ACTIVITY: Prune Your Calendar

"Do I need to do this thing on my schedule? Is it serving a purpose in my life?"

New series: Every so often, I’ll suggest a short activity to help you feel less overwhelmed and more purposeful. You should be able to complete it in less than 15 minutes.

Objective: Just like decluttering your physical space, decluttering your calendar commitments can feel freeing. Make it a regular habit to “prune” your calendar and remove as many obligations as possible.

Here's a simple, immediate—and ongoing—way to give yourself the gift of time.

I like to think of it as time decluttering. With the more traditional kind of decluttering, you tidy up your space, getting rid of any items that no longer serve your needs.

I do that fairly often, and I usually feel better afterwards.

But while physical decluttering and improving your environment can be helpful, time anxiety usually stems from things in our mind or commitments that occupy our schedule. It’s a little different from “I’ve got too many socks, so I should pare down.”

That’s why, in addition to the physical decluttering, I’ll often look at my calendar for the next few weeks and challenge myself to remove a few items.

Most likely, I find some upcoming appointments that seemed like a good idea when I added them, but now feel less important.

Later I'll show you a concept called Rules of Engagement that will help you make fewer commitments in the first place, but you can prune your calendar without any further knowledge.

Go through your schedule and ask, "Do I need to do this thing? Is it serving a purpose in my life?"

If yes, that's great. But err on the side of no.

Remember as well that every YES requires at least several NOs. (For everything we choose to do, there are other things we’re ultimately deciding not to do.)

One more thing: being selective about your time is important NOT because there's some arbitrary rule that all of your time has to be spent on non-frivolous activities—it's because you want to fill your life with more meaning.

You want to feel more purposeful about the day-to-day of it all, along with the long-term.

See what you can remove, and notice how it feels to reclaim that space. This is not managing time—an impossibility, since time exists on its own—it's giving you time. It’s an easy but powerful way to multiply the time that’s available to you.

More Tips

• The supply of self-improvement tools, methods, and systems is inexhaustive. Instead of controlling the supply—hunting for an “edge”—we need to control our demand 

• “Doing more” is not the same as doing the right things. We want to fill our lives with meaning, not just more checked-off items from a list. This is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way; stay tuned for more of the story as we go…

Conversation Starters

1. Are you able to remove at least one thing from your calendar?

2. How else can you practice this concept? (Hint: it’s not just about calendars)

3. Is inexhaustive a word? I think so but it seems the jury is out.