Today was a good day.

I love the days „between the years“ to sort things out. And myself. 

Over the last few days, I have realised that I have a great longing: Less stuff on my mind. All these thousands of things that need to be done. Sometimes with a lot of pressure, when - as I have experienced as a self-employed person in recent months - finances are pretty tight and a solution has to be found quickly.

Not a nice feeling!

Over the last few days, I've heard a lot about

In the Bergman Leadership Podcast (20 min interviews with interesting personalities) I came across an extremely exciting Interview with Christine Carter and via the page to a link to it Ebook, which promises strategies that free up one day a week.

Clearing out to-do lists

I implemented one of her key strategies straight away. I started working on my to-do mountains. And sorted them. Since I love paper, I write down my to-dos on paper (environmental friends: don't worry, I usually use used paper).

Step 1 - Do not do

Sort out everything you don't want to do. In my case, that was a considerable pile about 5 cm high. Not least because I had already completed a number of to-dos but had neglected to throw away the pieces of paper with the to-do. Tactical mistake.

But also because you can't actually do everything that you could theoretically do. To say simply and clearly: I'm not doing that. I'm focussing on other things, that was really good.

Step 2 - Delegate

The things I can delegate are unfortunately not too many - just under 1 cm. But still.

Step 3 - Sorting

She recommends - like Peter Bregman in 18 minutes, to define 5 important goals/tasks in life for yourself. No more. And to use 95% of the time you have for these 5 things (ambitious!). There is also the 5% folder for the other stuff.

My 5 most important goals / priorities for 2017 

• Living friendships (this also includes to-dos such as finding events, buying (travel) tickets....
• Strengthen faith. The topic of authority and living in God's power is still very much on my mind.
• Strengthen the publishing house. We were up to our necks in water. It's getting better. I want to build something solid
• Writing. I want to write a lot this year The online course. A new book. Blog posts.
• contribution. I want to help make the world a better place. My current topics are the accommodation of refugees in Berlin, how to deal with converts and ecology. Not all at once.

There is also the folder

• Stuff that I don't enjoy, but that brings me money z. For example, the list of overnight stays away from home in 2016, as this gives tax reductions.
• 5%: The things that don't fit in with the important goals but still need to be done. Even though they don't even bring any money - applying for a new ID card, for example.

Sorting that wasn't so difficult because I've already pre-sorted it, as I've been organising to-dos by subject area for a long time. I will probably sort them again within the individual folders. The writing folder in particular is so full of ideas that it's not really a to-do list yet, but rather a collection of materials.

I also have the index card collection

• Potential experiences of happiness: The 100 (well, in my case currently 25) tasks that I have in my head as a „you should“.

I've realised that sorting my to-dos isn't enough to keep my mind calm and the stress away. In addition to the tasks that are part of my job and my goals, there is still a lot of stuff that I think I „should“ do.

This includes, for example, sorting all the bed linen I've been given for guests and the books that didn't find a place on the bookshelves and my jewellery and the photos and diaries and...

None of this is urgent. And if I don't do it, I can still live well. But if I do it, it will do me really, really good. That's why the collection is called Potential experiences of happiness. So that they don't just become a collection of ideas, I put them in a beautiful box and decided to treat myself to one of these happy experiences every day after the office closes. How wonderful.

A little tip:

If you would like to have more feelings of happiness, I recommend the SAM online training course. Most of his work. In the course, coach Christoph Schalk and I the best principles and lots of tips and tricks for relaxed and efficient working.