We all have those days when we feel utterly and completely overwhelmed. The phone won't stop ringing, the emails just keep coming, and your to do list for the day keeps growing instead of shrinking. It's on those days that I make use of a very simple tool that I just recently purchased.

I had heard for a long time that I needed to simply take a few minutes and some deep breaths in these periods of feeling overwhelmed, but I hardly ever remembered to put this into practice.

Then I saw in one of my favorite catalogs (Isabella) a very simple, elegant 15-minute hourglass sand timer. Having this on my desk -- it doesn't take up much space at all -- gives me a constant reminder to take some time. Flipping the timer over and sitting and watching as the sand falls from top to bottom, I can feel my stress drain away with the sand. At the end of fifteen minutes, my head is clear, I'm much more relaxed, and I'm ready to tackle the to do list once again.

In the middle of the hubbub, it can feel like we don't have fifteen minutes to spare. But when you go ahead and take it anyway, using it to calm your mind and body instead of feeding the frenzy, the time amounts to nothing over the course of the day and the returns on that fifteen minute investment are very well worth it.