Exercise #1 (of 30): Big ‘Important’ Stuff? Put Them Aside for 7 Days

Overcoming the initial resistance to lose something that seems important

Think of 10 things that consume most of our time, attention, energy and resources (including money and physical space).

These ‘things’ could be work/projects, hobbies/leisure activities (i.e. TV), habits (i.e. spending extended time reading social media news-feeds), and even some non-core relationships.

Actions

1. List them (write/them them down… don’t just think about them)
2. Beside each item, state how much time/space/energy etc… we spend on them.
3. Create a simple table — listing the benefits and cost of ‘maintaining’ each of those things in your life.
4. Now — put them aside for the next 7 days. If it’s something you’re working on, stop working on it for the next 7 days. If it’s a physical possession, don’t throw it way… instead, put it in a box, out of sight.

Why? Because it can be scary to simply drop something that’s important (or seems important), and that’s already ever-present in your life. It’s less scary to put it aside for a short while.

During the next 7 days, you can observe the effect of not having those 10 things in your life.

And perhaps — you can discover that completely dropping/trashing/ending one or more of them… can free up space (time, energy, resources — i.e. money and physical space) for new or more important things to exist and to flourish.