Conquer that ChAoS Before It Devours You

There are two forms of stress: The one that harms us and interests us most is Distress. But there is also the other form, called Eustress, which is positive, something like euphoria. That occurs, when we are hunted by time, have thousand things to do but we like these things, and we know already, the outcome will make us more happy than the efforts we must take reduce the amount of personal power.

In eustress, we take action, we DO, and get things done. Not so in distress.
We have thousand thing to do, we are hunted by time - maybe we don't even dislike the most, just we do not altogether happily do them, because the outcome will just be what is considered the normal state of things.

Provided, a person possesses a certain given amount of physical and mental strength. This strength is invested in the various actions we (have to) do. In between we need breaks to recover certain amounts of strength. When we are in chaos, we do not allow ourselves such breaks, (which is wrong and we must overcome,) we are always busy somehow, and nothing is done.

Stress does not only add to such waste of personal energy, it multiplies it.
Stress hinders every clear thought, sometimes so far, that it hinders one to do simple things efficiently. We are stressed, even before we take action. The mere thought about having to start stresses someone, who does not really know where to start, what task to do first. The physical component of stress uses up additional life energy, until it has given way to serious illness and thus excluded any thought about any action for a long time.

Stress comes from pressure - pressure implied from the outside. From things, we cannot influence like Time, or that chaos I am talking about. We must not make the mistake, to add to such outside pressure by blaming it on ourselves.

We must clearly differentiate between the present situation here and now and the causes. Whatever mistakes we made ourselves to get into the situation is irrelevant, it makes no difference whether the cause originates from outside or inside. We must see the present situation and solve it.

That does not mean, we must not learn from the causes, on the contrary, we must find, analyze and illiminate them. At the given moment. And the first question may never be: What have I done wrong? This question solves itself just too many times, because some mistakes we recognize subconsciously and do it different the next time without much much thinking and self punishment.

A great deal of stress results from self punishment, itself is self punishment. You torture your brain. Stop it! Stop blaming everything on yourself. When you are lucky, you find someone who supports you in this by telling you you are not guilty. But normally you must do this yourself. If you try, you will be astonished how often you can prove to yourself, that you were not guilty, it indeed was something that happened to you and to nobody ever else, or to many others as well, it could be taken as an outside fact, something you had no influence on.

Your basic task is, - while finding your self - Eliminate negative thoughts about yourself. Get confidence.

(If you shoot over the goal and become a big head (I doubt there is any danger of that anyways) - then what? You will be a happier person, your life will be easier, and you can always step back a little to become a nice person again.)

Of course stress is an immediate bad condition, which requires immediate relieve. Otherwise you will get nowhere. Stress lames you, and when you are lamed you cannot act, neither physically nor mentally. I hope you do not need more excuses and this explanation is sufficient to make you allow yourself a break?

Invest 10 minutes into a quick stress relief exercise (I will write better when my PC is free again in an hour)

Sit comfortably in a chair, resting your arms on the rest, keep your body straight.
Breathe in through your nose, deeply into your chest and belly, out through your mouth, breathe in fresh air preferrably, and imagine breathing out all the bad feelings with the used air, exchanging it completely. Breathe the fresh air not only into your lungs, but everywhere, fingertips, toes.

Then, from your forehead down to your feet tense one muscle after the other and relax.

After this, as I said before, for a moment forget the size of the chaos and just start what is at hand right now. Only after starting, one can see clearly what must be done, all in all. With a bit 'self programming' of one's mind one can now easily say: Ok, I did at least a bit. Now I unfortunately I see, it will take longer, too long to finish it right away. So with good reason one can postpone that task to after the next pressing object has been tackled.

I just see, I forgot to work out the post about the list making ( guess, I make a lens about this - so in short: have a loose task list, more brainstorming than planning, if possible for each day. So you can write down what has developed new and must be considered in the time plan for tomorrow, or a more appropriate day.)

Anyways, at least for a moment the viscous circle is broken and you can go to action effectively, saving much more time than the short exercise took, and keeping your energy level up.

Two lists are needed, one for the tasks, one for the work plan, day by day, hour by hour. Writing down the tasks and giving them a realistic timetable is an immense help for organization.

It is easy, one does not forget things, it is logical.
Do it, make such a plan. Best is to have a book calender witch one large leave for every day, divided into hours, and a leave for a week overview, where the gross planning finds its place.

(More about technicallities later.)First some traps:
Most people would only enter the tasks. - Stop - you know by now you are not a machine, and you know unforseen things do happen. They do not ask you for permission, however strict you dicide to ignore them. They happen. Fact. Your plan is distroyed if they do. So leave white space. - and: - did you really write things like "eat"? To forget this, superflous as it seems, can distroy your plan.

Are there too many tasks to plan in? Normally yes.
Is it impossible to choose the importance of one over the other? Normally yes.
So what to do about it?
Well, normally it is wrong to start too many things at he same time. But the alternative is, that you procrastinate and waste time thinking where to start - you must sometimes start all at once.

So your day's plan
- and to do it well you must invest a little more time for the first days, so you you can save this later. You will guaranteed save hours of prorastination in future for every 5 minutes you take more now to make and improve your daily action plan -
is built like this:

Most important task always and ever: What you need to do for yourself. It is Your Day, and nothing will work out if you do not look after yourself first.
So start with: *'clock: get up, have breakfast, (something about 'get dressed' in opposition to 'get rich working in your pyamas' later)
Then write 'lunch' and such in the appropriate places and give it enough time - enough time for Your Wellbeing, not the minimum you can spare (why later)

Then fill in the tasks, give yourself realistic time for each one - but you know, that You Cannot Finish It Today and that Is Not Your Fault. It is an objective fact. Facts cannot be altered.

So rule No 2. is: Never blame factual impossibilities on yourself!

Isn't it ridiculous to expect a ten hour task could be done even halfways in hour, just because there 30 more and the day has only 24 hours? So why do so many people think themselves inefficient, incapable, stupid when they cannot do it?

Still, dropping each task after one hour to start the next one always leaves a bad feeling, a bad conscience, you have not met the aim, not fulfilled your responsibility....

This feeling is awkward and will always be exaggerated. By yourself for Self Torture, by others to rise above you, to make you feel small. Stop! look at rule No. 2

...

All in all, the action plan can only lead to having lots of unfinished tasks, the feeling to not have achieved anything really at the end of the day - Frustration

Then why make one at all?
You do not forget things you have written down.
Convince yourself that this is a good feeling.
Do not consider an action plan a rule, it is only a piece of paper (preferrably, you might forget where you saved a file, lol). It is only an instrument to help you organizing your day, it can always be improved later to whatever your needs develop to be. You can always scribble without much thinking. It is only a little helper for you. nobody will ever see it.

And I am not ashamed to publish it, lol. On the contrary. As it is now, and as it will develop it is a living example of how one can, and mostly must create a bit more chaos to get organized.

The difference is, whatever is happening in life, work, relationship or whereever to explode into chaos is happening from the outside. This here is deliberately inflicted by myself.

Before I started this subject I knew it is an immense one. I knew while I would be scratching on the surface of one piece, I would discover at least ten more. And I would have to do an immense amount of writing. A good concept would take more time than I have, all in all. I would spend days and weeks without any visible results. (- would you believe I started blogging about 4 years ago because I actually wanted to write autobiographical stories from the time before the Spacelady took off to an expediton that got her stranded on Earth? Well, I did not get too far, but I know, this is something I will never forget anyways, so it is one thing I can can completely exclude from my personal organizaton plans for the time being.

Important here is yes, I do neglect one of my basic needs, which is exactly the contrary of the main theme in this lense. But I do it on my own free will. Others of my own personal needs (in opposition to outside inflicted obligations) are more urgent.

And after all, writing is writing, an author needs readers and feedback, and it is only important to create good content on a subject one identifies with.)

So, late introduction update: What this lense is about: All symptoms I mentioned (and those I forgot ) do not suddenly appear, like a virus we catch, they base on long processes of overworking ourselves, of over exhausting our bodies, minds, feelings. We seldom realize this process in time for prevention, and even rarer we realize it in whole.

However exellent a cure might be to abolish one symptom - the effect cannot last, unless the real reason is cleared. The causes to develop the symptom will do so again after a while, or other symptoms may show, which have no or vague relation to the first one from the outside.

Critical voices blame modern medicine to not realize the human being as a whole and thus rendering itself less effective. This is not wrong, but asking something impossible from medicine. No doctor or psychologist can read your mind and suggest a cure when you cannot tell where it hurts.

When you are captured in whatever kind of chaos you are much too busy clearing it to realize what sometimes even that there is something wrong with you. But that is not, because you are unsufficient, week, incabable or such nonsense. There is something tying you down. No, you are not bigheaded when you say: If I was free from ### I could do ### with ease in no time. There is 99% chance you would be stating a fact. Just, so many don't dare, they rather hide together with their imaginary insufficiencies and over exhaust themselves to prove others they CAN. when they then see themselves that indeed they cannot they are taken by despair and work on, so that others don't detect.

What is required instead, is Self Respect.
The most significant person in your life is you!!

So Rule No. 1 is: Think Of Yourself First!

No, this is not selfish, or did I say think only of yourself, consider yourself the only important person in the world?

Thinking of yourself first means only, do everything you can to maintain your strenght, your sound mind and body. Without this you would indeed sooner or later be useless.

And I think it's no news when I tell you, that there is only you to do this. With luck you can find a helping hand, but better not count on it. You may have friends and family you can rely on, but they will be as helpless as you are when it comes to the only possibility to change your situation: Look inside yourself. Find the hurting spot and name it precisely.

Then look for the professional help you need, sometimes you can even help yourself sometimes you actually slap your forehaed for overlooking an easy solution or misunderstandig something you read before.

The situation must be handled at once, it won't get better without action, and when there is too much it does not matter anymore where you start, just do it.

See yourself as the centre in the middle of all the chaos - hey, not the reason or the one responsible for this mess -. Check and evaluate every piece that attacks you most pressing. How important is it? How much does it disturb your peace of mind? (-> procrastination warning!)

Actually you should first deeply analyze yourself, change your self concept, but I'm afraid nobody is able to allow her/himself so much time and effort exclusively for oneself...

Anger is a strong emotion. It can't be suppressed. It is there, on your mind, all the time until it is let out. It lames your action, it occupies too much of your thinking capacity. It is difficult to handle. You must control your anger, and that keeps you from positive action. Anger can be a problem, when one does not learn to control it and let it out correctly, without harming others or letting it turn towards yourself. But this a different subject.

Anger can be positive. You can choose to be angry and it will kick you into action, the right action to do away with it and that problem that caused it. Anger forces action. It does not allow brooding and resignation.

Here is one of the short mind control stories I experienced myself and which is applicable to so many situations, that it can be used as an example.

It struck me like thunder -

I had a hell of lot of work before me inside a team,this would have been a chance to really get foreward five times faster than alone.

And there was an obstacle in my private life which would tie me down, as it did during all the preceding month of less important work in this team.

Just at the moment the preliminaries were talked through - ending for that day in: during the next days we will deal the tasks and meet again on Tuesday - a situation arose, which would give me the chance to either remove this obstacle for a long time, or render it so much worse that whatever I did, I could not get too far.

Problem was, I had to leave home and computer for 4 or 5 days without any notice or warning (who would see that at that time of night in the chat) so I left a notice in my status, packed my bag, speed created the papers for the taxman which also were due the next days and left the house in the truck with my husband.

Yes, it was definitely not the right time, but somehow I still think obstacles should be cleared before starting a task, if possible. And I was sure, with this freedom I could work double speed and finish with the others until project launch two weeks later. I never had ten days of undisturbed work since ages, so I was pretty confident to catch up. And I had my concept book with me of course, so I could at least take notes and think.

I was a bit worried though... And right. The night I came back, in time for the sceduled conference, I was ignored. The day after I was not called into the almost daily open chat.

So I was dumped from the team. I was dumbfolded for some time, not really able to do much - well, there was the laundry and the rest of the mess, like the dishwasher my son had of course not touched while he was alone.

The next day I started to think about perhaps a way back, but all I could thing of seemed too awkward to me, smelling of humiliaton, nothing for me. Or is it worth while running after people who don't care?

The rest of the day I spend "playing" - squid who and you tube, I rediscovered my dearest Country Singer and collected about all the videos I could find.

Now the Spacelady proudly presents the all time favourite Country Singer Marty Robbins http://www.squidoo.com/marty-robbins/

I was in a really poor state of mind, but I knew what I could do to get better, result of a bit previous self-therapy training. Sinking into ### - for me one of the ###s is Country Music.

I was active at the same time, able to keep some positive thoughts about how to go on alone now, getting some confidence back

analyzing what had happened to me from different angles

and slowly but certainly

replacing sadness, disppointment about having blown it with disappointment about the team and lately just anger.

Sure, I had chosen a bad time to leave - but could I know someone would call these lousy 4 -5 days the most important ones suddenly? And: Was I the first or only one who had taken an out time? No, indeed, just 1 of 6 had not taken 'holidays' before.

The task I did not know about before I came back was obviously quite unpopular (I was the least gifted for it, nobody knew, but could have guessed, but it was quite easy actually, so I indeed wonder... -unimportant) Anyways the task would have needed my presence, but it was nothing that could not have been pursued with a little more effort some days later to the same result. And the person who dealt me the task and wondered I had not done it, tactically connoting a negative impression about me to the others
knew that I was not here

But what can really not be topped: While I was back, visibly online in time for the sceduled voice conference...

I was prepared for question, unfriendly questions all kinds of rebukes, in a civilized way. But I was not called in.

Behind my back - I was practically sitting outside a closed glass door and everyone could see me. - I still cannot believe this, but now it does no longer depress me - I am angry.

Sadness and frustration would now lame me. But in such a case Anger is a positive emotion. It brings me back to action. No, I don't think of telling who - it must be repeated - BEHIND MY BACK WHILE I WAS PRESENT ONLINE
discussed to simply dump me.

(I do not even know exactly, if everyone had a voice in this, one nice member is, I think, still on speaking terms with me, and I will subscribe to her newsletter, cause she has the subject which interests me most and I want to know more about.)

(Another ironic fact: the team leader now is in holiday - was it for 10 days? ... I don't know if I could have his answerd his email, telling me I was out in - well, certain words that were not exctly meant to give me a 'heads up all the same' or such, or if that would have been wasted energy.)

So fazit: Anger can help to overcome other laming negative emotions (An even better example of how I made someone angry to pull himself out of a worse state than my recent one, cannot be told here, unfortunately.) Anger makes you going on.

Feelings of sadness, loss, lovesickness - sure there are more examples - are much harder to be dealt with than Anger. And they derive so often from things that would make angry seen unde a different angle - cheated in love, fraud, let down by someone one considered a friend, any unjustice.

It is not a simple two step method, but it can be done. Get angry - yes, mostly there is a just reason - let it out. Crying does not feel as good as screeming, shouting. More good actions are Boxing, running, any powerful exercise. Anger sets free Adrenalin, which can increase the effectiveness of any action.

No Time - how can things get done, after a break there would be an even bigger heap grinning at me.

Sure - but you will make up for it. You will find yourself procrastinating much less.

This break must of course be filled with useful activity for yourself - and only for yourself.

To be continued

Background explanation:
I am (attempting to be, among other things) an internet marketer. I did not get far yet. I followed many strategies, did not lose one penny by buying trash, but joined hundreds of programs. My 50 GB harddrive is full of stuff I can not sort anymore, (but eventually must, to keep all my treasures safe.)- (I use Copernic desktop search to find things, Google desktop search was also not bad, but uses more power.)

What I really want to do, is writing fiction, but I need money and am still convinced internet homebusiness is possible - also, and that is one of of my smaller biz-obstacles - here in Germany, where internet maketing for everyone does actually not exist at all. (Maybe I can become a Guru here, lol).

In short, my homebusiness is in chaos, now, that I grossly know through trial and error what can be done and how, I plan to get started.

What I found nowhere was a guide of how to do this correctly. When they started with basics, they were about too basic technicallities, and when they dealt with subjects, the basics were of course left out.
(This is actually the subject for another lense, but while I don't have this, I write here - if I did not, I would be doing what I criticise all the time: leave out basics, leave out mentioning what has to be there already before ### can work.)

Finding The Correct Sequence Of Steps

Another small example, which actually belongs into my listbuilding lens and will move there soon:

Email marketing is the best advertising option. Easiest cheapest way of spamfree mailing are safelists. Only, one must use them correctly. Well, I did halfways, until I got information how to do it better. When I take it up again, I will have more resonance (a short testing showed this, before I took a break - reason later).

I did what Soren, the author, told me, and indeed saw a result, a ridiculously small one, but...

Now Soren is obviously sucessful with safelists - why not I? From the fact, that I know his name, I conclude, others do so too. Nobody knows me.

This is another example for one basic in internet marketing: Be Known, brand your name.

I was told, that and how marketing with blogs works. Keywords: Communication, relationship marketing, stepping out of the anonymity. I know, if I blogged more, this might eventually happen, but it takes time, time, time - and before one is up there in the blogosphere nobody reads a blog and I am just running around in aother circle. Marketing with blogs and RSS is a phantastic, logical theorie - but wishful thinking.

Frustrating, yes, but now what I would have to do BEFORE I can have a successful blog.

Ok, why do I mention this here? (to make you Please find and read all my blogs ;) - no)

to illustrate my situation:

I am now standing on the gigantic Mt.InternetMarketing, somewhere in the thicket, with a faint perception of paths nearby, most of which I should take at once, at the same time. I do not know yet, which path will lead to the road to the summit, and don't yet know, how bad the serpentines I must follow may be, also, my compass is not working too well.

Panic is not an option, I must walk on. I am halfway up already. And my self analysis...

(I admit, I did not take the time to do this thoroughly, so it is more the result of constant reflection and writing things down, which I only later detect as part of self analysis - this is a subject to come)

...had the result so far, that I am terribly weak, but I can walk on, just because I must, like always.

Now I climb on a little rock - yes, this effort must be, I must be able to to see what is behind me and in front, I must get out of the thicket for a moment.

When I look uphill, I am still sceptic, but confident, nothing worse can be before me than there was behind.

When I look back, I can hardly believe what I see: These huge swamps I had sucessfully avoided (not one 'get rich quick' ponzi or other hype, however tempting had sucked me in and eaten my money - just some more shallow donline builders I got my foot in occasionally stole a bit time).

And then, all this ground I have under my feet, once I open a stand in the right market I will not make beginners' mistakes anymore, all the time spent learning and making experiences will then be saved for earning money. Everybody talks about autopilot business, easy solutions. They are not all liers or imposters who just want to sell their stuff, as quickly as possible, before it gets out of fashion.

Most gurus want to help, and most marketers are honest and deliver value for money. - But without a solid basis, and a much much broader one than only 2 years ago, nothing is possible.

My huge chaos is, regarded under a different angle, at least 50% of this basis I need. Stuff, good theoretical knowledge to correct the practicle mistakes I made so far.... My time learning was/is not really fun, most experiences were frustrating. - But it is many times the worst experiences which can be most valuable.

Not put down, forget, start new. The effects of every experience ever made stay on. There is no way to forget any experience ever. Some can be put away to make room for new ones and stay away, just because a similar situation never arises again.

One can willingly force oneself, to put a bad experience away, one's brain can suppress a memory automatically for self protection. Specially the latter case will result in some form of mental illness later.

A depressive person, a person suffering from anxieties up to panic attacks hardly ever knows why this is, unless something is visible at the present time, in the present surroundings of this person.

Otherwise, the reason for such negative mental shape is most certainly somewhere in the past and be sought and found to bring the peson back to happiness. The way will never be smooth, it can be extremely hurtful to work up past experiences, and it needs good professional help.

Some might give up, because the past cannot changed and the views back might be too hurtful, but then - haven't we all had bad experiences, which looking back, are just really don't matter amymore? The analysis of a past experience, preferrably helped by a professional can not be so painful as when it was lived through, and after it has been dealt with properly it can indeed be put away to oblivion without disturbing the present anymore.

So, when there is no direct mental illness, just this general bad feeling of a light depression, self analysis is important. First know yourself - and nobody else but you can really know yourself, evaluate any of the difficulties you feel, start with any one of them and analyze it. Find out why. And: very important: what was before? - step by step back to the very basics of the situation/experience you are just analyzing.

Ok, I better not analyze this post now - but I publish it anyways and edit it later, sort and backlink it to other lenses, because it serves a new purpose now: Yes, an example for chaos, and very soon for how easy it is to order this into some articles, none of which I think, could really stand alone, if too short. Why? Had I just written down the five lines of my action plan, without background info and exmple, it would have looked much too harmless.

Chaos is all about interweaving threads that cannot be untangled without watching them all, otherwise tight knots develop, which are much harder to untie.

;) so please come back later and watch me untangling this post, which leads to many new ones about organization, mind control (means own mind here), concepts and why they can be contraproductive.

I feel, I almost could, and would really want to write some 5 posts more here right now. But I know, when I must stop. If I don't, I cannot even start to look at the other urgent thing I have to do, and it makes absolutely no sense to overwork oneself, specially not, when one clearly sees the next step.

Tomorrow is another day. Today I worked a lot, built a broad basis of bits and pieces, which I can easily put together, after a good nights rest. Why should I call this unfinished stuff left behind? This is yet another subject to be dealt with soon after several lead ins...

One of the major mistakes in starting to get organized is trying to get at least superficial order into things, whatever it is.

Do you know this little story: Someone unexpectedly wants to call you up, your livingroom is a mess. You rush to get it tidy. Everything goes somewhere, only with luck into the place where it belongs.

Perhaps you had just been at sorting out the laundry in the bathroom, now all these half sorted piles go back into the basket together again. - You will have to start over later, but whatever, now it must look tidy, the visitor might have to wash his hands.

Half an hour of creating order, a task that might have needed five hours to do it right.

Now, after the visitor is gone, and it was hopefully a nice tea break at least, you cannot relax and be happy with your tidy flat, you know the mess is still there, just not visible at first glance. The five hours work still have to be done, plus the time for search of items you put way too quickly to rember where, plus the time you had already invested and must repeat - so this five hour work you had planned to do stretched to eight or more.

This cannot be avoided sometimes, but who would choose to work this way deliberately? But few tasks are so concrete as in this story, and it is not always so obvious that the effort in sorting the top of the iceberg is uneffective for the whole required process of organization.