by Annie Zalezsak     © 21 July 2004

What is redundant living? It is the time you spend doing useless tasks. Repetitive things that mean nothing to you. Now, this does not mean that all day-to-day activity is redundant. If it has purpose, it is important. You want to be clean, a shower is important. You want to have a healthy environment, dusting has a purpose.

Redundant living is playing solitaire to pass the time. You don't particularly enjoy it. It is a time waster. A procrastinating device. If you review your life, you will likely find umpteen things to fit this description. For example, do you ever watch sitcom repeats? It was boring enough the first time, but you sit there anyway, through the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time, just to be doing something. Or watching other people puttering about on Big Brother, when you could be doing your own puttering and perhaps accomplishing something purposeful in the meantime.

Many of us aren't even remotely aware of how much time we spend in redundant living. We take on time-draining habits. In this fast paced world, the last thing we need is useless stuff to clog up our schedules.

What can we do to utilise our time more effectively? To really Live each moment?

Review

Review how we spend our typical time. Identify how much we value (or don't) the activities we devote ourselves to. What am I getting out of it? It is worthwhile? Is the amount of time I spend doing this in reasonable proportion to how much I value it?

Drop

If something doesn't feel good, and doesn't really make your life better in some way, drop it. This is often easier said than done. It can take willpower, positive intention, and a conviction to improve the quality of your life. Know that eliminating those things that do not give you pleasure and do not amount to anything positive for your life, have no place in your life. Stop.

Replace

Re-vamp or replace the activities you are eliminating. Either make something worthless worthwhile, or change it completely into something you've always wanted to do. If you hate cleaning the floors and don't much value the sparkling shine at the end, learn to love the fact that you get a good workout from the activity. Learn to appreciate that you are healing your space. Change your frame of mind. Or do some work to pay to hire someone to do the job, and if you still can't justify the expense, exchange some activity you love with someone who will clean your floors. You get the idea.

Do it

Just do it. Get an awful chore out of the way, once and for all, and arrange it so that you never have to do it again.

Once you've assessed all your redundant living and set in place ways to eliminate it, decide to do the things you truly love to do. Pamper yourself. Give yourself the gift of your life, and allow yourself to live it in the way that YOU want to! No more excuses. We spend so much of our lives complaining about having to do things we don't want to do. We drag our heels about it, till we finally get it done anyway, albeit begrudgingly and miserably. We can continue to do this all our lives, in a half-living zombie-like state. Or we can choose to relinquish those activities in favour of things that give us life, enthusiasm, fun, enjoyment. All it takes is a genuine, honest look at our lives, some letting go, some reorganisation, and some imagination. You have that. It is worthwhile. Start living your true, real life. Make each moment count.

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