Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [59]
When letting go is an incredibly invigorating choice, don't be silly—let go!
Not everything started must be finished
If it’s not rewarding or otherwise serving your goals, stop doing it. Get rid of that unenjoyable, third-of-the-way-through book. Remove those things that no longer interest you from your someday-maybe list. As writer and designer D. Keith Robinson put it, “In order to do something great not only do you need a good idea to start with, you need to be able to focus on that idea and execute. It’s hard to focus when you have so many things going on. Sometimes you’ve got to let things go.”
Know when to quit and put your positive energy instead into something that will help you to become who you want to be.
Do the math
Don’t assume that you are always obligated to achieve the best possible outcome—and certainly don’t assume that you could even if you tried. One of the benefits of growing older and having experienced more things is that you get better at estimating how things will work out. This skill is worth improving and utilizing whenever you're deciding if something is worth doing.
Here's an example: Let's say you have a bunch of stuff you want to discard. You do, yes? Yes. It can be tough to make the call between “sell” and “give away.” We often lean toward sell because we feel guilty about just giving away something on which we spent money or which was a gift; however, it's not always the best path. Look over what you have and roughly decide its price at and how long it would take you to handle all aspects of selling it. Now look at what you'd get paid per hour for that time and decide if it’s an hourly wage worth trying to earn.
There's a tradeoff between time spent and money gained. One way to offset that is to add something to the gain side of the equation by trying to have its new location make you happy. In my experience, unless I'm really scraping by financially, selling stuff is more work than it's worth. If you have a broke friend who's interested, you might take those charity boxes and say, “Hey, do you want to try to sell this? You can have 75% of what you make off of it.” Otherwise, donate it and take the tax deduction or throw the dang stuff away and figure that you've earned a beautiful, less-cluttered new home.
Sometimes, maybe often, the best choice is to cut your losses and get the nonmonetary benefit of clearing out of your way those distractions that keep you from the life you want to be living.
Symptom #23: Life Out of Balance
Solution #23: Don’t Live in Overdrive
Do not believe that it is very much of an advance to do the unnecessary three times as fast.
—Peter Drucker, writer and management consultant
Build your day
Author and coach Nigel Marsh was right when he said, “The reality of the society that we’re in is there are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate, to enable them to buy things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like.”
Hamsters running on their wheels should not be our role models. Spinning faster and getting nowhere isn’t achievement. Instead of burning yourself out working too hard on things that don’t help you reach your goals, improve your habits, or understand your dreams, cool down and apply your time and energy strategically.
Start off your day by building it out of the right pieces. First, think of the way you'd spend the day if you had no obligations at all, if you could do whatever you want. Second, identify those things that must happen today or else tomorrow will suck. Third, note the commitments you made to other people and social possibilities you'd already been considering that still sound appealing. Now, build a day that has all three represented, with adequate time between so you don’t feel rushed. I recommend cutting from piece three to ensure you get enough of piece one. You can’t do everything, so do what you love most,