Design Your Life with Beauty--For You, Your home, Your Environment
As someone who experiences chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety and is affected by the worrisome events happening now I have had to put into practice what I learned, and researched for the past two decades, I share it with you here in a five part series.
What is Zen?
Zen originates from the tranquil practices of Buddhism. The general idea of achieving Zen or peace in life is to simplify and tone down the stress and distractions that may pop up. Here is the second out of five very basic yet effective Zen habits to adapt to a calmer, more relaxed lifestyle.
Clear your Schedule and claim your time
Clearing your schedule is a lot different than cleaning it out. It doesn’t mean you’re taking anything out of your daily tasks, only that you’re simplifying all that you do while you’re doing it.
Plan out The Day
It may have become clear by now that organizing yourself is one of the steps to maintaining a relaxing lifestyle. It tags along with many Zen habits.
You have to keep your mental and physical aspects in check, whether you feel in control of the way you think and feel. Without any slim sense of control, we immediately resort to depressing thoughts, which bring down our perspective. So it’s best to have a proper system in the way we work.
You don’t need to have a written schedule, although some may prefer such, all you need is to have a mental clock for the layout of your day. That way, you’re ready to shift into the next part of the day. As vague as it is, it’s preferred to have some idea rather than none at all.
Professional vs Personal
This may take some analyzing and time, as you need to create a balance between your personal and professional life. There are some people who don’t understand that there is a line needed to differentiate between your two personalities. The way you operate at home is much different than how you present yourself in front of your colleagues.
Your professional life shouldn’t leak into your personal life, because it takes time away from you to be you, which can mess you up severely. Your job should take up eight hours of your day, and eight to ten should be for your sleep.
The rest is for you to exert your personality with your friends, family and free time. If any more time is given to your job, you’ll be submitting yourself to your monotonic working counterpart.
Some people tend to allow work to consume their days, with the feeling that if their day wasn’t filled to the brim with work, then it wasn’t a productive day. This is untrue as the most important thing in your life should be you. If you aren’t your priority, then your perspective of yourself is low.
Catering To Your Work Schedule
For those who fail to push aside some space for themselves, here are a few things you can do to make that space.
1. Before you take up or start working on a job, ask yourself how important it is, and if you really need to obstruct time for it. If it isn’t something due in a while, don’t feel afraid to divide the load of the work between days so it doesn’t take a day away from you. This can also deal with bad procrastination issues that cause stress.
2. Don’t agree to take anyone else's workload. It may seem unkind but if you are on a tight schedule yourself then you can’t afford to do other people’s bidding as well. Just as well, don’t hand over your work to others as this is hypocrisy.
3. Make a list of all the things you like doing. Going out for a walk, reading a book, going to a club with your friends or baking. Insignificant things and all types of projects you’ve wanted to start, they all go. Once you’ve made this list, make sure that every week, all the things on your list get a fair amount of time. This way you can practice distributing your time and enjoying your hobbies.
Once you’ve accomplished an even balance between working hours and free time hours, then practice another habit, living in the moment. You need to learn to value the moments that you have, whether at work, with friends, or by yourself doing your things. Moments are faint and always undermined. It’s worth acknowledging them and being thankful for all that you are given.
No moment comes back, so it’s vital to realize. If you feel that this is a great memorable moment, then you should save it. Keep all of your memories that were positive in record so that you can always look back to see that good things do happen to you.
They shouldn’t bring you sad feelings because that’ll only create counterproductive process. You need to be able to look back and realize that you can achieve happiness.