How Big is your Basket?

As a Montreal psychologist who has helped 1,000’s of people over the years, one of the biggest challenges that I have seen is stress management!

How big is your basket? In other words, how many tasks, activities, responsibilities are you trying to fit into your life? If you have plenty of time and nothing on the go, then you might be stressed by boredom. However, this is not the case for most of us who work full time and have families to raise and support.

If you have a few things on the go and plenty of time, then you may find that life is relaxed and enjoyable.

For most of us finding or making the time to fit everything in is a challenge.

Being not only a Montreal psychologist, with a full-time practice I am also a mother, a friend with a social life along with many hobbies and interests. I can’t get a bigger basket as I can’t buy more time. What I can do is manage my time better, make time to do what is essential and fun and prioritize. Trying to do it all takes the fun out of everything! Deciding what can and needs to fit into the basket is the key. Making a comfortable place for everything important to fit is essential. A basket overflowing with content is messy and stressful!

Excercise:

Make a list of everything that needs to be done or that you want to do.

Write a time estimate beside each item along with a due date.

Write down how much time you need in a day to eat, sleep, get ready, commute to and from work and do activities. This will tell you how much time you have left over in the day for work, family, exercise, food preparation, social life, entertainment, projects, maintaining your home, appointments and hopefully some R&R. (I’m getting tired just thinking about everything! LOL)

This exercise will let you know if you have the room in your basket to calmly and efficiently get things done at a good pace or if your basket is overflowing!

Remember that there are only 24 hours in a day!