If you miss the present moment, you miss your appointment with life.Tich Nhat Hanh.

The daily demands on our lives at work and at home never seem to stop. They just keep on coming. Everybody wants a piece of us and our time, but there is only so much of it to go around. Fact is, there are only 24 hours in the day, 168 in the week. Faster and faster …. it’s tiring.

Faster and faster can catch up to you. It can ruin relationships, cut down on efficiency at work and suck the joy out of life.

All is not lost, though… not if you don’t want it to be. Living in the now is an attitude. It is all about being mindful, something you can learn. Practicing mindfulness will take time and discipline. It’s a process that takes longer to do than simply reading this. There are courses you can take, books you can read and groups you can join. But for starters, here are five things you can do now. Take a minute….

1. Wrestle your to do list to the ground. Be ruthlessly honest. Remember you only have 168 hours and after you subtract time for eating, sleeping and doing all the daily required tasks, there really aren’t that many hours left. Do what’s important first.
2. Learn to say say “no.” If someone asks for your a piece of your time, check your calendar before you commit. Arrange a mutually convenient time to get together. Mutually is the operative word.
3. Stop being a slave to the Internet and social media. It can be a terrible time waster.
4. In your face-to-face relationships, increase your awareness of how you interact and respond to others. Practice being aware. Be attentive. Listen. Develop more patience.
5. Concentrate more on today and not so much on the future. If you are doing the right things today, the future will look after itself.

The here and now is all we have, but if we play our cards right, it’s all we really need!

Could you use a life coach? Need help managing change and thinking strategically? Let’s chat about it. Text/call me 416.450.8867 or email drew@drewsimmie.com. Follow me on Twitter.