Compartmentalizing aspects of one's life

[cm]

Years ago I was watching two journalists on t.v. discussing how President Clinton was able to handle being the President of the U.S.A. while his personal behavior was undergoing world-wide scrutiny. One of the journalists provided what I thought was a useful theory. He observed that Mr. Clinton is very skilled at 'compartmentalizing' the different aspects or facets of his life and deals with each of them as individual and distinct parts of himself. To a great extent, he manages to contain each element in his life in it's own 'box' without overflowing into other aspects of his life. He was able to direct his focus and deal with each part of his living on a more individualized basis so that mistakes in one area were kept as much as possible from running over into other parts of his life.

I have found this to be a useful tool when I'm dealing with some stressful issues in my life. By 'compartmentalizing' I can prevent a lot of the distress I'm experiencing in some areas from washing over into my whole day or week etc.. I try to deal with the problems within their own 'box' and then move on to the other 'boxes' or parts that make up my life. I decide how much time I will spend with each 'box' in order to feel and live a more balanced and healthy life.

I hope others will benefit from this idea in some way and I'm interested in learning other techniques as well.

 

[HA]

I like that, cm.

One useful technique that I learned from a friend was "parking". When you have a problem that is unresolvable, during the time you are dealing with it, then you park it and forget about it until later. So, instead of feeling overwhelmed by the situation being unresolvable, you choose to "park it" in order to go about dealing with the other areas of the day/week.

You just take it out of the parking lot (in your mind) and re-examine it. If it is still unresolvable then you park it again.