#26 of the 101 Ways to Love Your Job

Anxiety is Mental Clutter

Presentations, one-on-ones, to-do lists, family interactions...all can be handled with less stress and confusion when presented as a simple, clear mental (or written) statement: "I am attending Johnny's baseball game today. We will be on time and I will only focus on enjoying the game."

When we aren't specific in our thinking while making plans, we may find our thoughts sounding something like this:" I have to attend the staff meeting across town and make sure I drop off the request for copies before 12pm. I've got to be on time or the manager of the project is going to start getting ticked. I won't chat with the copy center employees and get to the meeting late like last time, either. I'm going to focus on the meeting content and have lots of ideas for the group. Then when I get back to me office, I'll...."

Do yourself a favor and identify the main reasons that you may enter into situations with low does of clarity (and therefore high doses of mental clutter). What can be done to ensure more clarity is available when needed? When you do feel anxiety, check in with yourself and see where there may be "mental clutter" that can be simplified or clarified.

One technique I use is the "twenty words or less" goal statement. If I write down everything I want to do that day and include any additional "clutter" like my stressful feelings, other people's needs, financials, etc., I have a good two paragraphs of goals. What I do instead is TYPE what I want to accomplish and then plug it into Microsoft Word (any word processing software will do the job) and select "Properties." Then I see the word count. Often, my count is at 100 or more words. My goal is to get it down to twenty words or less. It is amazing how much can be filtered down and streamlined with this exercise. What felt like an enormously stressful undertaking feels light and doable.

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