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This week I’ve been taking a course on Imprint called “Interpersonal Dynamics: The Psychology of Human Relationships”.

It’s been legit SO GOOD.

Here’s a little glimpse of one of my favorite key ideas:

The visual learning makes it fun, super digestible, and easier to remember.

So I’m extremely honored to have Imprint sponsoring Habit Examples again!

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There are two kinds of stress in life:

1. Overt stress:

   • Busy-ness at work

   • Challenges in parenting

   • Conflict in relationships

   • Financial struggles

   • Unexpected trials

2. Sneaky stress:

   • You told your friend two months ago you’d help repaint her living room and still haven’t found the time to make it happen

   • Your son has been begging you to take him fishing and it keeps getting bumped to “next weekend”… if the weather’s good… and you’re not too busy….

   • You have a bag with $137 worth of returns to make at Target and you gotta get it done before you miss the return window and have to accept in-store credit

Hopefully you get the idea.

It’s the “odds and ends” in life that never quite feel like “the most important thing”, and therefore constantly get pushed to the back-burner.

Until the back-burner is absolutely overflowing.

For me it’s most helpful to visualize my brain as a parking lot.

1. There is an actual max capacity of parking spots (like the max # of things I can handle at any given point in life)

2. There’s a certain number of those parking spots that are currently occupied (like how many things I’m currently juggling at this very moment)

So when crap hits the fan and it feels like my life is exploding, I know there’s too many cars trying to park in my parking lot.

And here’s how I take inventory of (and deal with) my “parking lot brain”:

1. Open a note in my phone or grab a sheet of paper and pen

2. Write down everything in my life that’s on my mind

   • Projects, tasks, favors, anything I’ve agreed to do

3. Categorize them into the 4 D’s:

   • Do

   • Delete

   • Delay

   • Delegate

Everything in “Do” is stuff I either must get done or genuinely want to do.

Everything in “Delete”, I’m deciding is no longer on my list.

Everything in “Delay” is going to be postponed to a later date.

Everything in “Delegate”, I’ll be asking someone else to help me with.

Simple, yet super powerful!

Funny thing is, sometimes just the step of writing it all down helps me feel less stressed.

But categorizing into the “4 D’s” allows me to focus on just the most important things, while intentionally taking the rest off my mind.

Feeling stressed? Try the 4 D’s exercise and see how it helps!

Got a tip or strategy for dealing with stress that works for you?

Hit reply and let me know!

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- Kody

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P.S. These take 3 hours to research, write, and design. It only takes you 3 seconds to share.