Change your focus this holiday season. Instead of stressing over doing and getting, try focusing on being and experiencing. Notice your feelings and embrace them. What’s happening to you right now?

Take the time to smell the cookies baking, the resinous scent of fresh pine. Feel the fresh air on your face. Catch snowflakes on your tongue, if you’re lucky enough to live in a place that gets snow. (Don’t worry about February and March yet. Enjoy the first December snows for what they are.)

Don’t rush from one event to another; slow down and really be in the moment.

Many Americans will be traveling this week. Skies, trains and highways will be crowded. Keep your stress levels down by focusing on the positive aspects of your journey. Can’t think of any? Well, here’s a few from me:

• Think about the fun you’ll have when you get there.
• Make up stories about the people (strangers) you see around you.
• Be thankful you’re able to get away. Many people can’t.
• Play games. There are some ideas at the Manage Your Muse site.
• And as a last resort, remind yourself that this trip is just one weekend out of your life. If it’s truly miserable, start figuring out ways to improve it next year.

With the holiday season fast approaching, resolve to make it easier on yourself this year. Start planning now to do less and enjoy the season more. What chores or events do you like the least? Which are the most draining? Figure out a way to get those things off your holiday To Do list! You — and your family — will have a much happier time if you’re all a little less stressed.

I saw something the other day that really bothered me. I was eating lunch with my husband at a deli when a slightly older couple, obviously married, took the booth across from ours. He whipped out his newspaper and she pulled out a paperback novel. They proceeded to eat lunch without exchanging a single word. It was as if each of them was locked in their own insular world, isolated from each other and everyone around them.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with tuning out the world once in a while. We all need a break on occasion. But when tuning out is your standard operating procedure, you’re missing out on a lot.

This week, just notice where and when you tune out the world. What happens when you do?

 Happy Birthday, Jen! My life—and the world—is better just because you’re in it.

What have you done for yourself, lately? So often we are so busy doing, doing, doing for others—our jobs, our families, our communities, our church, and so on—that we never take any time to attend to our own needs.

So schedule some time for yourself this week. And honor that appointment like you’d honor an appointment with the head of your country. Because you’re worth it!

How do you make a difference in the world? How is the world a better place today because you are in it?

This week, make the time and the effort to make a positive change. It might be as simple as being friendly to a grumpy sales clerk, or paying for the car behind you at a toll gate. It might be volunteering, or picking up some litter, or letting someone in line move in front of you.

You’ll be surprised at how good that small expenditure of time and energy will make you feel.

Did you have fun last week? Do you have plans for having fun this week?

Fun doesn’t always just come along, although it can. Often, you have to help it out a bit. So this week, schedule in some time for fun — and plan for it. What’s just plain fun to do? Make it happen!

One of the other little pleasures of life that gets scheduled out of our busy days is daydreaming.

When is the last time you just stared off into space and imagined stuff? Dreamed about things? Took a little mental voyage someplace else?

Without dreams, how do we know what we want to do or where we want to go? This week, pencil some daydreaming time into your planner. Aim for a minimum of ten minutes a day.

So often, time management systems focus on getting as much done as possible as quickly as possible. But that doesn’t lead to happiness, or success, or even accomplishing anything of importance. And often what happens is that in our efforts to get as much done as possible, we don’t leave time to do the things that make our lives worthwhile.

When is the last time you stopped to watch a sunset? Noticed a bird in a tree? Appreciated the aroma wafting from a bakery? Savored a piece of creamy dark chocolate?

As you plan out your week this week, schedule in some time each day to stop and enjoy life. Make it at least as important as completing that report, sending that email, making that phone call. After all, what are you working for? What are you living for?

One of the most important skills in time management is learning to say “no” to requests for our time and energy. We’ve been taught to be gracious and self-sacrificing. We’re afraid that people won’t like us if we turn them down. We want to help, we want to do new things, we want to be involved, and so we say “yes.” Unfortunately, we say “yes” before we stop and figure out just how on earth we’re going to cram one more thing into our busy lives.

The result is often that we end up doing things we don’t want to do and really don’t have the resources to do. We’re spread so thin that there just isn’t enough of us left to be of use to anyone. We’re tired, we’re stressed, and resentful. Or else, we back out, procrastinate, do a slipshod job because that’s all we’ve got in us.

This week, before you say “yes” to anything, take some time—twenty four hours, if possible—and think it through. What’s it going to cost you to do it? What are you going to have to give up to make it happen? Unless it’s something you really, really want to do, this week just say “no.”