The challenge we all are having now is, we are too busy. We are consumed by the busyness trap. If we are not busy enough, we have fear of called lazy or idle. We create internal pressure from desires and there is social pressure that pushes us to stay busy.

We want to get on top of things from the minute we wake up. Within 5 minutes of waking up most of the people are reaching to their phone. (A survey suggested 35% of mobile phone owners use mobile phone before getting out of bed). We want to get almost everything done even before we put first step on the floor. We want to be active, send emails, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc… all to show how busy we are. Always busy, always on the ball.

When I meet people for coaching, the challenge they have is a never ending TO DO LIST. They are not able to manage things for the day, thus piling up more tasks for next day. In return the To Do List becomes unmanageable and becomes a stress causing tool. They are doing task X, Y & Z and while they are doing it, they are thinking to do A, B, C tasks as well.

This is like a trap, you are getting in the quick sand. Harder you try, the harder it becomes to manage things. The fundamental challenge I think is we have more desires than time. Because of this stressful situation, time management and awareness of values become very essential.

Values because it will help us prioritize the tasks in the day. Values help us identify the way we want to live our life. I’ve written about values and how to find your values (What are Values? What are Your values? )

Time management because it will give us practical tools to manage the finite amount of time we have in a day.

We do not budget our time and because of that we get into the roller coaster ride day in day out, not feeling satisfied of the growth and life quality. Time is the only thing which you will not be able to earn it back, once the minute or second is gone it’s gone.

So how we manage the time and get out of the busyness trap?

5 Tips to Avoid the Busyness Trap

1. Seek clarity on what you want to do and how you want to live your life?
2. Turn the dream life into tasks or activities you have to do (or accomplish)
3. Set goals long term, medium term and short term. (Use the SMART goal setting technique, details in my free ebooks)
4. Take one or two goals for the year and break it down to monthly or weekly goal (Become project manager of your life).
5. Keep your plans & tasks visible. This will motivate you to do things or when you fail it will make you feel guilty (a negative motivator).

Here is a template I use to create my weekly budgeting of time.

Click here to download weekly time planner file.

You can also read about the process I use to create the life I desire. (A simple formula to create the life you desire)

A real life example I remember when people don’t manage time wisely. When I used to work in the corporate world, we had a manager. During the day, he was busy having coffees and chats. He was always sending emails in the middle of night. He was always working (or pretending to work). He was sacrificing his sleeps and health due to that. Eventually the body gave up and he had major health issue. The body eventually gave a warning, that your busyness is not healthy. Manage your time and manage your mind/health.

If you would like to know the step by step process, sign up for my newsletter, as I’m conducting few FREE webinars on Time Management in coming days.