Thursday, April 3, 2014

Why You Should Get Rid of Your "To Do" List


In 2007, Ari Meisel was diagnosed with a severe case of Crohn’s disease (a disease of the digestive tract) and nearly died. He was in an out of the hospital and told the disease was incurable.
But in 2011, he completed Ironman France and was declared free of all traces of the disease.
Meisel says that he achieved his good health by improving his diet and fitness, but also by finding a way to deal with stress, which he says was a big part of his illness.
What Meisel learned about how to deal with his stress and put him on the road to better health is shared in his upcoming book, “Less Doing, More Living.” He says he believes others can learn from the “less is more” philosophy that he has says can help anyone rid their lives of superfluous work and repetitive tasks that often cause stress.
“Stress is a major cause of inflammation. It taxes our nervous system in a way that is really dangerous when it becomes chronic,” he says. “I created ‘Less Doing’ with the goal of freeing up as much time as possible so people could reclaim their minds, stress less, and do the things they want to do.”
As part of that philosophy, Meisel says he uses the “80/20 rule” differently that most people who see it as a “resource allocation model.”
“For me, it’s a constant reminder to track everything I do,” he says. “Nowadays it’s so easy to track what you eat, how well you slept, how many emails you sent, even your blood markers. With that data comes a lot of power to find places where we can achieve more optimal results.”
Here are some suggestions from Meisel on how to reclaim your time:
  • Track productivity. Tools such as RescueTime can (read more here)

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