Find New Time - 7 Tips to Create a Transition Effectiveness Toolbox

Time management tips can create transition effectiveness, and help you meet tough times with renewed confidence. What makes the difference between challenges you respond to with self-assurance and those that keep you paralyzed or sleepless at night?

Start with your own experience. Recall a transition, initially unwelcome, that led to your developing more competence and renewing your faith in yourself. Perhaps you lost your footing at first. How did you get back on your feet? What new skills did you develop?

Identify the constructive problem solving process. This is worth actively validating, because the benefits extend far beyond the initial challenge you have met. Transitional effectiveness is a lifelong gift. It will invigorate you, enhancing your overall productivity.

Transitional effectiveness is not a gene you either possess or lack. It is simply a set of basic tools you can acquire, practice and add to any time. Here are some of the most versatile tools you can utilize during tough times.

Do not be taken in by their apparent simplicity. Their power derives from consistent use. And you will enjoy the best results by incorporating them into your daily routine.

Your Transitional Tool Chest

Constructive self-talk

You always benefit by encouraging yourself. Become your own favorite coach as you assess and assign priorities, and fire the critic.

Simplify

Let go of inessentials that drain your energy. Change requires resilience and foresight, so eliminate distractions. Encourage yourself to deal with uncomfortable tasks immediately. The peace of mind this brings translates into more energy for the remainder of your work.

Don't worry. Strategize instead.

Any time you catch yourself worrying, write down the realistic concern and commit to conducting a problem-solving session at a scheduled time. Then fully participate in your current moment. This, too, is an excellent energy recharger.

Cultivate the positive.

These 2 simple exercises provide immediate, dramatic benefits:

The Opening Door:

For every loss, there is a gain. What door opens when a current door closes? The more forward-looking you become, the more quickly you leave fear, self-pity and resentment behind. Write down the potential gains, filing your notes where you can easily access them. Refer to your Opening Door notes often. This helps you survey your options with curiosity, not fear.

The Gratitude Attitude:

Every day, first thing in the morning and before bedtime, list 3 things you are genuinely grateful for. Write them down and look at them. Reflect on which time choices contribute to these gifts.

Innovate.

Change pushes you outside your comfort zone. Rather than become rigid, encourage yourself to try new solutions.

However difficult your current situation, and however profound your losses, celebrate the resilience of your spirit. Your life is change, and always will be. Bring positive energy to transitions. It will always reward you richly.

So ask yourself: How can you start clarifying your priorities right now to find time for what matters the most to you?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paula_Eder

Shower Frequency

Now, this may sound like a strange topic when you think about your work week ahead, today or tomorrow, your normal hygiene, but we run our lives around our current daily schedule and a shower is normally part of our every day life.

So, the bottom line question is... How Often Do We Really... Need... To Take A Shower...?

Well the answer lies in a self examination or question an answer session as it relates to our daily life...

Take the parts out of this discussion as it relates to you and use or just plain laugh at my experiences with body recognition as I have gone though life.

When I was growing up in the 30's, yes I said the 30's, I was 7 years old when 1940 came along, so I do have a bit of experience, mostly from Mom's ' kind of ' strict voice, "Take Your Bath Before You Go To Bed", god love her, she guided me through my fishing smells, my pulling weeds smells, my mowing the lawn smells, my spearing fish trips to the swamps or my working on every guys bike or car. I wasn't a bad little guy I just wasn't into the body washing routine as a way of life... Since then I've gone through cycles in showering.

I've developed a simple body odor test that works for me... It may work for you also... Instead of the sniff under the arm pit, which never looks too great if someone is watching, walk down a hallway, stop and turn around real quick, the smell you pick up is what YOU left behind...

Course, there can't be any windows open at the ends of the hallway. I thought I was OK for months till I realized I was smelling the good old outdoors, instead of me.

I know you'll be saying, "why not just shower every day" ? Well that's a good question and my only response is... Know how much time in your life you use, just to shower and to wash your hair each day...?

Say it takes you an hour to do that... 365 hours/year times 75 years equals 27,375 hours that I spent in the shower at my age now....

Divide that by 24 hours/day and it equals 1,141 days.

That's 3 & 1/8 years of my life...!!! Just spent in the shower...!!!

Gees Louise... That's a lot of time wasted in my lifetime, just to wash my body ...!

So, consider this, if I had switched to a:

shower twice a week, that's only 7800 hours or 325 days
shower once a week, that's only 3900 hours or 166 days...
shower once a month, that's only 900 hours or 38 days...

38 Days In a Lifetime Sounds Much Better Than 3 years...!!!

So... The moral of this story is... If You Want More Productive Time In Your Life...

Take Fewer Showers Or Shorter Ones...

Have a Great Future...

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jay_DuShay

Are You Worth It?

Central to any appreciation of time management is a sound understanding of how to place a value on time. This is important for any undertaking, but is especially crucial for a small business.

Have you ever asked yourself this simply question - How much is my time worth? And if you do know - do your act upon it?

Without some means to measure, compare and decide between two (or more) ways to spend our time, we would never make any rational decision. In business the universally used means of comparison is of course money - is one activity likely to produce a higher monetary yield than another.

If you are employed the judgment is very straightforward. After adding in time taken in travelling to work and perhaps also "tied" hours, such as lunch breaks which cannot be used freely, the value you place upon that time must be less than the amount you are paid. You work only because you value the reward from doing so more than the time spent at work - otherwise why would you do it?

But it is not as simple as that. Most of us would feel that it would be unhealthy to place a value on all of our activities in this way. It would hardly benefit your relationships with your spouse/partner and children to devote time to them according to some idea of a how it looks in a profit and loss account. Yet in some ways that is not a bad analogy - "profit" (quality of family life) relies upon "investment" (time with family). We forego spending time at home with loved ones in order to earn a living. From this we learn learn something important - the value we place on our time is not a fixed figure - it shifts so that we may be comfortable working say 40 hours each week, but not 50 - even if the extra 10 hours would be paid at a higher rate.

The situation is further complicated if you run a small business. You may undertake a range of activities which reward at different rates and some which produce no income of themselves, but which are required in order to support other income generating activities. Now complicate the matter further and add to the mix the considerations I have explained about the value of work versus family time and it can be seen that placing a value on one's time is not easy for someone who runs a small, perhaps home base, business.

Many small business owners do not attempt this calculation, in fact many do not even know, with any degree of reasonable accuracy, the number of hours they work in their business. Without this data they cannot make any calculation about the value of their time. This calculation is very important for any business.

It is very important for any small business owner to keep an accurate record of the number of hours that is worked in their business, not just in terms of the total number, but also the pattern of the house worked, and on each major activity. By comparing this to net income figures (after deduction of expenses) it is a simple matter to arrive at average weekly, daily and hourly rates of earned income, and also the hourly income derived for each major activity.

Any small business owner should look to keep overheads to a minimum and stop doing what is of no real importance, and the immediate reaction to any suggestion to keep needless records should be resisted - but in this case this need not be costly, and the advantages will far outweigh the cost and effort. There is no need to be put off by this, records can be devised so that they require only a few minutes to each day.

This information should be at the heart of considerations about which activities to expand or drop and which to invest further effort in etc. But without information the temptation is simply to look at the profit and loss account. However these do not give enough detail to determine comparisons between activities in terms of the profit per hour. The small business owner may intuitively know this, but concrete information is more likely to encourage action.

For a larger business, the situation is not always as critical, a profitable activity can be retained whilst finding resources to expand others and then afterwards perhaps shift the focus of the business towards the more profitable. For a small business owner, there may be no option other than to choose between two activities - and may be the only way a business can be sustained or expanded.

In conclusion, in a small business knowing how time is spent and the value to place upon that time in terms of all and each activity is of fundamental importance to its survival and growth. Records to gather and compile this data can be can be maintained at minimal cost - and their value will far outweigh the time and effort to do so.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Brian_Hazell

Organize Your Online Life - Time Management

If you work from home, odds are you spend about 90-95% of your time in front of your computer. You interact with employers, fellow employees, clients, and others using multiple online applications. If you're anything like most work-from-home employees I know, you've got about 6 windows open with roughly 4-5 tabs on each window. This can be rather time-consuming to organize and manipulate. To promote better time management, which allows you to work smart and not hard, you have to find ways to organize your online life.

There are multiple programs out there that promote relationships with other social applications (i.e Twitter, MySpace, Facebook), mail applications (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo), instant messaging programs (Skype, Yahoo Instant Messenger, AIM), and much more. The key is finding one that works for you. By utilizing these programs, not only do you make your day-to-day interactions much smoother, but you make your life easier. Who can possibly remember all the different usernames and passwords they have out there? Some require numbers, some limit your username and password to a certain amount of characters which prohibits you from using your typical username and password, some are case-sensitive, and so on and so on.

One recently released program, Microsoft Windows Live, allows you to integrate a large portion of your daily programs/activities into one program...a sort of dashboard, if you will. Windows Live gives you basic interaction tools like email (Hotmail), online space storage, blogs, and online invitation software. You can also download widgets that allow you to integrate programs like Flickr, Wordpress, Twitter, Photobucket, and more. One of the cons, however, is that programs like MySpace and Facebook have not established a relationship with Microsoft Windows Live yet, so you would have to go to these sites individually to access your accounts, but this is the price you will pay with any software that is meant to consolidate your life. No program is perfect.

No matter which "consolidation" program you like, you will never find the one perfect application. It doesn't exist...at this point, at least. Even programs that allow you to integrate software widgets like Flickr and Pandora only give you limited access to the functionality. If you want to have full functionality, you must still go directly to the site. However, depending on your needs, these programs can be a wonderful asset and help your time management immensely.

In this day and age, all we have is time, and it is nowhere near expendable (and it never should be). The job trend is moving from in-office to virtual/telecommute to allow everyone (companies included) better flexibility. As time progresses and the movement continues, we need to establish borders that prevent our work lives from morphing into our home lives. The more we control our time management, the better we are able to work smart and not hard; work shorter hours instead of a 60-hour work week. Organizing your online life, as much as is humanly possible, is allowing you to be one step closer to being in control of your life and your work.

5 Incredible Ways to Wake Up Productive!

Maximize Your Health, Wealth And Energy By Learning To Wake Up Productive.

Waking up productive may sound a little out there for some but if you put these simple steps into action you will be amazed at how much more you can accomplish through the day.

We all get the same amount of time to do things. Yes, all of get our 1440 minutes a day to either:

A.) Be productive with or
B.) Piss away.

It's your decision on how you spend it. Once those minutes are gone, that's it, they are GONE! Finished! Finito!

So, let's get this productive ball rolling shall we?

1. As soon as your eyes open from hopefully a great nights sleep, put a smile on your face. You just got another chance to do something spectacular! Oh and that smile just started off your exercise routine for the morning. You just worked three muscle groups in your face.

2. Drink at least a half liter of water. When you sleep your body loses hydration and can cause you to feel like you have a ball and chain on your ankle. Also, try to stay away from the caffeine first thing in the morning. Give yourself a chance to absorb that beautiful class of healthy water you just drank.

3. Give yourself at least 30 minutes for cardio exercise. Even if you have to get up earlier in the morning; do not skip this step. Get your blood pumping and oxygen flowing! You would be amazed at what this does for every part of your body including your brain. Getting your body and brain jump started through exercise will reduce some of that stress you may be carrying around.

4. For around 10 or 15 minutes go and lock yourself in a room for some alone time. Meditate and get in some of that spiritual light or just shut your eyes and listen to yourself breath. Clear your mind of all negativity. This really gets you to a point of understanding who you really are. It will also take tons of stress off your shoulders.

5. Make your first meal of the day your healthiest one. This will set the stage for how you eat the rest of the day. Some great things to put in your body any time of day are: Almonds and Apple Juice, both are believed to increase brain power and memory, Leafy greens and Raw Vegetables, both have tons of vitamins and minerals. Leafy vegetables are also good for the eyes and help prevent age-related diseases that can cause loss of site. Fresh fruits including at least a handful of blueberries every day. Blueberries are high in anti oxidants and really get in your system to promote your health.

Now that you have taken less than 60 minutes to wake up productive,(actually it only took you a few seconds to wake up productive when you put that smile on your face) you still have 1,380 minutes left in your 24 hours. Approximately 450 of those minutes will be used for sleeping. So, you will have 930 minutes more to get a ton of stuff accomplished!

Have a Productive Day!

Never Surrender to the Procrastinator Inside!

Superman's Success!

You can be a suburban Superman who does it all!

Be a husband and a father and always accomplish your goals, by focusing on what's important and what's in front of you at the time. It's the opposite of multi-tasking. It's compartmentalization.

Compartmentalization is best symbolized within the bow of the martial artist as he enters the dojo. The bow emphasizes the ideal, that outside distractions are left at the door. It says, unequivocally, I am here to learn and give one hundred percent of myself in the process.

Don't do more things at once. Do one thing at a time and do it well.

Be a family man. Spend evenings at home with your family. Eat dinner together, talk about your day, play games, finish homework and prepare for bedtime. The bedtime rituals can be rewarding and perplexing at the same time, so here's where routine has it's rewards.

Be a son, be a brother or sister, be a survivor, be a writer, be a businessman, be a life-long learner and a teacher. You can be all of these things, all at once and one at a time. Concentrate on each one separately, as you are involved with related activities, and give 100 % of yourself in the process. You will be amazed at the overall results that will appear in every area of your life.

When you affect one area of your life in a positive manner, you will find every area of your life is positively affected.

Anyone can be Superman! Compartmentalize your life. Make time for what is important now, and be totally within that moment. Opportunities present themselves and then disappear like a vapor.

Avoid time-wasters like the television and newspaper. Sit in the floor and play with your child, get on your treadmill, throw yourself into your work while you are there, and when you leave, bow low, just as the martial artist, and leave it at the door. Enter the next door you come to and bow again.

Get Things Done - How to Prioritize Quickly and Easily

Why is it when we have so much to do, we end up doing so little? Is it because when we're confronted with so many tasks, we find ourselves so overwhelmed that we end up doing none of them? If so, how do we turn this thing around?

It can be simple. We need to get rid of that feeling of being overwhelmed, or at least, overcome it. The way to do that is to prioritise.

Look ahead

The first step of prioritizing is working out what needs to be done, as well as the order that these need to be accomplished. A lot of people make the mistake of concentrating on easy tasks. You may get a lot of things done this way but not the really important things, the ones that actually make a difference.

Make a list

Make a list of all the things that need to be done. Now, organize these activities by urgency - must do's, should do's, and can do's.

Must do's are urgent and highly important activities that need to be accomplished right away to avoid consequences.

Should do's are important but not urgent activities that can wait a while before you have to face the consequences of not fulfilling them.

Can do's are activities that would be nice to do at some point, but won't affect you if you don't get around to doing them.

Reward yourself

You'll find that you get more things done if you're looking forward to something. For example, if you finish all the must do's by lunch time, treat yourself to a nice lunch. Rewards don't have to be expensive or time consuming, but it has to be able to create anticipation and motivate you towards reaching your goals.a

The Art of Self Delegation

When people thing of delegating work, they usually think of some big manager tucked away in an ivory tower somewhere casting out orders to scurrying minions. Not very helpful to a solo business operator or consultant whom only has themselves to fall back on. So how can we "delegate" work to ourselves?

In this article, I'm going to attempt to share with you a few ideas that will allow you to take the tasks that you would delegate to someone else given half a chance. And we'll do it in four steps.

Step one: Define your primary role

What do you do? And simplify it as much as possible. I know you probably do a lot of roles, but get it down to as little as possible. I for example have four interests I take care of and I could make this all about how busy I am, but that's not the point and nor is it very helpful. Instead, my primary role is to "make money for my interests."

Step two: Define your secondary role

OK, we know what your main job is, but what other things need to get done so that the primary role happens, things like accounts, Tax issues, invoicing, general admin all need to get done.

Step three: Divide and conquer

Here's where the magic happens, spend an allocated amount of time (I spend 4 days a week) on your primary role and another allocated amount of time (I spend 1 day a week) on you secondary role. If it really isn't working for you, change it up, it's your life!

Step four: Get your rest in

Never, ever give up on rest, you need it more than you realise and it means that you will be all that more effective when working towards your objectives

Time Management Techniques - Discover What's Slowing You Down

In today's fast paced world we all face time limitations. The key to time management techniques is to take consistent action everyday to ensure the most efficient use of your available time. Many times what separates Successful people from the rest of the world is that, Successful people don't allow Life to get in the way of their success.

In order to make efficient use of time management techniques, you must first discover what's slowing you down. Take stock of both your personal and business lives to see what's holding you back. Make a list of all of your "time wasting activities" from both your business and personal life.

In today's uncertain economic times, many professionals work not only their traditional 9-5 jobs, but also have their own home based businesses. Under these circumstances, time management techniques are of utmost importance.

For example, if you only have 30 minutes to an hour a day to devote to your home based business, it is imperative that you utilize time management techniques to avoid common time wasting activities such as these:

1. Self doubt and negative thoughts. The surest way to fail is to believe you'll fail. You get what you focus on, so you must discard such negative influences;

2. Busy Work - rearranging papers, making lists, preparing to get started are all examples of busy work, which must be avoided at all costs;

3. Working on long term projects, instead of things you need to do today;

4. constantly checking emails. This is like watching a tea kettle boil, it doesn't make the tea boil any faster, nor does it make the email arrive any faster. Set a limit on how often you can check you emails;

5. Multitasking. Multitasking is not always a good thing. Often all you go is wind up switching back and forth between a number of things, without really getting anything done. Pick one task and get it done.

6. What I call, Tomorrowitis - don't fall prey to putting things off until tomorrow. Take consistent positive action, with a sense of urgency. If you don't feel a little uneasy that your not doing enough, then your probably not.

7. Don't watch too much TV. Yes you can watch too much TV. Ask yourself this ?. Has watching TV ever made you any money?

Learning Time Management Techniques is essential to your success in business. Examine your life and see what unnecessary time wasting activities you need to get rid of. Success leaves clues. If you study the habits of successful people, you will notice that they use of Time Management Techniques.

Here's to your Health, Wealth and Success.

John Robberson is a Successful Criminal Defense Attorney with over 15 years experience, who runs his own practice.

He is also a Team Leader for a Network Marketing Company. As such, he long ago learned the importance of using tools and techniques to effectively run his businesses. The topic of this article, is only one of the many marketing skills he has mastered over the years.

Time Management - A Simple Time Tip With a Big Payoff

"I have to hurry up." "I'm running late." "I don't have time for that now." These are the conversations running through your head all day long as you race about your day trying to get things done. Life is one big race against the clock and the clock always seems to win.

You have a lot of commitments and responsibilities on your plate with many obligations. You simply focus on getting one thing done so you can move to the next to keep your head above water. You're doing the best you can after all. Or, are you?

Perhaps you're in this time crunch because of something you did or didn't do and you don't even realize it. If you were aware of this one thing and took action to correct it right now it could completely change your relationship with the clock and your life. All of a sudden you could find yourself with time you never thought possible to use as you want not as you think you have to.

So what is this one thing that's causing you to never have enough time? That one thing is a responsibility in combination with a behavior. That one thing is a decision.

Most people who struggle with the way they use their time also have trouble making decisions. Many avoid decisions. Others make snap decisions without thinking through the consequences of those decisions. Yet others delay decisions so they're faced with the same decision over and over again.

There's a simple solution to the decision challenge. Although it's simple it's tough because it requires a total commitment and iron will. The solution, of course, is to make decisions quickly and change your mind slowly.

Rather than avoiding decisions if you challenge yourself to make a decision quickly and stick with it you could be amazed by just how freeing it is to make a decision. Now I definitely am not suggesting you either say "yes" or "no" to every decision. Rather I'm suggesting you say "yes" or "no" quickly to those decisions that are immediately obvious. Then set a date and criteria for a decision for all other decisions that aren't quite so obvious.

That isn't delaying a decision that's setting a time and target for making an informed decision. When the day and time comes make your decision and stick with it. Sticking with it is another important component of effective decision making.

Waffling back and forth increases your stress and wastes your time. Once a decision is made don't change it unless there is a clear logical reason to do so.

Time Management - The Myths & the Facts

The term time management really irks me. You can manage tangible things and processes. However, time is a concept. When you manage time you aren't really managing time you're managing the way you use your time.

Now some people think time management is about tracking and setting appointments in a day planner. As though having everything you do recorded in a box somewhere is managing your time. It isn't.

Most of what you have entered in a day planner doesn't belong there. Most of the information in your day planner is reactive rather than proactive. In combination that's a big problem.

Managing the way you use your time is about :

• Setting clear objectives
• Defining actions that produce those objectives
• Tracking those actions and their results
• Getting to the right place at the right time
• Sticking to your plans and accounting for the unexpected

I'd like you to notice something about the keys to managing your time from the above list. One and only one of those keys has anything to do with a day planner. The only purpose a day planner serves is ensuring you get to the right place at the right time.

Day planners are about time and place. Only pre-planned appointments should get entered into it. Nothing else should clutter up your day planner. Guess what that also means. The bulk of the way you use your time has NOTHING to do with your planner, appointment book or calendar. The rest of the time, time outside of pre-planned scheduled appointments, has no place in your day planner.

And when you try to make the way you use the rest of your time fit into a day planner life gets really messy really fast. You actually increase your work, reduce your effectiveness, and increase your stress when you were trying to make things better. What a disappointment.

You increase your work because you end up moving and rewriting things to make room for the real appointments. You end up searching for information you know you wrote down somewhere in your day planner, but you aren't exactly sure where. You lose key information because you don't know where to put it.

You reduce your effectiveness because you give yourself permission not to get things done. When you write something you need to do in your day planner and then you don't do it at the designated time, what do you do? You erase it from that time slot and then rewrite it in another. The more often you do that the more you begin to doubt your ability to get things done and the less effective you become.

All this shuffling of information, lost information, and things not done makes you more stressed. The more your level of stress increases the less you can get done. The less you get done the worse your results. It's a viscous cycle.

Time Management - The Key to Time 2009 & Beyond

There's one thing for certain. As the economy tightens so will the amount of available time you have. Whether we're talking about time to sell or time to use as you choose. Time is a key factor in your ability to succeed.

This is a particularly challenging time for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and sales professionals because money is tight. What was an easy sale early last year is a no sale now. And it's taking you more and more time just to earn a single sale.

There's another certainty you must face. You can't work harder than you are now. There simply aren't enough hours in a day to do more.

Therefore your only option is to work smarter. Now I know you've heard that before; however, I want you to approach smart a little differently. When most people think about working smarter they think, "How can I do more in less time?"

In other words, they are looking for ways to do things more efficiently. Yet efficiency may not be the answer for you. Here's why.

Efficiency is all about doing the same things in less time with less effort. Now that sounds good. It sounds like it's exactly what you need.

But I caution you that efficiency may be exactly what you don't need. You see if doing more of the same things isn't increasing your sales and giving you more free time now you can't expect it to do so when you do more of it. You can be extremely efficient at doing all the wrong things.

The key to your success 2009 and beyond is effectiveness not efficiency. Effectiveness is about doing the right things. The right things are the things that produce results.

When you do the right things you don't need to do so much of them to produce the desired result. That means you get what you want with less work. It also means you have more time for other things including planning what you want to accomplish and how to get it.

For example, let's use cold calling to compare efficiency versus effectiveness. When you're efficient you could make 100 cold calls and secure 2 appointments from your time investment. When you're effective you could make the same 100 cold calls and secure 20 appointments from the same time investment.

Efficiency is about making those calls as quickly as possible playing the numbers game fooling yourself into thinking every "no" takes you one call closer to a "yes". Effectiveness is about understanding what to say on those calls to produce results in as few calls as possible realizing the purpose is to make a connection that could develop into a relationship because relationships are what produce sales.

3 Simple Tips For Time Management

Have you heard the saying it takes 20 days of constant practice to form a habit? Think of that and then think of this: if all it takes is 20 days to form a habit, what can 20,000 days do? I'll tell you what these 20,000 days can do - they can reshape your character. This makes learning time management skills all the more important.

After all, procrastination may be a habit now but 20,000 days down the line, it will define who you are and what you do. Martin Avis knew this (he wasn't a former procrastinator for nothing!) and he used this knowledge to come up with a helpful, concise, but enriching guide, '14 Days to Total Time Control'. The ebook simplifies the concept of time management and offers tips for time management that are easy, practical, and workable. It is an entertaining read, too, as Avis draws from his rich trove of procrastination experiences to illustrate certain points.

Time management experts like Avis aside, though, here are some tips for time management that you can try right this moment.

1. Do not wait for things to become urgent before you do them.

Ever told yourself, "If it's not urgent, it can wait"? Snap out of this self-created myth. Time does not wait for anyone. So do what you can do now. Do not wait for tasks to pile up before you get to them.

2. Make a list.

Elephants, it's been said, do not forget. But you're not an elephant; you're human! It is natural for you to forget. So try this strategy: every morning, sit down and think of how you want your day to go. Then, write down all the tasks you need to do. Arrange them according to their order of priority and do them accordingly.

3. Learn to delegate.

You can't do everything yourself so why try? You don't need tips for time management to realize that you should delegate the things you do not have time for - what you need to come to that realization is plain common sense. So go ahead, ask others for help.

Remember, time is precious. You do not always get the chance to do tomorrow what you can't do today.

Searching For the Ultimate Procrastination Cures

People all over the world have been in search of the perfect procrastination cure. But in order to fine the best cure, we need to define what the problem really is first.

Procrastination is the practice of putting things off until a later time. Many people often do this in regards to things that they dislike doing. They will say things like "I can do it tomorrow" or "it can wait". I am guilty of this myself, and it is a very hard thing to stop doing.

Many think that procrastination is what a lazy person does. That is absolute nonsense. It is more accurately described as the lack of hours that a person has to accomplish the tasks that they have to complete. There are always things that crop up that are unexpected that take time from the tasks that a person has wanted to do. It happens all the time to a lot of people. There are ways to cure procrastination. Some people can do this easily while others may struggle trying.

Some people find that writing to do lists is helpful. They make a list that is realistic in length and stroke the item off the list once it has been completed. Another way to conquer procrastinating is to make big chores smaller. This can be done by breaking them up into small chores. I use this one myself with things I need to get done and find that it works very well.

Making sure that you get enough sleep and to eat a decent diet will help as well. It will boost your energy levels so that you can get more done throughout the busy day ahead. This is an easy one that a person can control once they set their mind to it.

We all need to put less pressure on ourselves and think of things more realistically. We are not robots, and require calm periods throughout the day. Just setting a nice pace for yourself is a great way to start winning the battle with procrastination. Try some of the things above and see how it works. You may be pleasantly surprised.

How to Overcome Procrastination at Last

There are many steps you can take to learn how to overcome procrastination. Most individuals procrastinate because the task is unpleasant of overwhelming, they have a fear of the unknown, a fear of change, they are a perfectionist, they have a fear of failure or are simply disorganized.

Procrastination may not seem like a high problem but it can have some very unwelcome results and you will miss some great opportunities. Procrastination by missing important appointment like regular check ups can even result in death as you may miss a deadly disease. If you do not like to balance your checkbook then you may ruin your credit by having a huge overdraft.

The first step is to list out everything you need to get done. You should list the first five things you need to get down and put them down on paper. The complete the task you first should visualize the project from start to finish. You need to visualize the process you will take in order to complete the task. You also need to understand what you will lose if you procrastinate. You need to be realistic to understand the cost, time and expertise needed to finish the task.

You should brainstorm if you get stuck to break the block that may be stopping you from completing the task. You can get ideas form anywhere. Many times if others know about your task then you will actually do better. Many individuals are motivated when they are watched. You can also organize and gather materials needed to complete the task in one spot. Disorganization will kill your project from the beginning.

You can break your task down into steps and complete each step one at a time. You can also list the steps and check them off as you complete them. If you find yourself still procrastinating you should set a timer and work on the project at least 10 minutes each day. Even if you hate the task working on it for 10 minutes each day will eventually complete the task. If you are a perfectionist then you need to set the bar low. If you are striving for the perfect then you will probably never start the task.

How to Think About Time Management

Our time management skills are a reflection of our individual learning experiences, how we get along with others, how we react to changes when they occur, and our individual personalities. While we all know that there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days a week, we don't all know how to use time effectively. Rather than feeling in control of our time, we can easily feel that we are a slave to time, However, if we take time to stop, think, plan, and organize tasks, we have the opportunity to work with time rather than looking at it as an enemy. This change in our attitude may help us to see time as a resource to be used wisely.

First, with a positive frame of mind, stop and think of the goals that you want to reach, long range or short range. Try to see the path towards your goals in concrete terms or steps. Make an actual list with the tasks to be accomplished. Achievements or aims can be reached by becoming realistic and by knowing your direction. Making a list can make the tasks more concrete and help you to focus energy on completing tasks or projects.

Think about the amount of time it will take to achieve the goal or goals that you are working on. As you begin planning your strategies, you must also look forward and recognize your time frames for individual tasks. It is easy to frustrate ourselves by trying to do more than we can accomplish. If you fall into this trap, initially you may need to break out the amount of time needed to complete each task. While this may sound like an unnecessary extra step, it can be helpful in understanding what we can and can't accomplish in a given amount of time.

Separate the tasks to be completed immediately from the important tasks to insure that the goals at the top of the list are accomplished. This is critical. If we plan to do the most important task last, we run the risk of not getting the most important tasks done and frustrating ourselves.

Be realistic and expect changes. Good time management involves flexibility and open-mindedness. Do not expect that you can finish a task in what you've considered as your time frame unless everything goes perfectly, and for many of us, life rarely follows our individual schedules. Allow some flexibility in your time frame for unforeseen or unexpected circumstances. Giving yourself a little extra flexibility will increase your ability to reach your goals and decrease the chance that you will be frustrated.

Know the time frames when the activity level in the environment shifts to help you make the most of the time you have available. Often a house, or the people in it, will have a time frame when activity is at a higher or lower level. Most offices' have a schedule too. By being consciously aware of these time schedules, you can plan your day and your time more effectively. Make plans. Planning is a way of saving time and preparing you to reach your goals.

Unfortunately, there are often stumbling blocks along the path to success. One of these is the lack of time to complete each task. In addition, the improper use of time, the wrong utilization of resources, or the undertaking of unnecessary tasks within a given period of time can all lead us astray. Often, people are not able to accurately estimate the proper amount of time to complete a given project, or because of unforeseen circumstances and delays that pop up in our lives, a project can take much longer than we plan on. Our ability to react and change directions when these situations occur can determine if we can or can't reach the goals that we are working towards.

Time Management Tips - How to Create Reflection Points to Redirect Your Energy and Enrich Your Time

"Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."
Benjamin Franklin

Time management tips provide you with power to energize and enrich your time choices. This begins with investing the time to reflect on which time choices truly fulfill your needs. And it builds with identifying which time choices are due for an overhaul.

Do you fall into the trap of rationalizing that you lack the time to assess your time choices? Consider that time is precious, unrepeatable, and finite. So value your life and refine your time choices by building regular "reflection points" into the rhythm of your life.

What exactly is a reflection point? It's a moment in your day, or week, or month, when you pause and reflect on how things are going.

Consider asking yourself the following questions:

1. What are the goals you are progressing with?
2. What are the intentions you wish to follow up on?
3. What relationships need tending?
4. What are your accomplishments to celebrate?

How to Make Reflection Points Work for You

Rather than treating reflection points as one more activity to squeeze into a busy day, envision them as spacious baskets that hold all aspects of your life. This allows you to conduct a relaxed overview while sorting through your priorities. From this time of reflection, you return to your day refreshed, with energies realigned.

Here are some ways to prepare your reflection points:

Uniquely Yours

You can focus on one thing or several. And work with a journal or list - it's entirely up to you. The most important thing to keep in mind is that this is your opportunity to decide for yourself how to make your life work better for you. You needn't explain yourself to anyone. Instead, you clarify what matters to you. In fact, your points of reflection can inspire you to reclaim personal power that you have allowed others to control.

Fine-Tune Timing

How often you schedule points of reflection may depend on your level of satisfaction with your life. And whether you envision fresh potentials you would like to explore. Times of transition also require more frequent retuning, as you familiarize yourself with a new landscape.

Conducive Climate

Consider setting aside time on a regular basis when you'll be undisturbed. If it's helpful, prepare your environment so that it is especially conducive for relaxing and looking within. Have touchstones nearby that inspire you, and a notepad for recording fresh ideas.

By shaping this special time to your needs, you can actively welcome these opportunities for reflection. Every time you review your time choices, you dignify your life with intentionality. There is no greater gift you can give yourself or to others than living by time choices that reflect your deepest values.

So, how can you start clarifying your priorities today to start finding more time?

Time Management and Your Life

I don't know about you, but to me, part of living a successful life is having the free time to be able to enjoy it. I would not be able to consider myself lucky or well off if I did not also have the time to spend with family and friends and also for the many different hobbies and interests that I have. The only way that I know that will ensure that this happens is by using an efficient time management strategy.

Look, we all know that we have to do some kind of work in order to make money. And for many people, that work will take up the majority of their time, strength, and energy. But, that does not have to be the case. At least not for you. Set up a schedule so that you make sure you do not ignore the things that are really important in your life.

LEARN WHAT TRUE FREEDOM IS...

When you have a good and balanced schedule to not only take care of the work and career aspects of your life but also the fun things that you would like to do, then you are able to experience a freedom that most people do not. Most people either trade their free time in order to have a good job and make a decent amount of money and others give up the money aspect so that they can have free time.

But, you can achieve a balance if you are willing and committed to making sure that you devise an efficient time schedule so that you can experience the best of both worlds. And that is the real meaning of living free.

Organize Your Online Life - Time Management

If you work from home, odds are you spend about 90-95% of your time in front of your computer. You interact with employers, fellow employees, clients, and others using multiple online applications. If you're anything like most work-from-home employees I know, you've got about 6 windows open with roughly 4-5 tabs on each window. This can be rather time-consuming to organize and manipulate. To promote better time management, which allows you to work smart and not hard, you have to find ways to organize your online life.

There are multiple programs out there that promote relationships with other social applications (i.e Twitter, MySpace, Facebook), mail applications (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo), instant messaging programs (Skype, Yahoo Instant Messenger, AIM), and much more. The key is finding one that works for you. By utilizing these programs, not only do you make your day-to-day interactions much smoother, but you make your life easier. Who can possibly remember all the different usernames and passwords they have out there? Some require numbers, some limit your username and password to a certain amount of characters which prohibits you from using your typical username and password, some are case-sensitive, and so on and so on.

One recently released program, Microsoft Windows Live, allows you to integrate a large portion of your daily programs/activities into one program...a sort of dashboard, if you will. Windows Live gives you basic interaction tools like email (Hotmail), online space storage, blogs, and online invitation software. You can also download widgets that allow you to integrate programs like Flickr, Wordpress, Twitter, Photobucket, and more. One of the cons, however, is that programs like MySpace and Facebook have not established a relationship with Microsoft Windows Live yet, so you would have to go to these sites individually to access your accounts, but this is the price you will pay with any software that is meant to consolidate your life. No program is perfect.

No matter which "consolidation" program you like, you will never find the one perfect application. It doesn't exist...at this point, at least. Even programs that allow you to integrate software widgets like Flickr and Pandora only give you limited access to the functionality. If you want to have full functionality, you must still go directly to the site. However, depending on your needs, these programs can be a wonderful asset and help your time management immensely.

In this day and age, all we have is time, and it is nowhere near expendable (and it never should be). The job trend is moving from in-office to virtual/telecommute to allow everyone (companies included) better flexibility. As time progresses and the movement continues, we need to establish borders that prevent our work lives from morphing into our home lives. The more we control our time management, the better we are able to work smart and not hard; work shorter hours instead of a 60-hour work week. Organizing your online life, as much as is humanly possible, is allowing you to be one step closer to being in control of your life and your work.

How to Effectively Change Your Time Into Successful Action

You wake up in the morning with the intent of building your business when you get home from work. When the time comes to get started you're worn out from the stress of a long days work, the kids are tugging on your pants and your spouse expects a moderate level of attention. Sound familiar? Don't worry you're in good company. Chances are you started your business part time. You have a full schedule other priorities that demand your attention.

With so much going on it is imperative that every moment you have to work on your business is spent effectively. Managing your time and priorities is a big challenge for some people. No matter how hard you try to schedule time for your business there will be times when things come up. There will be times when you just don't feel like building your business.How can you effective manage your business that way and when will you have time to enjoy the fruits of your labor?

You should know in order for this or any business to work it's going to take some sacrifice of time. It is important that your family is on the same page as you and understands the reasons why you are building a business.

Important Tip: "You should create an understanding that you are spending less time with them now to gain more time with them in the future. If your family is not on the same page there's a good chance you will become distracted or loss focus trying to please both your business needs and their needs." So how do effectively change your time into effective action? Here's my quick tip list for staying organized and focused.

• Get your family and spouse on the same page
• Determine what activities lead to a commission check
• Prioritize and organize your list
• Move actions considered "busy work" to the end of the list
• Start completing those activities as well the other things that need to be done
• Keep a journal for a week detailing what actions you took
• Review the data at the end of the week and look for ways you can be more productive.
• If at the end of the week you find yourself with more "busy work" than income producing activities you should rethink exactly how you earn a commission and do more of that activity immediately

Stay focused on doing more with less. In this case less time, less effort and fewer headaches. There is no substitution for action. Be careful though, sometimes busy work will disguise itself as income producing activities.

How to Think About Time Management

Our time management skills are a reflection of our individual learning experiences, how we get along with others, how we react to changes when they occur, and our individual personalities. While we all know that there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days a week, we don't all know how to use time effectively. Rather than feeling in control of our time, we can easily feel that we are a slave to time, However, if we take time to stop, think, plan, and organize tasks, we have the opportunity to work with time rather than looking at it as an enemy. This change in our attitude may help us to see time as a resource to be used wisely.

First, with a positive frame of mind, stop and think of the goals that you want to reach, long range or short range. Try to see the path towards your goals in concrete terms or steps. Make an actual list with the tasks to be accomplished. Achievements or aims can be reached by becoming realistic and by knowing your direction. Making a list can make the tasks more concrete and help you to focus energy on completing tasks or projects.

Think about the amount of time it will take to achieve the goal or goals that you are working on. As you begin planning your strategies, you must also look forward and recognize your time frames for individual tasks. It is easy to frustrate ourselves by trying to do more than we can accomplish. If you fall into this trap, initially you may need to break out the amount of time needed to complete each task. While this may sound like an unnecessary extra step, it can be helpful in understanding what we can and can't accomplish in a given amount of time.

Separate the tasks to be completed immediately from the important tasks to insure that the goals at the top of the list are accomplished. This is critical. If we plan to do the most important task last, we run the risk of not getting the most important tasks done and frustrating ourselves.

Be realistic and expect changes. Good time management involves flexibility and open-mindedness. Do not expect that you can finish a task in what you've considered as your time frame unless everything goes perfectly, and for many of us, life rarely follows our individual schedules. Allow some flexibility in your time frame for unforeseen or unexpected circumstances. Giving yourself a little extra flexibility will increase your ability to reach your goals and decrease the chance that you will be frustrated.

Know the time frames when the activity level in the environment shifts to help you make the most of the time you have available. Often a house, or the people in it, will have a time frame when activity is at a higher or lower level. Most offices' have a schedule too. By being consciously aware of these time schedules, you can plan your day and your time more effectively. Make plans. Planning is a way of saving time and preparing you to reach your goals.

Unfortunately, there are often stumbling blocks along the path to success. One of these is the lack of time to complete each task. In addition, the improper use of time, the wrong utilization of resources, or the undertaking of unnecessary tasks within a given period of time can all lead us astray. Often, people are not able to accurately estimate the proper amount of time to complete a given project, or because of unforeseen circumstances and delays that pop up in our lives, a project can take much longer than we plan on. Our ability to react and change directions when these situations occur can determine if we can or can't reach the goals that we are working towards.

Time Management Tips - How to Set Time Boundaries Using a Simple Visualization

Time management tips help you cultivate your power over your life, once you start exploring boundaries. Maintaining time boundaries powerfully reinforces your time management strategies. Until you set successful boundaries, you can't protect even the best schedule.

When you successfully maintain your time boundaries you may feel like you are saying "no" more often than "yes." But the reality is that each time your "no" supports a time boundary, you are actually saying "yes" to the things that are most important to you!

If you say yes to everything, your day will be overflowing - but not necessarily with the things that you value. It will be filled with a mishmash of crisis demands, interruptions, distractions, and other people's needs. Your own goals might be pushed out of reach. And however frantically you rush to catch up, you may not be able to retrieve what really matters. What happens to your time and your temper when this occurs? And what happens to your relationships with coworkers, friends, and family?

On the other hand, when you exercise your power to choose and maintain your time boundaries, you let go of needless stress and frustration. Your "no" in the moment creates the possibility of many "yesses" as you apply your energies toward the things you value and the dreams you want to achieve!

To create a supportive environment to set boundaries for your upcoming day, try this short visualization:

How to Cultivate Your Garden of Time: A Short Visualization

1. Picture yourself tending your garden. As any gardener knows, if the weeds are left to their own devices they will choke out the plants that you are trying to nurture.
2. Now envision the day ahead of you as a landscape you are cultivating. Where are the activities that create meaning and flow in your life? Those are the gardens of intentionality. They provide color, clear pathways, and refreshing shade. Where are the weeds and thickets that interfere with your progress? These are the areas where you must do your spadework.
3. Creating and maintaining time boundaries is a lot like weeding. It gives your dreams a chance to flourish! In the same way that you leave space around your favorite flowers so they can thrive, do your best to leave open space in your schedule to ensure that your most significant activities have breathing space.

Establishing new boundaries, like weeding, can begin anywhere, and needs to be maintained. You may start with the "time weeds" that are easiest to pull, or the ones that threaten your favorite activities. Follow your intuition, and take a few moments to appreciate how helpful each new boundary is. Every success will help you reclaim more territory.

As you exercise your skills to create and maintain boundaries, you will experience a shift of power. The more you look to yourself to make your day work, the more confidence you feel. The less you rely on others to salvage your battered plans, the less pressure you feel to give into others' demands. You create an upward spiral of personal effectiveness!

Your relationships also benefit. The more you rely on yourself, the less other people will frustrate you, and the less you will attempt to control others. You enjoy more ease and appreciation, and others respond to your new openness. The happier you are with the garden of your day, the more you will enjoy inviting others in.

So, what additional time tools do you need to cultivate your dreams and make the most of your time?

Eliminate Mistakes and Take These Tips to Accomplish Your Goals

There are just too many things to do in an average day. It seems like there's always some monster of a project or problem staring at you, and you have no idea how to handle it. The worst days are when the monster gets itself a posse, and they all come after you at once.

But then there's that person we all seem to know who is never ruffled by problems like this. Their life is calm, collected, and they never 'wig-out.' How do they do it? How do they look all those monster-projects in the face and laugh as they sweep them away?

Different people have different methods of dealing with scenarios like this, but some methods work no matter who you are and what the project is. One of these anyone-can-implement-it methods is to break your projects down into manageable pieces.

Too many people allow themselves to fill their to-do list with large, rather vague projects. 'Clean the House.' How many of us have written that one down, only to have the house look just the same a week later? Or for businesses, something like, 'Increase Productivity.' These are too big. They allow too much room for wondering where to start. You'll find yourself staring at your cluttered house or office, mind blank, until you decide to go do something else.

Breaking projects down into bite-sized pieces is easy, and this is where you really start personalizing it. For some people, deciding to focus on the living room before moving on to anything else is enough of a starting place. But if you're still stumped, maybe you need to focus on picking everything up off the floor first thing. Whatever it is, narrow it down until you have a starting point that really does get you started. Even if you have to break the list down into pieces like 'dust lamp' or 'reorganize pencil-holder', do it. If it helps you to complete your task, that's all that matters.

While you are breaking these things up, write them down! I really can't stress that enough. If you try to keep your to-do list in your head, all the little pieces will eventually conglomerate themselves back into 'Clean the House' and you'll be right back where you started.

One major plus to breaking down your projects and lists like this is that you can rejoice in every little victory. Now instead of feeling bad because you didn't 'Clean the House' or 'Increase Productivity', you can feel great because you managed to cross off half a dozen little things. Maybe you didn't clean the whole house, but you cleaned the entire living room by breaking the room down into a dozen smaller chunks. Or you reorganized your desk and file cabinet, allowing yourself to find things easier. Also, multitasking sounds great, but often it is more of a distraction than a help. Focus on one project; get it out of the way, then move on to something else.

By breaking down your projects into small, manageable pieces that provide you with a very clear starting point, you increase your chances of getting your projects done. You also boost your moral by accomplishing lots of little things that amount to big things. It's way better than not getting anything done at all because the monster and his posse ate you alive.

Time Management Mastery - 10 Tips For a Better Life

Creating a personal vision and setting goals will automatically push you to accomplish more. The loftier your goals and the longer the time frame, the more difficult it will be to manage your time in the best way.

Some tips to help you on your path:

1. Plan your days in advance in 30 minute time blocks.

2. Make daily to do lists and prioritize the tasks. Put the tasks into the time blocks.

3. Make a don't do list. This a list of unproductive things you are doing now so that you can replace them with things that really matter. They can include nearly anything, but in the beginning they will most likely revolve around mindless television watching and just "hanging" out.

4. Track your daily activity for 1 week. Keep a log of what you do for every minute of the day, and look for ways to save time. Look for tasks you can eliminate or delegate to someone else. Use the extra time so you can accomplish more of what is on your goals list.

5. After the 1st week compare the tasks you planned in your 30 minute time blocks and what you actually did during your week of time tracking. What was your biggest time waster? What are 3 things you can do to eliminate the waste in your week?

6. Learn to read faster! The faster you can take in information with full comprehension the faster you will be able to get through routine tasks and learn new skills. Speed reading is an incredible advantage. If you have never taken a speed reading course or something of the like, make it a priority.

7. Prepare for the next day the night before. Pack your lunch, lay out your clothes, and know exactly where everything you need to start the day is located. You will save an enormous amount of time just by doing simple preparations and eliminating your "looking" time.

8. Right before you sleep at night, your most important task of the next day. Think about it intensely for 5-10 minutes and then let it go from your mind and go to sleep. Let your subconscious mind take over while you sleep. Do not try to control your subconscious mind, just let it run on auto-pilot. You will be amazed at how much of your task, if not all of it will be completed the next day. While you are sleeping your subconscious mind is working. Take advantage of it!

9. Practice taking action on your ideas immediately. Do it now! Procrastination and its opposite action are both learned habits. Decide that you are eliminating all procrastination from your life. Important tasks are going into your to do list and are blocked into an interval in your calendar. Even if it is not blocked until 6 months from now that is o.k., just get it done when it is time.

10. Forget about the minor stuff. Some things are just not that important. When you purposely decide to leave a few things out, you will realize they were not that important in the first place.