Mille C's Key Ideas from Time Warrior
by Steve Chandler

Management and efficiency studies in the work place tell us that one hour of uninterrupted time is worth three hours of time that is constantly interrupted. As the old saying says, winners focus, losers spray.

Sadness, depression, frustration, upset, and anxiety can only be produced by seeing a situation and then producing an interpretation of it and then believing that interpretation. So, you and I can only be overwhelmed by our thoughts about something, never the thing itself.

One person sees rain and gets sad because of their story about rain that they're believing ( "It's gloomy, it means I'll be cooped up.") . Another person sees rain and gets happy because of their story about rain ( "It's refreshing. It's romantic. It grows my garden"). It's the same rain in both cases. Rain has no meaning until we add it.

In both cases, it is the thought believed that is causing the feeling. Something happens, and we add the meaning of it.

You have to make your goals shorter. Short-term "process goals" that you always finished and felt good about.

Procees goals can encourage us to enjoy the present moment. They are brief and achievable. Set up process goals and fun tasks and projects so we never had to worry about the future outcome goals.

The best futures get created in the present moment. The worst thing is to be so worried about your future that you miss creating it right now right here in the present moment.

Process goals should be very precise (i.e. two miles, twenty-one pushups, $23000 in sales proposals this week).

Don't hold your happiness hostage to the achievement of long term goal. If you do that, your happiness is always in the future. Always a hostage and the future doesn't exists right now, does it?

Don't create your year, create your day. Figure out the perfect day and then live it. The year will take care of itself. So will your life.

The mind makes all future tasks big and scary. So we procrastinate. Even little things, when we imagine doing them in the future, get distorted and take on frightening proportions. Because the imagination, when it ventures into the future, always find the worst case.

Action is the answer, but not always big action. Try to give your task 3 minutes of your time. Small action, tiny action. And make sure the action is effortless. As they say in zen, effortless effort. 3 minutes then walk. Quit. Bail. Walk away. (if you can, that is. But in my experience, 9 times out of 10 I get excited by how easy this thing really was all along! It was just masquerading as big and scary seen through the lens of my worst case future).

Don't think in terms of pattern. None of this: "I always" or "I never" because those globalizing thoughts will never serve you. They will scare you and make you a pessimist. Keep your life creative and simple : what needs to be done now in these three minutes? That's all you ever need to ask, and you'll never have anything like procrastination bother you again.