Perhaps, your problems at work are causing you to distance yourself from your wife. Then, this appears as a problem at home, which then affects you at work. Then, you let them all go for so long that it seems nearly impossible to resolve. The problems, however, can be resolved by defining issues and determining underlying problem, or desire.

--- Resolving Unresolvable ---

Once you figure out various issues in your life and find that there is one common theme, or thread, to all of issues, you now have to do two things: make a plan to resolve core problem, and make a plan for your life.

Understand that many times, common threaded problems occur because you have no place else to go in your life. With that, you amplify small problems, create new problems simply because you have nothing better to do, or get caught up in small problems that expand into other areas of your life. Without a direction and a path to travel, you have no choice but to stay and deal with problem instead of resolving and moving on to other things.

Everyone needs a direction and everyone must have some type of destination ... you need a place to go and be. This sounds like I'm heading back to idea of running away to mountains. Actually, you are running to mountains, but not physically. You are creating a destination that you want to run toward --- satisfying a desire. As you head toward that vision, you are accomplishing goals, learning, becoming stronger, and resolving issues as you "move" through life.

--- Mission, Vision, and Goals ---

In previous e-books and articles, I mentioned need to create an action plan based on your Vision, Mission, and Goals. I called it a "Business Plan for Life." Your action plan contains researched and planned steps that you take to clarify your life, resolve your current issues to clear your path, and move toward a specific Vision that you see as "Your Life."

It is important to understand your Vision. But, you have to be clear when defining your Vision. Clarity comes from understanding your current situations and being able to clear these situations such that your life is more balanced. By clearing, I don't mean eliminating everything from your life. I mean eliminating kinks that certain situations cause in fabric of your life. This means coming to terms with certain issues and getting rid of other things that are no longer of any use to you (e.g., past fears, current petty problems that seem insurmountable, etc.)

Once your Vision is set, you have to define your Mission. Your Mission defines mechanism that you will use to reach your Vision. It is your overall idea, theme, of your action plan. When defining your Mission, picture your Vision as a bright light with a clear path right up to center. This path is your Mission.

With your Mission defined, you must define Goals to be accomplished to successfully traverse your Mission. These Goals are steps involved to incrementally approach and reach your Vision based on mechanism defined in your Mission. Each step is a "baby step" or a "bite sized" piece of entire journey. By defining your Goals, you are able to take an overwhelming journey and break it into manageable and measurable pieces that slowly build to help you reach your ultimate Vision.

Finally, your action plan contains actual pieces of puzzle that identify physical actions you must take for each Goal. This action plan is your prioritized map that defines what you will do every day to accomplish a Goal. This map allows you to measure your progress and better understand where you are in your journey. Additionally, by examining Goals as you go, you can make adjustments to your plan to make sure that your Mission is on track and your Vision is clear.

--- What's next? ---

Simplifying your life does not have to involve a complete elimination of your worldly existence. Nor does it have to be escape to some remote region of planet. When you feel that desire to "run to mountains" or get rid of everything in your life, that's a sign that you need to change something in your life and get moving. It is your inner self that is telling you to wake up and go.

Simplifying your life means that you want to make things easier in all aspects. It can be as simple as eliminating things that are complicated and replacing them with things that have meaning to your direction. I call it "Managing your Life" instead of simplifying because you are not minimizing your life to its bare essentials, but you are taking an already full life and removing kinks to make path smoother.

A simple life does not have to contain nothing. A simple life can be full and contain numerous tangents and paths, but it is void of issues that unnecessarily complicate things that mean most to you.

* What do you want to do and who do you want to be during your lifetime? * What legacy do you want to leave behind? How will your life have made a difference on this Earth?

NEXT, get clear about what you choose to do with your time. What are YOUR key roles?

* What do you choose to say YES to? What are you most passionate about? What are you best at doing? * What do you choose to say NO to? What are you not passionate about that you are currently involved in? Review your calendar and your regular activities, and ask yourself if what you give your time to is most important to you? * How can you best honor your own health and well-being (physical, mental, spiritual, social needs) * Does your life feel balanced among all of your key roles? (Example: parent, spouse, friend, volunteer, professional, hobbyist, etc.) THEN, lighten load. Free up your time for what matters most. * Make lists of following:

** Commitments you will renegotiate that are not important or are less important to you.

** Activities that simply don't need to get done - things you choose to let go of.

** A "Perhaps List" of things you might do or that you plan to do but choose to defer for later. For more information on a Perhaps list visit: http://www.orgcoach.net/perhaps.html

** A Delegation list. If you don't enjoy doing it or are not good at doing it, delegate as much as possible. Visit http://www.orgcoach.net/delegation.html for tips on delegation.

* Schedule time for following:

** Activities that will honor your own health and well-being.

** Activities which are important to you. Build in balance as you consider your key roles. Be aware of your self-talk. This is not about "have to" or "should." It's about what you choose.

** Time to do weekly planning. Keeping a weekly planning appointment with yourself will help you stay more focused on deeper YES so you can JUST SAY NO to rest! Visit http://www.orgcoach.net/sixsteps.html for more help on weekly planning.

** Time for family meetings. One common theme I hear from my clients is that they want to spend more time with family. Work, responsibilities, and over committed schedules seem to be biggest obstacle. The Family Meeting (an article you can view at http://www.orgcoach.net/familymeetings.html ) provides an important opportunity for communication and planning as a family.

JUST SAY YES! "The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." --Stephen Covey If you're still procrastinating around doing most important things you want or choose to do, here are ten tips to help get you moving:

1. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Break larger projects into manageable "bites" and create a reasonable timeline for you to accomplish these smaller tasks.

2. Remember that each project expands to time allotted to it, so set a limit for yourself: I am going to return all my phone calls in an hour. I will file papers for 30 minutes. I will spend 15 minutes picking up around house. Set a timer. You will be amazed how much you can get done when you focus your time. My clients report that they are much more efficient and effective when they set a time limit for specific tasks.

3. Check your self-talk. Do you frequently say, "I gotta…," "I should…," or "I have to…"? Replace this self-talk with "I choose to…" and recognize that you are at choice about what you do. If you don't choose to do it, don't do it!

4. Eat a live toad first thing in morning, and nothing worse will happen to you rest of day. Tackle that "toad" - important task you have been putting off, one that is hanging over your head -- because it will lift an immense load and you will feel much more productive.

5. Train yourself to trim F.A.T. http://www.orgcoach.net rimthefat.html. When papers come into your office or home, give yourself these three choices: File, Act, Toss. (Note that "I'll just put it here for now" is not one of choices.)

6. Relieve yourself of stress caused by all of clutter in your home and office by setting up some systems to manage paper in your life. A good filing system and a tickler file system are essential elements. A good system will make a huge difference in your ability to effectively manage paper and prevent important activities from slipping through cracks.

7. Make a weekly appointment with yourself to plan your coming week. During your planning session, schedule important activities and tasks so you have a concrete plan for following through with your intentions.

8. When planning your time, include both urgent (time-sensitive) and non-urgent but important activities in your plan. An example of an urgent activity might be a meeting or a project with an upcoming deadline. A non-urgent activity might be exercise or relationship-building - something important but not time-sensitive or deadline-driven.

9. Make appointments with yourself to get administrative work done, such as paying bills or catching up with your reading. Treat this time as you would an appointment with someone else.

10. Take 15 minutes at end of each day to put things away and look at calendar for next day. Gather what you need ahead of time so you will be prepared for tomorrow.

March 3-9 is National Procrastination Week. If you're ready to get unstuck and March Forth, I'd be delighted to assist you in process. Email me at mailto:orgcoach@gte.net to request your complimentary coaching session.