“A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.”
James Dent

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
John Lubbock

Summer is here.

Many people around the world and readers of this blog will start their vacations soon. And although the longer vacation that many get from their job or school once a year is dreamed of as time to recharge and relax it can become a time of overwhelm and shoulds instead

So how can you prevent that and find a good balance between doing fun stuff and catching up on things you want to do and just relaxing?

Here are a few tips to help you out.

Let go of what you “have to do”.

If you are feeling totally stressed out and wrapped up in everything you “have to do” during this vacation then here is a good question:

Will this matter in 5 years? Or even 5 months?

This is of course not an excuse for you to not do anything. But a reminder that the small things we get wrapped up in when we feel stressed are often not that important when you view them from a wider perspective.

In the end you can choose what you want to do and not do. There are of course consequences to everything that we do and that is something one must keep in mind. But I think it is very important to feel like you are in control of your own life to be able to stay centered and minimize stress and pressure.

It’s important to be able to say no and to choose what you want to do instead of always living in reaction and feeling controlled by outside forces all the time.

You may for example feel like you have all these things you “just have to do before the summer is over”. If such thoughts are stressing you out, then choose to say no to at least some of those things. Make a list of the priorities or things you feel you need to do and eliminate or minimize 2-3 of the least important or meaningful ones.

Now, saying no can be a bit difficult but if you don’t then it’s easy to get lost in too many of other people’s plans and shoulds during the vacation. Here is one tip that can help you to say no:

Disarm and then state your need.

It becomes easier for people to accept your no if you disarm them first. You could for example do that by honestly saying that you are flattered or that you appreciate the kind offer or clever idea. Then you, for instance, add that you do not have the time right now for accepting and doing what they want.

Since some pushy people want to overcome your objections and convince you to do something even if you first say no with a valid reason you can try this: state how you feel as a reason for saying no. For example say that you do not feel that this offer is a good fit for your life right now. Or that you feel overwhelmed or tired after the long winter and spring and so you cannot do whatever they want.

The point of telling someone how you feel is not only to make them understand your side of the issue better but also that it is a lot harder to argue with how you feel rather than how you think. How you feel is your thing and no one can really come up with good counterarguments to that.

And remember, this is your life. And your vacation.

Sure, you may need to compromise a bit too but by letting go of shoulds, saying no to some things and yes to other things you can choose and you create a truly enjoyable and meaningful vacation.

Stop thinking that the world revolves around you.

One common way to make your life unnecessarily hard and difficult is to assume that the world revolves around you. It can make you feel like you are trapped in a cage built out of social pressure. Not pleasant at all.

But is everyone watching everything you do? Thinking about you a lot and discussing what you said or did? Probably not. It’s very seductive to think they do because it makes you feel important and it gives you validation and attention. But they are probably spending most of their time worrying about their own challenges in life and what other people think about them.

It’s not easy to let go of the belief that the world revolves around you. But there are huge benefits such as decreased shyness and increased openness towards people and trying new things.

So you give up or decrease the importance you put on validation from the outside. And by doing so you can release a lot of pressure and stress and increase your own inner centeredness and freedom to feel that you can do what you want in life.

And as you do so you stop raising your self-esteem and increasing positive feelings about yourself through the validation people may give you (or at least you cut down on it a lot).

Instead you now raise the self-esteem and increase the positive feelings by doing more of what you think are the right things to do in life and by caring more about what you think and feel about yourself and how you are living your life.

This can help you not only to have the vacation you deep down want and to chill out but also help you long after this summer is gone.

Spend your time online in a very focused way.

One change I usually do during the summer is to minimize the time I spend online. I cut it down to the bare essentials. Basically that means I update the blog and send out new newsletters. And I check my email/Twitter/Facebook maybe once every other day. Of course, you may not have the option or want to make exactly those changes.

But you may want to try to cut down on your online time a bit. Maybe just check all the things you check online once a day. I have found that it makes me a lot more relaxed, focused on the most important things and leaves me with more time to use for other things.

Set a low bar for happiness this summer.

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: “Have a low bar for happiness today.”

When you tell yourself this and try to keep it in mind during the day you’ll appreciate things more. That is my experience at least.

It makes the sunny summer days feel more wonderful and I appreciate the small and big adventures even more. The food tastes better and I tend to enjoy the sensations of the day more mindfully. I take more pauses for a moment or two to take it all in and to appreciate the people in my life and the things I have instead of taking them for granted.

Take a few days and do nothing at all. Accept how you feel.

Maybe you try some of the tips above. And maybe they still can’t help you to shake that stress, inner pressure or whatever you are carrying around from the past few months of hard work. If so:

Take a few days or a week where you take it easy and do pretty much nothing. It can do wonders for your mind and body.

When stressful feelings or impulses pop up during those days, sit down for a moment or two and just pause. Be still.

Then tell yourself: “This is how I feel right now and I accept it”.

By accepting how you feel instead of resisting it you reduce the emotional energy that you are feeding into these issues or negative feelings. And then inner pressure, stress or other impulses that can sabotage your vacation just tend lose speed like a car that runs out of fuel. Oftentimes these things becomes so weak after while that they disappear. Or they at least become a lot less powerful.

And so you can release the inner pressure and the stress bit by bit. You can truly wind down for a few weeks and spend that time as you want to without the extra baggage.

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
Karen Lamb

“Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.”
Jim Rohn

One thing that is very easy to get hooked on nowadays is to endlessly be checking your email, Facebook, Twitter etc. all day long.

I have certainly had a few bouts with getting hooked mostly on checking email too much. Many of my readers have emailed me and told me how they often spend too much of their days on Facebook or on checking their inboxes.

This may not seem that serious of a problem in theory, but these small bad habits can add up and disturb your life quite a bit. The excessive checking leads to:

• Spending your weeks, energy and time on the wrong things. When you spend too much time and energy in the wrong places then you often don’t get the most important things done. Your most important actions and tasks at work or school and your dreams and goals become something you neglect or procrastinate on.
• The illusion of getting important things done. When you are doing stuff in your inbox or social media accounts it may feel very important. But what of those things are really important 5 years from now? Or even 5 weeks from now? Some of that stuff is truly important of course. But don’t get lost in busy work.
• Increased sense of feeling worried, anxious and stressed. The more I checked my email the more nervous and anxious I became of missing something or that I would get a really angry or disappointed email. Plus, when you get stuck in using too much of your time and energy on the checking then you often don’t use your days in a good way and so the self-esteem tends to go down.

So what can you do to break out of these habits? Here are a couple of tips that helped me to stop being hooked on checking my email account too much and to be careful with Facebook and Twitter.

Be conscious of why you are doing it.

One thing that really helps me is simply to be conscious of why I wanted to check the email so much. I could be because I didn’t want to miss something important, to get compliments and validation from positive emails, to quickly solve the issues of people with a question or simply to relieve an inner feeling and impulse to check the email once again.

By just being conscious of this when I feel that I probably should check the email it becomes easier to say stop and go do something else instead.

Ask yourself: what is the worst that could happen if I don’t check it right now?

If you want to check the email many times a day because you are afraid something bad will happen if you don’t then ask the question above. And look to the past for references of how things usually go when you haven’t checked your email for a while. Don’t get lost in wild, disastrous fantasies taken from your overthinking mind.

Pause when you feel the need to check and just be still.

I have found that the need will pass if you don’t do anything for a few seconds or minutes. Then think of something better to do and do that instead.

Set clear boundaries.

Check your email, Facebook etc. just once a day if possible. Turn off your computer or cell phone at a certain time in the evening. Or put your smart phone where you can’t access it without getting up and walking a small distance. Or put is somewhere where you can’t see it, like in a drawer.

These boundaries will reduce checking and also make it easier to spend quality time with the people in your life without having to see that phone or computer and letting the impulse to do one quick check ruin a good conversation.

Make a deal with yourself to postpone checking for one hour in the morning.

You can probably postpone the checking for one hour in the morning without big consequences. Then if possible, after a day or two, try to move the checking further down the day. Maybe to after lunch. Or perhaps even, as I have, to the end of the workday.

The further you can move the checking in your workday, the less of a priority it will feel like as you fill the first hour(s) of your day with what is actually the most important stuff. This will reduce the impulse checking that often becomes worse if you start your day with the email.

Simply fill your day with more important and exciting things.

Checking up on Facebook, Twitter and email can be a good help and addition to your life but it can also become a sort of replacement where it becomes easy to spend time instead of going out and having other experiences and being there fully. Stuff like being out in nature, playing sports or playing in a band, working towards your biggest goal, having uninterrupted conversations or a fun night out.

By filling your life with a bit more fun or exciting activities, people face to face and the things you want out of life you simply won’t have time or as many reasons to do all that checking anymore.

“Unnatural work produces too much stress.”
Bhagavad Gita

“The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.”
Sydney J. Harris

Keeping the stress away in life isn’t just about the big decisions and challenges like the career, your most important relationships, money and health.

It is also to a large degree about what you do each day and week. Those small habits that you may forget about or neglect that when added up make a huge difference.

Here are 10 of them that are having a wonderful impact in my life and have had a very positive effect for many people.

Write it all down.

Use your mind for better things than remembering what to do. And the mind is often like a leaky bucket. So write down all your great ideas, insights, and thoughts before they go missing somewhere and add what you need to do to a to-do list.

One thing at a time.

You’ll get better results and feel better and less stressed if you do just one thing at a time. So instead of multi-tasking, get your day started with doing the most important task of the day until it is finished. Then continue with the next task that is now the most important one for you.

Ask instead of guessing.

Reading minds is hard. So, instead ask questions and communicate. This will help you to minimize unnecessary conflicts, misunderstandings, negativity and waste or time and energy.

Don’t make mountains out of molehills.

Before you start thinking too much about something and building it up something big in your head, ask yourself “am I making a mountain out of a molehill here? And if you get lost in victim thinking in some way then ask yourself “does anyone on the planet have it worse than me right now?”.

Pack your bag before you go to bed.

Then you don’t have to get stressed out by that in morning and you are less likely to forget something.

Set clear boundaries for your day and week.

I have to have limits to properly balance fully focused work with relaxation. By doing things this way I have discovered that I become more productive when not everything is about being productive. And life, in my experience, does become more pleasurable too. Three ways to set boundaries for your day and week are:

• Set at stop time and start time for work. I do not work after 7 o clock in the evenings and I do not work before 8 o clock in the morning.
• Plenty of breaks each day. Take breaks during your day to stay sharp and to have energy for the evenings and weekends too. I usually work for about 45 minutes and take a 15 minute break per hour. During that break I get away from the computer and do something different like going out for fresh air, eating something or watching half an episode of the Simpsons. Then every third hour or so I take a longer break for lunch, a snack or something like that.
• Don’t work on weekends. I try to stay away from the usual impressions and routines during the weekend. I usually take one media- and internet free day. I rarely check my emails on Saturdays or Sundays. Instead I spend time with my girlfriend, friends, family, a good book or movie or I do some other fun activity.

Keep everything in its place.

If everything has its own place then it is whole lot easier to keep your home reasonably ordered and decluttered from day to day. And to find the keys, wallet and cell phone as you are heading out the door.

Be 10 minutes early.

This very simple tip has transformed those traveling times during my day into relaxing breaks instead of passages of time and space that only up my levels of stress and other negative feelings.

Keep a very simple workspace.

By keeping a very simple workspace you minimize the distracting and stressing clutter. And your attention becomes easier to focus in a natural way on what is most important. So think about how you can create such a place to work in.

One suggestion is to just have small desk with a laptop, a pad of paper and a pen and something that inspires you on one of your walls like a list of your top priorities or dreams, a good quote or a meaningful photo that gives you a jolt of energy and positivity.

Just breathe.

When stressed, lost in a problem or the past or future in your mind breathe with your belly for two minutes and just focus on the air going in and out. This will calm your body down and bring your mind back into the present moment again.

Image by notsogoodphotography (license).

[hana-code-insert name=’social w twitt face’ /]Creating a new habit isn’t always easy. You often start out all enthusiastic and excited. But since you usually have to keep doing it every day for about 30 days or once a week for a whole lot of weeks to make the habit into something that sticks and feels natural it becomes harder after a while.

Life may interfere. Perhaps you get overwhelmed at work or at home. Maybe you go away for a vacation or a conference somewhere. Or maybe – because change is scary and could be harmful – your mind starts to create thoughts that that try to persuade you to quit this new and possibly positive change.

What to do then? Here are a few tips that help me to keep going on such tough days or to make smart decisions.

Just for today!

Here’s a little phrase I got from Brian Tracy that I often use when I’m having a bad day with a new habit. I say to myself: Just for today I will XX!

Replace XX with what you will do just for today such as getting exercise, getting going with the most important task first thing in the day or eating a healthy lunch.

By telling myself that I only have to do it today I release the mental burden of the past times I did it and future times when I will do it. And so the task becomes much lighter and the inner resistance melts away.

Plus, it also reminds me that the period that I am are investing in changing a habit is not the rest of my life. After 30 days or so the habit will mostly be automatic so it is not something I have to do on willpower for the next few years or decades.

And guess what, when tomorrow comes I’ll have a good day again with less resistance and I will most likely feel like doing the task again.

Find inspiration quickly to change your mood and mind.

When you are having a rough day then go and find some inspiration and motivation to keep going. With the help of just 15-20 minutes of personal development CDs, mp3s, blog posts or a chapter or two in a book you can often change negative thoughts and feelings within into something more positive.

And so you’ll once again feel more motivated to keep going.

Nudge yourself back on track when you slip.

You’ll probably slip along the way. It’s natural to do so. If you can avoid doing so over the 30 days then that is good. If you slip then that is OK too. Don’t beat yourself up if you do. That will only causes more negativity within and you may feel like giving up altogether just because you made a small slip or mistake.

Instead, nudge yourself back on track the next day again. And then keep going with the thought in mind that is the smart choice to forgive yourself to make it easier to make this habit a sticky habit.

Take a break.

Maybe you simply need a break for a day or two. Then take it. But then nudge yourself back on track again. Do not let a small break become the end of this positive change.

Have a cheat day.

I found having a cheat day to be very helpful when I lost 26 pounds in the beginning of 2009. On Saturdays I was allowed to eat some of the unhealthy but delicious stuff I was sometimes craving during the rest of the week. This became a vent that helped me to release that inner pressure regularly.

Instead of letting it ramp up until I wolfed down way to much of the stuff I craved.

I still, most of the time at least, stick with eating candy or potato chips on Saturdays and it helps me to maintain my weight and to not allow old and bad habits to pop up again.

Quit.

Are you creating this habit because you truly want it? Or are you creating it because someone told you to or because so many people around you seem to have it or work on it?

Oftentimes when you create a new habit there will be thoughts and feelings of not wanting to work on the habit. This can, for example, come from feeling overwhelmed or tired or from the common drop in enthusiasm after a few weeks. Or from feeling bored with the habit from time to time. That is natural and can be overcome.

But if you have no passion or real interest personally to create this habit in the first place then it will be very hard or impossible to keep it up.

So if you feel like giving up or bored a lot, if you feel no real passion or excitement or curiosity about the habit then ask yourself the two questions above. Because then it may be time to quit doing this and to spend your time and energy on a habit you truly want to cultivate.

What you want isn’t easy to know before you get started though. And although, for example, the habit of jogging wasn’t something you really wanted to do doesn’t mean that you should give up on a habit of getting regular exercise. Try walking, biking, playing badminton or table tennis instead. Try a new habit and see if it is a better fit and more enjoyable for you.

Because if it fits you and your life and you truly enjoy it then it becomes a whole lot easier to establish the habit and to keep going with it for a long time.

“Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.”
Jim Rohn

“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.”
Olin Miller

A couple of months ago I got my first smart phone, a couple of years after most people up here in Sweden.

It is actually kind of awesome, especially when you have had an old Nokia for about half a decade.

With my new smartphone can check the news or any website at any time of the day, read books, play fun games like Where’s My Water? and Flick Golf and listen to Spotify. And I’ll have an awesome guide with loads of pictures, info and a map for when mushroom hunting season begins here in the summer/early fall.

But in the first few weeks of using it I also noticed that I felt more stressed. I started to procrastinate more by playing games on the phone or by doing random internet browsing. My attention span got chopped up into smaller pieces. I checked the phone too much while spending time with others and I started to feel addicted to doing something on the phone many times a day.

So something had to change. Here’s what I did – and a few general tips – to reduce the phone usage, minimize the negative effects and still enjoy the capabilities of this new tool. These tips can also be used if you are for example having similar problems with your computer.

Create small obstacles.

This is very simple and a boundary I have written about many times when it for example comes to eating healthier.

I set up a small obstacles to using the phone. When I sleep it is not in the bedroom with me but in drawer beneath the desk in my workspace. When I work during the day or hang out at home during the evening I keep the phone in the bedroom.

By putting up small obstacles like these I make sure that the phone is not by my side all the time and the procrastination by phone has dropped to about zero. And if someone calls or sends me a text message I will still hear it most of the time.

So if you can, prevent the easy access and what that tends to result in and put the phone somewhere where you can’t see it or where you have to get up and take a whole bunch of steps to get it.

Shut it off at a certain time each day.

I personally don’t use this for my phone but if you get a lot of calls every day then shutting it off at a certain time at the end of the workday and getting back to people tomorrow can prevent a lot of stress and inner negativity.

This is what I have noticed when using this tactic for my computer where I am writing this right now. I shut it off at seven o clock in the evening at the latest – but usually earlier that that – and it stays off until the next morning. By doing all my work on this computer and using our other computer for watching a movie for instance I draw a boundary that helps me to stick to my work schedule for about 95% of the time.

This has helped me to not become overworked and to decrease stress.

Bunch checking.

Instead of checking your Facebook, Twitter, email and other social media whenever you feel like it during the day and becoming hooked on that try bunching the checking. Try to just check all those accounts and inboxes once a day in one combined session at the end of your workday.

Or if you just use Facebook etc. for your personal life then limit it to one check a day or to checking it once just after lunch and once in the evening.

The less you check it and the later in the day you check it, the less you feel addicted to it. That has been my experience at least.

Get a life.

Of course, nowadays much of life is in the phone. We can check what friends and colleagues are up to and keep in touch and discuss things on the phone.

But the phone can also become a sort of replacement where it becomes easy to spend time instead of going out and having other experiences and being there fully. Stuff like being out in nature, playing sports or playing in a band, working towards your biggest goal, having uninterrupted conversations or a fun night out.

Simply by filling your life with a bit more fun or exciting activities, people face to face and the things you want out of life you won’t have time or as many reasons to use the phone that much anymore.

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