Calm the chaos

9 little strategies for making life feel more serene

I know that “simplicity” and “minimalism” are hot topics these days. When life involves so many moving parts, it can be tempting to think that paring back is the only option. But some things can’t really be dialed down — five kids is more complex than one kid, but I have five, so here we are — and the truth is that a complex life is not inherently chaotic. Chaos and complexity aren’t the same thing at all.

I believe it is quite possible to have a complex life that still feels calm, but this does involve some intentional schedule strategies. Here are my favorite ways to make sure (most) things feel under control.

1. Spend more time planning. My Best of Both Worlds podcast co-host Sarah Hart-Unger frequently points out that most people spend less time planning than they should. While there is a point of diminishing returns, most people are no where near that point. A little more time spent planning makes life more calm, because even if life doesn’t go according to plan, a good plan helps you identify what is most important — so you can pivot when you need to, and choose which balls can be dropped and which can’t.

I will sing the praises of a solid weekly planning routine. Toward the end of the week (Friday works for a lot of people), sit down with your calendar, and make a priority list for the upcoming week. This list should have three categories: career, relationships, self. What is most important over the next week in each of these categories? Where can these things go? What is not yet on the calendar that you would like to see happen? This is also a good time to look at the week’s logistics, including any commitments that wouldn’t rise to “top priority” status. Do you have a plan for making these things happen? What is realistic? What isn’t? You want to end this session with your marching orders for the next week, and a good sense of the landscape. I know I always end my weekly planning session feeling much more calm about the next 8-9 days!

I also think it’s wise to do a much shorter daily planning session. Before I end the workday each day, I make myself a to-do list for the next day, informed by the day’s appointments and whatever priorities I have pulled from my weekly list. Note: The daily plan should also include non-work tasks or fun items. Planning isn’t just about things we have to do. It’s about things we want to do as well. Knowing you’ve planned in time to run, and time to call a friend, will make any schedule feel more calm.

2. Get more help (including during non-working hours). I think a lot of the frenzied feeling of many schedules stems from people trying to do life with inadequate support. If you have young kids, do you have enough childcare to cover the hours you need to work and some time to relax? Sometimes having a sitter for one evening during the week, and a few hours on a weekend, can be the key to life feeling more doable. Even if you don’t have young kids, if you have the financial resources, there’s no need to spend your entire weekend running errands, or to race back from an important meeting to let a contractor into your house. You know you need a team at work and guess what? You need one at home too.

3. Take a real lunch break. Nothing says frenzy like trying to grab bites of a sandwich while turning your camera off and muting yourself for 10 seconds on Zoom. If you absolutely have to work through lunch, make it a lunch meeting with close colleagues and at least enjoy eating with other people and hopefully discussing some non-work stuff too.

4. Go for a 5 p.m. walk. A walk is a great way to create mental separation between work and the rest of life, or at least to clear your head. If you work from home, take a short walk as a “fake commute” around quitting time. If you work at a workplace, try to build it in — maybe by parking at a garage a few streets over or walking a little farther to get the express bus.

5. Quit multi-tasking. As we discussed here in a recent post on multi-tasking during virtual meetings, trying to do two things at once generally won’t make you more productive. Likewise, during the day, flitting in and out of your inbox or Slack messages is basically a great way to feel busy while getting nothing done. Check email in certain windows, and then close your inbox. If you’re talking with someone, talk with them and really listen. Now (obviously) I don’t mean you can’t listen to a podcast or music while doing chores or something, but I would suggest not listening at anything other than 1x speed. What’s the rush? The point is to fill the time and make chores a little more pleasant, not to get through more content faster. I feel more calm when I listen to people at the speed they actually talk!

6. Batch the little things. One of the things that makes people feel frantic is this constant sense that there’s stuff to be done…and you aren’t doing it. You can make life more calm by keeping a running list of small tasks, and then designating a time when you will get through all these things. I keep a “Friday punch list” of tasks like refilling the school lunch accounts, signing permission slips, booking tutoring sessions, buying plane tickets, sending invoices, etc. I know I will do these things Friday, so I don’t worry about buying those plane tickets when I’m doing something else. There is a time for plane tickets…and now is not that time.

7. Don’t contaminate your leisure time. If you’ve got 30 minutes before your next thing, and you’ve decided to sit down and read a book, do not hop up to go put something away. It might help to set a timer for 30 minutes and challenge yourself to just sit there. If something occurs to you, write it on a list (or email it to yourself…if you can keep from checking your email) but don’t go do it. By showing yourself that you can sit for a while and nothing will fall apart, you can start to change a narrative of being overwhelmed.

8. Build in a back-up slot. Life happens. You blocked out Tuesday morning to work on a big and important project and then the entire family wakes up with pink eye. To make life feel more calm, designate a back-up slot for anything that is important to you. This increases the chances of the original thing happening, even if not at the original time. I realize this can get unwieldy as the priorities stack up, so one way to get at the same idea is just to keep big chunks of time open in your schedule. If Thursday afternoon stays open right up until Thursday afternoon, then if you lose Tuesday morning, all those tasks can go there. If you lose Wednesday instead, those tasks can take the Thursday slot. If you get to Thursday and magically everything has gone well I am sure you will find some way to spend that time. It won’t be wasted.

9. Counter the narrative. Our human brains have a very strong story telling impulse. We look for related points of evidence and then construct a narrative based on that pattern. It’s not hard to find three moments that feel frenzied in any given day — which can then lead to a story that life is out of control. But is it? I like to think about other moments too. On any given day maybe there was some frenzy, but I also went for a walk in the afternoon, spent 20 minutes working on my puzzle, and read for 30 minutes before bed. Clearly life isn’t nothing but chaos. We can choose what to see and focus on, and a little intention here goes a long way.