Healing

If you thought the "nanosecond nineties" were fast-paced, get ready for the "millisecond millennium" where life will be faster and more demanding than ever before. To help Commitment readers cope with the ever-increasing pace of the times, our expert career and personal growth columnist Marlene Caroselli has written a new series on how to manage our lives and our jobs with greater wisdom, serenity, and spirituality. Here, she offers quick and easy ways how to have the energy needed to keep up with life's incessant demands.

In a sense, we are all managers--no matter what our job title is. We manage to keep our eye on the ball, our nose to the grindstone, our ears to the ground, our fingers on the pulse of the pulse of the times, our minds on the task, our thoughts to ourselves, our feet on the ground, our back to the wall, our shoulders to the wheel, and our heads on straight. We manage time and tension, emotions and energy, schedules and stress, projects and priorities, data and deadlines.

If the last ten years represented the "nanosecond nineties," the next ten could be called the "millisecond millennium." More than ever before, we will need new ways to gain the right perspective and, in so doing, gain control of events that often seem to be spiraling toward chaos. So, in a special tribute our times, we are beginning a new series on "managing."

Those of us who have spanned the nexus of two millennia will be able to obtain quick 'n' easy ideas here for coping with the ever-increasing pace of the times, for managing our lives and our jobs with greater wisdom, serenity, and spirituality.

We continue the series with tips for managing energy.

1. Get the unpleasant tasks out of the way early so they don't drain your energy the whole day long. To quote Mark Twain, 'If you have to swallow a frog, don't stare at it too long!" Even if you can't complete the entire project in one, early-morning block, you can make considerable progress. And, you'll feel better the rest of the day, knowing that you are progressing toward the end of a least-favored task.

2. Engage in a five-minute luxury at least once a day. Tell yourself, "I deserve this!" And convince yourself you are speaking the truth.

3. If you didn't get rid of weeds, flowers would have no room to grow. List all the emotional "weeds" in your life--people or practices or papers or precepts that prevent the metaphorical flowers from blooming. Vow to eliminate (or spend less emotional energy on) one a month.

4. Bothered by energy-ebbing headaches? Apply ice to your temples the next time you're in the middle of one. And, if you feel another coming on, apply heat.

5. Once an hour--if yours is a fixed-position job--stand, stretch, move around or take a break.You won't need more than a few minutes to engage in energizers like these: Pick up a kaleidoscope and twirl it a few times. Immerse yourself in the spectrum-splendor and return to your desk refreshed.

Keep in a zip-lock plastic pouch a cloth that has been sprayed with a scent that reminds you of stress-free moments: a pine scent to recall a walk in the forest, a vanilla scent to remind you of childhood days spent in your grandmother's kitchen, et cetera. When you need a quick energy-boost, pull out the cloth and be reminded and refreshed.

Open a window or go outdoors. Inhale ten deep breaths of bracing air, saying to yourself with each one, "It's good to be alive." Then return to your work station and keep that thought in mind as long as you can.

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