Slow Down Your Pace of Life 1. Put your phone away ■ Avoid distractions: 【T1】______, emails, Facebook updates 【T1】______

Slow Down Your Pace of Life
Do you often feel that you could never catch up with the pace of work, life, and others? Are you constantly stressed out? Do you have sleeping problems? If so, you are very likely to be suffering from the enormous pressure generated by the fast-paced modern life. It is time to slow down.
First, put your phone away. Nothing will distract you and keep you unfocused more than checking your telephone for messages every two minutes. Texts, emails, Facebook updates and other little messages will be just as compelling an hour from now.
When you’re with friends or family, put your phone on silent and keep it tucked away somewhere. Better yet, keep it in the car. Don’t look at it. Make a rule at your next get-together that the first person to check their phone pay for drinks.
Increasingly, people are experiencing a phenomenon known as FOMO: the fear of missing out. F-O-M-O. What if you don’t get that status update before everyone else? What if someone beats you to a witty comment stream message? What if your crush texts and you can’t respond right away? Don’t let "convenient" technology create complicated stress in your life. Be willing to miss out momentarily to enjoy the moment you’re experiencing in the real world.
Then, you need to leave your work at work. Don’t let the complication of your work day mess up you after work life. Don’t bring any work back to the house to complete later --stay until you can finish for the day. If you’re feeling stressed out after a work day, do something relaxing the minute you get home. So you don’t have to burden your housemates with complaints about the day. Don’t spread the complicated stress around. Cut down your hours as much as you can afford to, if your job is a significant source of complication in your life. If you want to simplify, cutting back on work is one of the easiest ways to do it.
Stop working weekends. Even if you love your work, dragging work into your weekends starts unbalancing the proportion in your life. You might not feel it right now, but eventually, this will lead to burn out and/or passion reduction. Block off every weekend for the next six months. Not a single one of those weekends can include work from now on.
Last but not least, do one thing at a time. Multi-tasking should be avoided, if possible. It is a myth that a person can focus on more than one thing and do so well. While sometimes you have to, or want to, one at a time should be your ideal. Focus on doing the best possible (or "good enough") job at this moment. Appreciate what you are doing, even if it is something mundane. Washing the dishes can be pleasurable, if you reflect on how the soapy water feels, your pleasure from your favorite teacup, and how good it feels to have clean dishes.
Simplifying doesn’t need to be complicated. You could start today.