Got Breathing Space?

When you don't have, or feel you don't have, an extra moment to read philosophy, history, or science, when great literature, plays, and novels are as foreign to you as hieroglyphics, do you have any chance of seeing your work, career, or life in a new light?

Control Your Environment

At my speeches audience members say to me, "I'm able to handle the tasks in front of me for the day, but if I get one more call or one critical email, everything is just thrown off." That's why it is important to condition your work environment.

Look at your office, your car, your home, and all of the other physical spaces in your life, and ask, "What can I do to make these spaces work for me in the way I work and in the way I live my life?" Take your desk, for example: realize that it must be specifically set up for you. Position your PC monitor in the way that's most comfortable for you. If you need tissues, candy, or certain supplies, then put them on your desk, close at hand.

Look at your desk in new ways. Align it so that it supports the way you work, regardless of how it looks to anyone else. Never mind what the person down the hall thinks! Identify the items you need, and then condition your desk to work for you. Remove piles from the window sills or
cabinets tops and put them into file folders. Gain some clear space!

True Breathing Space

When you draw upon your own accumulated knowledge and the wisdom that you develop, you're able to intermittently free yourself from ever accelerating flows of information. That is true Breathing Space.

Deskmanship

Is your desk always piled high with papers? Does the situation seem hopeless? It doesn't have to be that way. In my book Breathing Space: Living & Working at a Comfortable
Pace in a Sped-Up Society I observe that you spend so much time at your desk -– it just has to be a comfortable place for you!!

To create more surface space, you could buy a mechanical arm that hoists your monitor over the desk. I have has one and do not know how I lived without it beforehand. Also By clearing your desk every evening, you automatically have to choose what to work on the next day.

Pare Down and Win

My book, Breathing Space which has been translated into Japanese, French, Italian, Chinese, Malay, and Spanish, introduces "paring down." It's a means of discarding what does not serve you, what does not support your work, what does not make your home life more pleasant, what gets in the way, or what you've been hanging onto for too long.

Where in your personal or professional life can you pare down? Check the items below that you suspect require attention. Use this list as a starting point, since many areas may not be of concern to you or you may need to add some of your own areas.

Where else can I pare down?:

[ ] Front hall closet
[ ] Kitchen cupboards
[ ] Bedroom closet
[ ] Under kitchen sink
[ ] Den closet

[ ] Under bathroom sink
[ ] Other closet
[ ] Medicine cabinet
[ ] Linen closet
[ ] Attic

[ ] Laundry room
[ ] Basement
[ ] Garage
[ ] Bookshelves
[ ] Back porch

[ ] Other shelves
[ ] File drawers
[ ] DVD collection
[ ] File folders
[ ] Cassette collection

[ ] Hard drive
[ ] CD collection
[ ] Other collection
[ ] Clothing drawers
[ ] Coats

[ ] Shirts, blouses
[ ] Ties, scarves
[ ] Pants, Skirts
[ ] Handbags, pocketbooks
[ ] Footwear

[ ] Briefcases, valises
[ ] Magazines
[ ] Duplicates, triplicates
[ ] Newspapers
[ ] Other piles

[ ] Newsletters
[ ] Other assemblages
[ ] Items I haven't used in years
[ ] Items I've never used
[ ] Items I can donate

[ ] Anything else I can think of!!

Your Online Activity is Monitored

Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why it Matters by Bill Tancer is a scary book! It "guides the reader through the search patterns among 10 million Internet users, challenging myths and making new discoveries about the psychology of consumers, illustrating that clicks speak louder than words and can reveal unspoken truths about individual drives that are not expressed via other forms of media."

In short, the book explains how your online activity can be captured by experts who can then determine you identity as well as nearly everything else about you! No Breathing Space for extensive web surfers.

Ending Lawn Litter

Writing in the New York Times, Sewall Chan offers a wonderful article about local efforts to Halt Unwanted Paper Deliveries. Excerpted, he says:

"In an era of spam, telemarketing, moving billboards and other forms of aggressive commercial solicitation, an old-fashioned form of advertising is surprisingly - many say irritatingly - resilient: fliers, restaurant menus and business cards slipped under the doors, wedged in door jambs or left on the stoops of houses and apartment buildings in New York City."

"Until now, homeowners have had no recourse to block the unwanted paper, often called 'lawn litter' because in neighborhoods with yards much of the paper ends up on the lawn." Now however, the city is "enforcing a recent state law that prohibits the placement of 'unsolicited papers, fliers, pamphlets, handbills, circulars or other materials advertising a business or soliciting business" at homes in New York City if the property owner has posted a sign saying such materials are not wanted." Bravo!

"Advertisers who violate the law face fines from $250 for a first offense to $1,000 for repeat violations... Under the new law, the property owner's sign must be at least five inches tall and seven inches wide, and display the following language in legible letters at least one inch high: "Do Not Place Unsolicited Advertising Materials on This Property."

"...property owners who receive unwanted advertisements will be able to fill out a citizen complaint form and mail it, along with the unwanted ads, to the Sanitation Department's enforcement office in Brooklyn."

Books Offering "Breathing Space"

My 53rd and 54th books are now available:

* The 60 Second Self-Starter (Adams Media, ($9.95), is an action guide to help career professionals become more accomplished and satisfied with work and life. Its earlier version, the "60 Second Procrastinator," has been published in Arabic, Chinese Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Turkish, and in English India, Singapore, and Malaysia.

* The 60 Second Organizer (Adams Media, 2nd edition, $9.95) is a fun book offering 60 solid techniques that help you to maintain organization at your desk, office, home, car, and elsewhere. It has been published in Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and Japanese, and in English for India, Singapore, and Malaysia.

During this month only, receive both books, autographed, for $16 total, shipping included. Order at www.breathingspace.com/content/view/752/192/
1) at "description" type in: 2 Book deal
2) at "amount" type in $16.00, and hit enter

THIS is a DEAL!

Breathing Space Each Day

A riveting article in Wall Street Journal, discussed how some people think they can fly off to a spa, have two weeks of idyllic living, come back, and be ready to go. A growing body of research, however, suggests that this approach is wrong and that multi-millions of people manage stress incorrectly. They stress out all day and defer relaxation to isolated blocks of time, such as evening yoga classes and weekend trips.

The problem with this approach to stress management is that the relentless exposure to daily, chronic anxiety is the most toxic form of stress. The body releases chemicals under high stress that can damage the immune system and increase the risk of all types of illness. Stress can harm neurons in the brain, hamper sexual performance, and even lead to heart attacks and premature death.

The conclusion from these findings: people need breathing space throughout the day, every day.

Roasting the Sacred Cows

In my books and keynote speeches, I describe six "sacred cows"of time management that need to be forsaken.

The six "sacred cows" briefly listed below represent conventional time management wisdom. In contrast to each bit of "wisdom" are Breathing Space Principles that serve as action guides.

1. Handling Paper -- Wisdom: "Handle Each Piece of Paper Once."
2. Reducing Clutter -- Wisdom: "When in Doubt, Throw it Out."
3. Being More Efficient -- Wisdom: Speed Reading, Listening, Learning.

4. Beating the Competition -- Wisdom: "Work Smarter, not Harder."
5. Managing Your Schedule -- Wisdom: Use Sophisticated Scheduling Tools.
6. Staying Informed -- Wisdom: Read Key Executive Publications.

While time management was a set of rules that worked well in a relatively finite setting, Breathing Space principles will prove to be far more effective for the ever changing multi-variable situations that executives and managers face today.

No Smoking: Real Breathing Space

USA TODAY reporter Wend Koch writes that "Lawmakers in two California cities are casting votes this month on unprecedented legislation that would widen a growing voluntary movement by landlords and resident associations to ban smoking inside apartments and condos."

"Tens of thousands of apartments and condos have gone smoke-free in the past five years, management companies and health activists say."

Percentage of the U.S. adult population who smoke based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention :
• 1965: 42.4%
• 1970: 37.4%
• 1974: 37.1%
• 1980: 33.2%
• 1985: 30.1%
• 1990: 25.5%
• 1995: 24.7%
• 2001: 22.8%
• 2004: 20.9%

Shrinking/Disappearing Offices

A recent article in BusinessWeek reveals that thirty percent of white-collar workers still have private offices, according to a poll of 9,300 people by office furniture maker Steelcase. However the typical office has shrunk. It was about 16 by 20 feet a few years ago; it's about 8 by 10 today.

So, 320 square feet versus 80 square feet. Where is the Breathing Space?

The Origins of "Breathing Space"

People sometimes ask how I derived the title of his book, "Breathing Space." One afternoon, while I was speaking on the phone to a mentor, the mentor mentioned that he needed to "get some breathing space." I wrote down those words.

The phrase became one of the powerful guiding forces in my life. From that conversation, I devised the Breathing Space Institute, wrote the book "Breathing Space," and have since given hundreds of lectures for audiences across the nation and around the world on managing the daily pace with grace, mastering information from any communication overload, and, of course, having more breathing space.

Breathing Space for Patent Office

The National Research Council issued a new report on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which is beset with funding shortages and outdated policies. The report shows that vigorous competition among businesses “to file and enforce patents” is a major reason why the Patent Office currently is swamped and faces a backlog of 500,000 patent applications, added to approximately 350,000 new applications a year.