Design Your Day

by Claire Diaz-Ortiz

  As Arianna Huffington says in Thrive, the point isn’t to escape from it all and live on a Wyoming ranch—but rather to find a way to live well in the midst of our lives.

  Here are some key ways to find your oasis to recharge during the day-to-day:

  TAKE A MINI BREAK

  One of the best ways to bring yourself back to the moment in a day of stress or overwhelm is just to pull your hands away from the keyboard, move your eyes to the window, and breathe. Let the thoughts come in, and let the thoughts flow out. And breathe all the while. I’ve heard it said that making sure your feet are on the floor at key moments of grounding can also help you feel more connected to what’s going on around you. So try that as well as you breathe. And try the Time Out app on your computer to help remind you to do it.

  FIND A MOMENT TO STOP

  Mini breathing breaks are great, but what’s even better is a ten- or fifteen-minute period of time where you can take a stop and do nothing, all for yourself. I find that the best way to do this—especially in a corporate environment where it’s not necessarily possible to stare at the wall for fifteen minutes while others look on in wonder—is to take a short break to go on a walk. Outside.

  They say that one of the best ways we can reduce stress is by getting out into the beautiful world around us. Indeed, nature is a great way to get the endorphins going and to kick your stress to the curb. Whether it’s a beautiful park, a pristine botanical garden, or just a hotel balcony with a view, find nature and go there.

  Combine it with a trip to get a coffee, say, or to run an errand you need to do. But in those ten minutes of walking, don’t make phone calls. Don’t listen to podcasts. Just walk and breathe and wait as the thoughts jamming your mind slowly rearrange themselves into calm.

  It’s all about finding those small moments where you take time out of the crazy, and finding time to disconnect from the speeding train of your life to bring your mind and heart back to calm.

  TAP INTO POSITIVE EMOTIONS

  You’ve likely heard it said that smiling makes you actually feel better. It’s true, and I have more than one friend who swears by smiling in the mirror whenever she feels down. Positive emotions like hope are key to making sure your stress is as low as it can reasonably be. Every day, think of a way you can better tap into these key emotions and cultivate the side of your heart and mind that wants to feel happiness. A great way to do this in the midst of your life is to find something you love to do and weave it into your workday.

  One of my friends has a demanding job as a physical therapist. Given her long days, she used to find it incredibly helpful to take a minute out of her day to rejuvenate—and she got creative to do so. At lunchtime she’d look for an open room where she could read a novel for thirty minutes by herself as she ate her lunch. It cleared her head and recharged her for the afternoon. Even if you’re not an obsessive reader like I am, it turns out that the act of sitting down, resting, and reading a good novel can really make you feel better. The key is to immerse yourself in a story—and not a nonfiction business book—to really turn your mood around.

  QUIT SOMETHING TODAY

  “Every single Thursday, I quit something.”—Bob Goff

  Another way to limit your activities to your best work is to make a consistent, regular routine of taking things off your plate.

  My friend Bob Goff is famous for doing just this, and for encouraging others to do the same. Bob has a crazy full life: he runs a law firm and a nonprofit organization, serves as the honorary consul to the Republic of Uganda, is a bestselling author, and has a vibrant community of friends and family he takes pride in spending regular time with. Every day, Bob pops up in my email or my Instagram feed doing amazing things somewhere in the world: helping kids in northern Iraq, building a chapel on a remote British Columbian island, and cheering on his friends wherever they are. In order to accomplish all this, he has to make sure he’s not doing what he shouldn’t.

  This is true of all of us. Every day, we continue to do things—or take on new things—that don’t connect with our true passions or goals. Little by little, we stuff our lives and lose our way in the process. Bob attacked this problem directly by starting to quit one single thing every Thursday. As he learned, the single act of cutting down and cutting back can have an incredible cascading effect in your life. Even if it’s not Thursday, choose one thing you can quit today. Try it again next week. Slowly but surely you’ll work to pare down your life.

  TAKE A WEEKEND OFF

  Two days isn’t a lot of time. And, as many of us know, two days can easily be taken up with shuttling kids back and forth to sports practices and birthday parties. To make our weekends count, we have to find a real break from work, and a real way to rejuvenate for the week ahead.

  Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend, suggests a great strategy for making sure you are maximizing rejuvenation in your weekends, and it’s all about something she calls “anchor events.” The concept is this: Choose a few pleasurable activities you want to do over your weekend, and schedule them in. It may be “bake a cake with my daughter on Saturday,” or “watch a movie as a family on Friday night,” or “go biking with a friend.”

  Whatever your anchor events are, by scheduling in this fun time, you’ll be able to take advantage of the happiness we all get from the anticipation of them. Additionally, you’ll come to the end of your weekend feeling like you truly enjoyed yourself and didn’t fritter the time away with reality TV marathons. In general, the strategy of scheduling downtime doesn’t require a whole weekend, and can also work well even in an afternoon.

  TAKE A VACATION

  With a longer period of time on the table, the stakes are higher, and the potential for rest and rejuvenation is even greater.

  They say that 57 percent of Americans don’t take all their vacation days each year, and I’m surely not the only one who thinks there’s a problem with that.10 A vacation is the perfect pause that more of us need in our work lives. A good time-out can reenergize and refocus you to win, and vacations are great opportunities to do just this.

  Marisa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, is known for taking a one-week vacation every four months.11 For her, the reward for four months of head-down work is getting one week off to play. Critically, though, time off is not just about playing. As Mayer says, it’s really about recharging. We need time off to make our time “on” really count.

  Author Michael Hyatt, who used to work in corporate America as the CEO of Thomas Nelson, now works for himself, allowing him to take a sabbatical each summer. He values this time immensely. Ken Blanchard, the San Diego–based business author who has sold over twenty-one million copies of his many books, spends his summers at his lake house in New York. Although he does do some work, he prioritizes relaxing time with friends and family.

  Although we often hear about the importance of starting things, we easily forget that starting only works if we take regular stops as well. And as these leaders show, stops can come in all shapes and sizes. A digital one, I believe, can prove one of the best kinds.

  DIGITALLY DISCONNECT

  When I started tracking the time I spent online, one of my clear goals was to reduce that time. I wanted to be more productive, with less wasted time spent staring at a flat screen. I’ve often found that if I’m not being productive in the middle of my day and find myself on my dreaded Internet loop (email, Twitter, Instagram, CNN, email, Twitter, Instagram, repeat), stepping away from my computer is the single best thing I can do to refocus my priorities.

  On the weekends, I take the same approach. By keeping my computer off for at least one full day—and hopefully two—I can “detox” enough so that, come Monday morning, I’m excited to dive back in. Stepping away also makes the heart grow fonder, of course.

  A few years ago, I started to explore the idea of taking longer digital breaks or “digital detoxes,” and along the way I learned a number of key lessons about how important getting away from
our screens is, and how to create truly effective digital detoxes.

  Here are some key things to remember when considering a digital break:

  Decide What Kind of Break It Will Be

  The first key step in any break-taking is figuring out what exactly you’re taking a break from. A break from social media? A break from email? A break from the Internet at large? A break from all flat screens? There are a variety of different types of digital breaks. In The Winter of Our Disconnect, Susan Maushart eschewed all flat screens from the house for six months—but allowed herself to use her computer outside of the home to meet her writing deadlines. Baratunde Thurston left the Internet for twenty-five days—and turned off text messages. Author Kyle Tennant in Unfriend Yourself: Three days to Detox, Discern, and Decide about Social Media promotes the idea of taking a fast from social media in particular. One person I read about allowed one email check per day. Different breaks can work for different aims.

  The key is to define what the break is in specific terms. Then go a step further and write it down so you won’t be confused. When I took a twelve-day digital detox, I did just that, filling my journal with constant reminders of what I was doing a la “You are on a complete digital detox, Claire. Remember!”

  Set Your Break Boundaries and Stick to Them

  Boundaries are always tough, and your break boundaries are just as challenging. Even on a social media break, say, you might wake up one morning with an insatiable itch to scroll through Facebook for the teams of babies born in your network overnight. Don’t do it. A break is a break, and if you’ve decided to take one, uphold your boundaries.

  A total tech blackout is sometimes a good thing, as I learned on my twelve-day complete digital break. The first couple of mornings I could practically feel the shakes as I tried to reach for my iPhone to scroll my emails and tweets before getting out of bed. My only “cheat” was to receive text messages if something crazy happened and I had to get online. Another year on vacation, I decided I wasn’t into such a total blackout, so instead I did a very scaled-back version of a detox, staying off my computer but checking emails occasionally on my iPhone. Since I rarely respond to many emails on my iPhone, it kept me out of the email fray.

  Prepare Beforehand

  Depending on the level of intensity of your digital detox, you’ve got to plan. Write blog posts, schedule social media updates, and set auto-responders on your email addresses alerting folks. Especially if you are going offline for more than a few days, making sure that you’ve got a good auto-response is key. Importantly, you’ve got to do it right in order to encourage folks to not expect a response, and not try to contact you through other means. On my twelve-day total digital detox, I encouraged folks in my auto-responder to “text me if needed.” The result? A number of non-urgent texts coming. Next time, I know to use much stronger language.

  Alert the Important Folks

  There are folks who just might need to know when you’re stepping out of life for a little while. Friends and family who might wonder why you’re not responding at once to every long cat pic they send? A client you’re working with on a project due after your break will end? An assistant who will need to help out just a bit more while you’re away? All these people need to be in the loop—and doing so beforehand (and then reiterating with an out-of-office response message that conveys clear information on when you’ll be back and how to deal with things while you’re gone) is essential.

  Make It Public

  Another benefit to telling your friends and family what you’re doing: it will encourage them to keep you on track. Tell them to slap your wrist, or guide you gently toward the ink and quill for your communication needs.

  Start Your Day Right

  As you might imagine, a perfect offline morning shouldn’t start with you tweeting from the pillow. Instead, use your digital detox to tap into your offline morning routine. When consciously trying to disconnect, what you do first thing in the morning is more important than ever.

  Have a Backup Plan

  There is always the chance that someone really needs to get in touch, and so it’s a good idea to have a backup plan. Whether that means hiring someone to help out (or tasking a current hire with the job), or checking texts on occasion for urgent messages, think of the way that you’ll feel both digitally disconnected and responsible at the same time.

  Working better is about stopping more, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Stop the madness, get the break you need, and watch your productivity soar.

  In this book we’ve explored what it means to live in a world where there are too many things on our plate. This is our reality, and it’s not going away. As such, my goal is to enjoy more of life in the midst of the busy journey. The way to do this, I believe, lies in understanding how to do better work. The teachings in this book are the exact strategies I have used in my own life to do as much as I do—and to (usually) not feel harried in the process. It is a process, and one I work at every day. The Do Less method, for me, has been nothing short of transformative. I believe it can work nicely in your own world as well. The key is to take the time, do the work, and then reap the rewards. Ultimately, it’s about doing your best work, and finding more time for living along the way.

  That said, none of this living is worth it if you don’t have a clear idea of what you’re living for. Each of us has an inner compass telling us why we’re here and what we want out of this time on earth—to pursue the calling of our life, to raise our family well, to be a leader in our faith or community, to serve as a source of motivation for the world. For me, that means discovering why God put me on earth at this particular time and place and then doing that thing He wants me to do. Finding clarity on what your vision is for a life of happiness and fulfillment is absolutely essential. Living well means nothing if you don’t have the meaning behind your life to hold up to the light. Your meaning might differ from that of your neighbor’s, but what won’t differ is its existence. We all have something that drives us and that makes the journey worth every step. The key is to figure out what it is so you can determine how you want to live. Then do everything you can to make as much time for that living.

  Here are some of my favorite books on productivity, goal setting, mindfulness, and balancing it all.

  • The Balance Within, Esther M. Sternberg

  • Eat that Frog: 21 Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, Brian Tracy

  • New Slow City, William Powers

  • The Four-Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss

  • The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard

  • Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

  • What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, Laura Vanderkam

  • The Power of Full Engagement, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

  • The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg

  • Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi

  • The Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal

  • The Winter of Our Disconnect, Susan Maushart

  • The Best Yes, Lysa Terkeurst

  • The Fringe Hours, Jessica Turner

  • The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, Tony Schwartz

  • The Clockwork Muse, Eviatar Zerubavel

  • Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott

  • Accidental Genius, Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content, Mark Levy

  • Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average, and Do Work That Matters, Jon Acuff

  • Vision Map: Charting a Step-by-Step Course for Your Biggest Hopes and Dreams, Joël Malm

  • The Well-Balanced World Changer, Sarah Cunningham

  • The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin

  • Internal Time, Till Roenneberg

  • Unfriend Yourself: Three days to Detox, Discern, and Decide about Social Media, Kyle Tennant

  • The Better Life: Small Things You Can Do Right Where You Are, Claire Diaz-Ortiz

&n
bsp; 1. Mark Levy, Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010).

  2. Paul J. Meyer, Attitude Is Everything: If You Want to Succeed Above and Beyond (Meyer Resource Group, 2003).

  3. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/average-american-watches-5-hours-tv-day-article-1.1711954.

  4. http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2012/dec/17/ban-staff-email-halton-housing-trust.

  5. http://mashable.com/2012/04/05/sheryl-sandberg-leaves-work-at-530/.

  6. http://gorowe.com/.

  7. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-wise/201209/the-true-cost-multi-tasking.

  8. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/email-workday_n_1725728.html; http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2012/dec/17/ban-staff-email-halton-housing-trust.

  9. https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-much-time-do-we-spend-in-meetings-hint-its-scary.

  10. http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/05/23/vacation.in.america/index.html.

  11. http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-barely-sleep-2012-9.

  Claire Diaz-Ortiz is an author, speaker, and technology innovator who has been named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company. Claire was an early employee at Twitter, Inc., where she led social innovation.