Tips for Slowing Down
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Start your day early - guard against hurrying through the day.
- Devote time every morning for meditation or for inspirational reading and reflection.
- Take time for a good breakfast
- Allow yourself time to get to every engagement a little early.
- Simplify your life so that you do not try to fill your time with more than you can do.
- Start by listing your activities. Then prune the list, striking out anything that is not truly necessary and anything that is not beneficial.
- Don't try to do everything you can, or even everything you want to. Keep sight of the most important things each day, and use the mantra to remind yourself to keep coming back to them.
- Allow time for all your meals. Sit down and enjoy your food with others, Repeat your mantram before you eat and eat slowly.
- Don't let yourself get pressured into hurrying. Whenever you find yourself beginning to speed up during the day, repeat your mantra to help you slow down.
- Cultivate patience.
- Cultivate personal relationships in all your activities. It will help to reverse the depersonalization of our world.
- Reduce the time you spend watching television.
- Reduce the time you spend on activities that hurry your children. It will help them to simplify their lives and enjoy what they do, and it will give you more time for them too.
- It is important not to confuse slowness with sloth, which breeds carelessness, procrastination, and general inefficiency. In slowing down, attend meticulously to details. Give your very best even to the smallest undertaking.
A lot of these tips by Eknath Easwaran maybe hard to fit into
your "world", try a few, it is always good to change things up once
in awhile and I always find it helpful to be reminded about
"hurrying through the day".