by Paula Maher

Created on: April 30, 2008

"Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest."
(Ashleigh Brilliant (1933- ) U.S. (English born) writer and cartoonist.)

Tick tock.
The clock is ticking away, there is still a lot to do and of course not enough time to do it.

Why is life like this? Why do we rush from A to B, leave our dreams untouched and wake up the next day and do it all again?

I can tell you all about how short life is and how important it is to stop and smell the roses, but, you may ask, "How on earth do we find the time to sniff flowers?"

I have inherited an unfortunate genetic defect; it is called perfectionism. This means that almost everything I do takes twice as long because it has to be done flawlessly.
Upon reflection I devised some steps to create some equilibrium in my life and the first lesson I have had to learn is that, although some things are worth doing perfectly, a lot of the time, near enough just has to be good enough; the trick is to decide what is really important.

1) SOMETIMES IT JUST HAS TO BE SLAPDASH AND SO BE IT.
It's hard if you have the precision gene, but well worth a shot if you are after a better quality lifestyle.
The house looks a little messy? For Goodness' sake, leave it!
Repeat after me: "The more the emphasis on perfection the further it recedes."

Now that we got that out of the way, let's move on to the second step to a happier life.

2) DO IT NOW!
Procrastination is like an infection; you must nip in the bud or it will spread, get much worse and cause a lot of pain.
American psychologist and philosopher William James once said, "Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."

I feel uncomfortable procrastinating because I stress a lot more with the knowledge that there is something needing be done and I'm not doing it.

Sometimes it is a lot easier to do little tasks as the need arises rather than place them at the end of a never ending to do list. The idea is to differentiate between simple errands and more time consuming chores which would be a lot better off at the bottom of said list.

As an example, I pay my bills, or schedule them to be paid, usually on the same day they arrive. It doesn't take very much time to pay a bill on line, but it can be costly if a pile is left until past the due date and possibly forgotten about all together, which can easily happen; let's face it invoices are generally abundant nowadays.

This brings me to another tip.

3) MAKE USE OF TECHNOLOGY AND "MOD CONS".
Complicated

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