Free the mind of detritus, and your calendar follows suit

Life doesn’t always give us a chance to stop, think, catch a break and organize ourselves.

We have to carve out time and space for that effort and put real energy into streamlining our attention, otherwise it will get frittered away and pushed to the back of the queue, while world continues to overwhelm us.

One proverb comes to mind is, measure twice, cut once.

Carpenters have been saying this mantra for years as way to avoid wasting time and material. But anyone can do the same with their own energy. Because it’s a finite resource. We can’t just react to shit all day.

At a certain point, our energy has to be less of a spontaneous phenomenon and more of an organized system.

It all begins at the most basic level, which is the breath. It’s not only the source of life, but the bridge from where we are to where we want to be. Ask anyone who’s spent time meditating, doing yoga or practicing martial arts.

Oxygen is the great organizing force. Once you gain greater control of your breath, you gain better control of your choices, and the structure of your day somehow snaps into alignment.

That’s the mistake people make when it comes to productivity. They think it’s a business system, but it’s really a mindfulness practice.

Allen, the modern zen master of getting things done, says that our ability to know we can get control is a certain level of freedom, because we know we can get control, then we don’t need to be in control all the time.

As we say at our yoga studio, take a breath, tell yourself that you’re okay.

By announcing this message to ourselves, we can nip overwhelm in the bud before it become a chronic problem and our brains start knocking around like a pinball in a scoreless game.

Take a breath, tell yourself that you’re okay.

And if you’re someone whose emotionally sensitivity, perfectionist tendencies make it easily to feel overwhelmed, then trying taking ten breaths.

Do whatever it takes to reestablish your connection with your own resources and marshal them on a moment’s notice.

What if the reward for breathing was not applause but air?