Prioritize:
Take stock of your life. Determine what people, pursuits and goals are most important. Then evaluate if reordering how you currently live would allow you to focus more keenly on the things that matter most. If so, create a realistic plan that, if executed, empowers you to minimize the non-essential while maximizing the time you spend engaged with people and activities that bring you fulfillment.

De-Digitalize:
While technology has streamlined and facilitated business in many ways, it has also lengthened the work day. Because smart phones and tablets keep us constantly connected, many bosses and clients expect 24-hour accessibility to you. Still, this continual connectivity can become highly stressful, encumbering, as if you’re trapped in a prison of pixels. Take some control back by scheduling uninterrupted offline time. Set aside a block of time each day, even if it’s only a half-hour, in which you shut the phone, step away from the computer and exist in the moment.

Enjoy Open Time:
For people in a competitive, goal-driven profession like sales, there is a tendency to want to wrench productivity out of every second, to center every activity on achieving an objective or advancing an agenda. While it’s certainly smart to make productive use of your time, there comes a point in which, for the sake of a healthy perspective and adequate energy renewal, it’s necessary to halt the climb and enjoy the view. Indulging in “open time” can help. Essentially, this is a block of time you set aside for doing personally enriching, non-task-oriented things. Each person’s open-time will look different. It could be anything from simply sitting outside feeling gratitude for the good things in your life to spending an hour catching waves at your favorite break.

Strive To Be Great, Not Perfect:
Driven, high-achievers often want to make things perfect. But when you’re juggling the demands of career, personal life, community commitments and more, it’s difficult to turn everything you put your hand to into a Michelangelo. Trying to do so can leave you frustrated and worn out – and have the negative effect of leading you to neglect some responsibilities as you labor to make others perfect. Instead of shooting for perfection, aim to be great. Do what’s necessary, for example, to impress clients and build healthy personal relationships, but don’t beat yourself up over minutia, a single hair out of place. “Very good” is usually more than good enough.

Eliminate Time Wasters:
“I’m so busy. I don’t have enough time to do all this.” It’s an oft-repeated mantra of the permanently working-late professional. But sometimes, a conscientious evaluation of a typical workday reveals you have more time than you think; you’re just not using the hours as smartly as you could. So, analyze your day. Write down or note in an Excel sheet every time you pop out of a work task to engage in a time-wasting behavior, such as perusing the latest Facebook posts, gossiping with a chatterbox colleague, watching inane online videos, etc. At the end of the day, review your time-wasting chart. Now, consider how much additional time you would have if you did not engage in the efficiency-sapping activities. The next day, start training yourself to stay focused on what’s relevant. Try setting specific, relatively short windows for completing tasks. You’ll likely find that you are much more efficient at work. The upshot is increased professional productivity and more time to spend on people and pursuits that fill your life with joy. You’ll be less stressed and happier, and so will the people around you.