One quick step to free up 25 to 55 minutes each day
…and significantly lower stress
Two of the biggest complaints that my coaching clients have is that they are:
1. pressed for time and
2. stressed out.
I suspect that you’re suffering from the same pressures that they do…
One of the greatest tools of a good coach is questions. Questions allow the client to assess themselves and discover patterns of behavior that are holding them back from their dreams and making a difference in the world.
When I start to ask probing questions about their daily time blocking (what they routinely do every day):
I usually find one easy way to help them remove stress and reclaim between 25 and 55 minutes of their time — every day!
That’s up to 6 hours per week of time that can be used for their important personal development time! Can you imagine what you’d do with an extra 6 hours per week?
Here it is in a nutshell, the simple process that you can apply to your life starting tonight.
It’s step One of One: Stop watching the news on TV!
Depending on watching habits this can include up to 55 minutes of local/national news programs, or can be astronomically higher when watching cable news channels.
“But I’d be uninformed” is a typical fear response. I assure them that not watching news on TV has no correlation to having an informed world view. In fact, most of what passes for TV news are FUD stories. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
Try this exercise if you watch the news on TV: Write down the title of each story during the newscast and what the overarching message of the story is.
At the end of the newscast, look at the list. Do you really need to know about those stories? Are they really news, or just an attempt to scare you into watching more?
Using Twitter or Web sites allows you to scan through the news. You don’t even have to read the story to get details and as your list will show you, most “news” is really not that critical to your daily life.
Spending just 5 minutes of time reading a news feed online will get you fully apprised of the situation. Now there’s 25 to 55 minutes of free time you can choose what to do with!
Fill the empty time that used to be TV News with other important items: family dinner time, discussions with spouses or kids, a nice walk out and about, or just use it to sit down with some nice music on and decompress from the day (instead of winding yourself back up by watching the FUD).
It’s going to take a few days to break the habit, but once you realize how much stress is gone from not feeding yourself a diet filled with FUD, you’ll never go back. I went through this process a few years ago and don’t regret a minute!
Give yourself the gift of an extra 25 to 55 minutes per day, all it takes is one click of the remote.
How much does your stress level drop by not watching TV News?
