3 Tips for a smooth Daylight Savings transition

The latest video is on Daylight Savings Time. Namely:

1. when it is,
2. tools for the location independents and anyone who’s got clients or regular calls outside of your timezone, and
3. a mindfulness exercise for anyone who, ya know, kind of bitches and moans about losing an hour (ahem!)

You can watch the video here, or read the transcript below:
 

1. When is it?

For those who are like me who kind of forget these things and forget what spring forward, fall forward, spring back, fall back… whatever.

I looked it up on timeanddate.com, and here is what I found.
[11/3/2017 update: another resource that may be more accessibility friendly is: thetimenow.com which is WCAG 2.0 compatible]

• For most of the US and Canada, Daylight Savings Time is on March 9. However, not for Arizona and Hawaii.
• For most of Mexico, April 6.
• For most of Europe, March 30.
• For most of SE Asia, China and Japan, no change.
• For Australia and New Zealand, they’re ending their Daylight Savings Time on April 6.

So, are we going to try to remember all this? No way! We are Natural Professionals here! We do not stress ourselves out trying to remember this stuff. We let our systems do the work. Which brings me to number two.

2. Tools

Here are three tools for the location independent person or anyone who has regular calls or clients with people who are in other timezones.

1. The first one is just using the world clock on your smart phone. There’s a place in there where you can enter in cities and it will tell you what time it is there right then. So this is a good one for what time is it right now, but that doesn’t really help you with scheduling.
2. Scheduling tools: your iCal calendar defaults to entering the time (of a new appointment) in your current time zone. If you’re going to be moving around a lot or, as right now, are entering into this period when time zones are changing at different times, then you might want to enter a new appointment in your client’s time zone.
3. The third option, which I happen to love and use myself, is an online scheduler. It ties to your calendar and this is for any time of the year. Getting a time zone wrong for a client call is not good practice. These online schedulers take all the time zones into consideration and make scheduling easy.

3. A Mindfulness Exercise

Our third thing today: a mindfulness exercise. Are you one of those people who bitch and moan about losing an hour at this time of year with Daylight Savings Time?

If so, let me ask you in all seriousness: Is this who you want to be? Is this who you want to be showing up as in the world—as someone who is bitching and moaning?

I’m going to guess not because we’re Natural Professionals, and we don’t do that here. We’re all about living our soul’s purpose, and bitching and moaning is not a part of your soul’s purpose. I know that to be a fact.

What can you do about it? Take a moment to reflect and to breathe. Ahhhh. Identify what is challenging about this time change for you. What are the weak spots and how can you support them?

One way to look at it is the first week after Daylight Savings Time begins, think about it as a transition week and treat it a little bit differently. Don’t just treat it as business as usual.

If the time change leaves you feeling tired at the end of the day, how can you work with that a bit more?

Maybe you don’t leave activities that require significant mental brain juice for late in the day. Maybe you don’t schedule any really important appointments at the end of the day. Maybe you get in a power nap in the afternoon.

Again, think of this as a transition week. What can you do to help that transition happen a little more quickly and a little more smoothly?

If getting up in the morning is hard for you, how can you make your morning go a little more smoothly?

Maybe you go to bed a little bit earlier. Maybe you spend a little bit more time in the evening thinking about how to make your morning go more smoothly. For example, picking out what you’re going to wear, packing your bag, making sure that you are prepped for all of your morning appointments.

If what you’d really like is a little bit of a treat, how about taking yourself out to your favorite cafe for a special consolation breakfast. Giving yourself a little extra TLC in that transition week after the time change will help keep you in your flow and stay rooted in your heart so you’ll be in a place to give more love to the world.

That’s it for today. Remember to stay natural and make every day Bring Your Soul to Work day.