, produc-
tively, joyfully—by your definitions of these terms.

I’ll end this with these words of philosopher/theologian Thomas
Merton:

The rush and the pressure of modern life are a form,

perhaps the most common form,

of its innate violence.

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