Rare is the person I meet that does not have the frantic stare that says “I have too much to do and not enough time..” I know the feeling. It seems the harder we work at slowing down the faster we go. What is it about us and our lives that we find it so difficult to simplify? It appears to me that technology has given us the extra time, only to use up in massive gulps. And that is our fault not the machines.

So I present to you(us) some ideas to help clear out the clutter of our days. Some of these come from a handout of 66 ideas that I received from a good friend who found them somewhere online. And to these I have added some of my own.

1. Nuke it!. The most efficient way to get through a task is to delete it. If it doesn’t need to be done, get it off your to do list.
2. Pareto. The Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% or the value of a task comes from 20% of the effort. Focus your energy on that critical 20%, and don’t over-engineer the non-critical 80%.
3. Bible. Read a portion of God’s Word first before you read the morning paper or get online news. It gives perspective to the news and the day unfolding.
4. Batching. Batch similar tasks like phone calls or errands into a single chunk and knock them off in a single session.
5. End it. End any relationship that is not necessary to your life and well-being. We have far too many “acquaintances” that we try and develop beyond our time and emotions to do so. This does not mean we are unfriendly to all whom God puts in our path. But it means that we understand that we cannot meet the friendship needs of everyone we meet.
6. Nap. Make time in your day to stretch out and shut your mind down. A few minutes of rest will increase your productivity and outlook.
7. TV-Free. Turn off the TV, especially the news and talk shows and recapture many usable hours.
8. One thing. Focus on the task (or person) at hand. Thinking about all the other things to be done in such a way that distracts you is called worry.
9. Delegate. Turn over tasks to others. It is surprising how much we do that others can do as well, if not better.
10. Remember Priority One: “But ONE THING I do; forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”. (Phil. 3:13-14)

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