Your days can fly by quickly when they’re filled with busy routines and an if you have a lot of responsibilities. That’s why it can be difficult for most people to find time and space to relax and distress. It can sometimes make you feel down and unhappy. However, according to Dalai Lama, “Happiness is not something ready-made; it comes from your actions.”
It’s not possible to be happy and peaceful all the time. However, you can be happy most of the time if you’re mindful of how you plan your day, week, and month. It also depends on the people you let in your life. If you can evaluate what makes you unhappy or any habit harming your mental health, you can mitigate those factors and improve your disposition and peace.
If you’re curious about which Zen habits can help you feel more balanced and happier in your routine, we’ve put together our top recommendations:
Try To Limit Multitasking
Are you someone who likes to start their day by checking their email on the toilet and planning your day while you make your coffee? That’s not the best way to wake up and start your day. We advise you to stop multitasking. Focus on one task at a time. When you focus and practice mindfulness, you’re creating a meditative state.
When you are in a meditative state, you are much calmer when you go about performing the tasks you must accomplish. You make completing your tasks much more enjoyable. So, when you’re on the toilet, do your thing. Take in the sweet aroma and wake your senses when making your morning coffee. When you’ve reached the office, transform into work mode. It’ll help you become more present and help you enjoy living in the now.
Know When To Slow Down
It isn’t easy to keep up a fast pace every day, month, and year. There will be days filled with anxiety. You may feel the adrenaline rush because you must be laser-focused on getting the job done. Then you may have other days when you lack energy, which is the epitome of laziness. These days, you may be unable to find the power to do the job.
Life won’t collapse if you aren’t rushing to live for the next call or email. So when you find yourself rushing from task to task, slow down. Make it a habit to take pauses, reflect, smile, and enjoy the task before you move on to the next one.
Figure Out What’s Important In Your Life
The best way to simplify things is to determine the day’s priorities. If you’ve got a ton on your plate, it can make you stressed and overwhelmed. So if you list the priorities, commitments, meetings, tasks, and projects based on their deadlines and allocate a specific time and day for them, you’ll feel in control of your actions and future. You can try to make it a daily habit to write a “Most Important Tasks” list each night before bed. This list can help you determine what you need to accomplish the next day. Writing this list can also help you sleep peacefully, knowing you got this!
Visualize How You Would Like Your Day To Go
You can visualize what a perfect day looks like to you. It’ll help you understand what a simple day means for you. It’s different for each person. A simple day can mean an uneventful day at work and home, reading a book, spending time with kids all day, doing yoga, painting on a canvas, etc. It can also mean spending time on what’s important to you and completing work on time.
So, take a minute to what’s important to you and what can help you make your day a little easier. It can be your partner helping with breakfast in the morning or just taking a hot shower to start your day. Pick a habit that’s sustainable in the long term and helps you peacefully begin your day. It can be as small as using a gentle alarm sound.
Make It A Habit To Say No To Extra Commitments
It can be hard to say no to opportunities that come your way. However, you need to be able to handle them without compromising your mental and physical health. It would help if you learned how to say no to commitments that stand in the way of your perfectly peaceful day.
Prioritize your commitments. Say no to those things that are not in alignment with you internally. You may say no to particular projects, coach a class, participate in a team event, or even become a business partner.
Commit to those people and things that add value to your life. If a commitment is taking too much of a mental strain on you and makes you neglect your responsibilities to your family and your daily work tasks, politely decline that you can’t take any extra load this time.
Limit The Tasks In Your Day
It can be easy to pile on things on your daily schedule. We aren’t saying that you can’t do them. You should be able to do them within a block without feeling overwhelmed or drained by the number of commitments. Limiting them will help you acknowledge that you can only complete everything in a day without rushing and making mistakes. So, give yourself a break and set a sustainable goal.
Focus On Your Important Tasks
You can be on your computer and do work all day, non-stop. However, you can carve out time to do your most important work. You can turn off the phone, eliminate distractions, and finish it within that time. You can get the first one on your desk, then the next one, until you complete them. It can be finishing a presentation for your boss, writing a project proposal for the next quarter, working on numbers for a retail promotion, etc. Get them all done within a time frame.
