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10 little ways to get your life in order
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For worlds that are spiraling out of control. - photo by Emily Cummings
Unless you are fine with feeling that your entire life is slipping out from under you, keep reading. These little tips will help you get a handle on whatever is going on:

1. Lovely little lists

To get a handle on what you actually need to accomplish, fake a to-do list. For every task on your life, tack on 3-4 things that youve already done or will complete in the day. Want to vacuum out the car today? Be sure to cross off eating breakfast, checking your email, and scrolling Instagram. Having a mostly finished to-do list should inspire you to finish the whole thing before you call it a day.

2. Does it matter?

Learn what really matters in life. Is this something that will matter in 5 minutes? 5 hours? How about in 5 days? 5 years?

Choose to focus on the things that will make a significant difference in a few months or a few years instead of wasting time and energy on being upset about those things that you wont remember in 10 minutes time.

3. Eat this, not that

Make time to eat properly. Quit calling a candy bar or yogurt a meal and start eating to fuel your body. Sugar gives you a quick burst of energy, so instead choose to munch on foods that will keep you full and energized all day long. Its time to be a grown up and actually eat meals instead of snacking through your busy work day.

4. Track your time

You know you spend a few minutes on social media throughout the day but youll never really know how much time youre spending unless you track your time. Download an app to let you know how much time you are wasting on your phone. This one lets you put a limit on how many minutes you spend on your little screen and can help you stay under your goal.

5. Me oclock

Despite your schedule, block out an hour for yourself. Dont spend it doing favors for others, dont use it to cross off your to-do list, and dont use it for running errands. Sit down and beat your high score, take a nap, paint your toes or do whatever. Do not make excuses. If you are running around all day long, break up your hour into 20 minute segments and spread them out during your day.

If you are spending all day watching television to avoid problems, use your 1 hour a day to waste your time totally guilt-free and spend the other 23 doing something to change your situation.

6. Get quoting

Keep a quote book to help you look for some purpose in your day. Its beyond simple to let phrases that could impact your life slip by, but by writing them all down, youll pay better attention to the world around you. Listen a bit better when people offer advice, read more and give yourself the chance to live outside of your own life for a minute. Jotting down quotes that you find helpful or inspiring will help you put it all into perspective.

7. Organization station

Getting organized shouldnt come as a surprise. Its a huge task, but one that can be completed if its broken down into tiny, bite sized pieces. Dont think you can manage to neatly box up every item in the garage in a single afternoon. Start small; go through the box sitting in the back of your closet. Dont spend more than an hour and half (or however much time you can budget out for a single task). Buy bins to put things into, toss anything you havent used in a year and go crazy with a label maker. Feeling like everything has a place will do wonders for your outlook on life.

8. Sleep more

Get enough sleep, drink enough water and take care of yourself. Theres no use taking on more responsibilities to working towards a new job if you arent physically and mentally up for the task.

Get a water bottle and chart out how much you should drink per hour, turn off all electronics an hour before bed and get some decent sleep. Youll be ready for what life can throw at you if you are well rested and healthy.

9. Get a budget

Start saving, start paying off debt and start cutting out unnecessary expenses in your life. Getting your expenses in order will help streamline your spending and help get your financial life in order. Put someone else in charge of your accounts if you cant resist the urge to purchase things you do not need. Get out of debt and get control of your life; youll realize how much stress and worry your money caused you the minute you dont have to worry about it.

10. Find an outlet

There are aspects of your life that are out of your control, which gives you all the more reason to find ways you can have control.

Finding an outlet for your stress and ways to focus your energy will help you let go of things you cannot change. Sign up for a class that works with your schedule, block out a half an hour each morning to watercolor, decide to run on your lunch break or vow to cook something out of your dusty cookbook once a week. Finding an outlet for your stress will help you feel more in control and ready to take on what life has planned for you.
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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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