If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I want you to imagine a scenario with me:

Imagine you are watching little kids at an Easter egg hunt. They have a basket – and are told the person who has the most eggs in the basket wins. The kids run around quickly, picking up eggs and putting them in the basket. At the end of the 10 minutes, the baskets are pretty full.

 

Then, as a bonus, the kids get 5 more minutes to put eggs in the basket. Now, since the baskets are pretty full, they carefully place one egg on top of the other instead of running around. Rearranging some so they can fit more in. They each want to be the winner – so they are getting pretty creative on how to fit more eggs in the basket.

 

40 more eggs are laid on the grass – and the kids are told these are absolutely the last 2 minutes they will have to put more eggs in the basket. But, if one egg falls out of their basket, they will lose. So now, you are watching the kids really concentrate, rearranging, and squeezing more eggs in. Some are successful, but most lose an egg (or 2, or even 5) along the way.

 

Now, reread this story, but make a couple of changes.

  • The kid is YOU
  • The basket is your calendar
  • The eggs are tasks, projects, appointments, and commitments

 

Your calendar is full – and as much as you keep rearranging, at some point, something falls out. You run late to pick your kid up from practice. You miss a soccer game. You work through lunch, again. You finish a project for a client late – and it isn’t your best work. Your inbox grows and grows and grows and grows . . . and when you finally find time to sort through it, you find many important emails you didn’t respond to. 

 

This is the reality of a busy business owner: feeling overwhelmed. 

 

How can you change this?

 

Remember that YES = NO and NO = YES!

 

 

Each time you say YES to a task, project, meeting or commitment, you say NO to something. No to your kids, no to exercise, no to volunteering.

 

Each time you say NO to a task, project, meeting or commitment – you are saying YES to something. Yes, to your BIG GOAL. Yes, to time with your friends. Yes, to 8 hours of sleep. Yes, to not feeling overwhelmed. 

 

If you want to live a life where you have the space to breathe and the time to do all the things that are most important to you – try this . . .

  1. Write down your most important goals
  2. Examine your calendar & to-do list – circle everything that is directly related to accomplishing your goals
  3. Make a plan to eliminate everything that is not circled. 

 

It isn’t easy to eliminate tasks, projects, meetings, and commitments once you’ve already said yes. This is why we talk about this at the Work Less, Achieve More Retreat.

 

Together, we share our biggest goals. We examine our commitments – and make plans for how to graciously reduce our overburdened schedules so we can live a life that has space and time for US to be our best selves!

 

We don’t let each other off the hook . . . and at the end . . . we have a calendar and a plan that works.

 

If you’d like to figure out how you can WORK LESS and ACHIEVE MORE while taking a few days to recharge and refocus and recommit to yourself and your business – join us. 

More Info HERE!