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Senin, 31 Oktober 2011

Work, Work, Work: Making Each Moment Count

Time, time, time. It seems there is never enough of this precious life support. In a previous story about time, I quoted the following aphorism:

TIME IS MY FRIEND
TIME IS MY ALLY
I HAVE ALL THE TIME I NEED
FOR EVERYTHING I WANT TO DO.

I received a lot of grateful responses and some questions, indicating just how hard it is to balance our time requests these days. I want to respond to a subscriber who said she is "too busy to attend to personal needs vs. work, work, work" and is looking for a way to take care of herself while meeting the requirements of her workplace.

Here are a couple of suggestions for anyone who is struggling to keep work and personal life in balance.

First, don't judge yourself about where you're spending your time. Wherever you are, be there 100 percent. If you're working, try to notice why you said yes to the work and enjoy that part of it. Enjoy the moment.

Second, use your calendar or daytimer as a tool to give you what you want. Mark it with work and personal time, and attend to it. For example, I'm writing a book, and it's very easy for me to let that time slip into something else, like answering email or returning calls. I'm getting better at blocking out the time in advance and sticking with what I said I was going to do with it.

Lastly, prioritize your values around time. If personal time is the highest priority, mark the personal time into your calendar first. Then fill in the other stuff in around it.

I hope some of this helps. Please write and let me know if any of the suggestions work for you. And let me know your ideas, too, because I need them!

Minggu, 30 Oktober 2011

Personality Test- Your Time Management

All of us have heard quite a lot about time management. Thousands of books have appeared on this subject. The objective of time management is - how to set priorities, how to allocate time, how to effectively use it and how to get the best of the given time.

After learning all this and implementing, most of the people manage to implement only a part over long term. Write down today's work, and give it priority ranks. Nothing more is done by a large majority. How is your time management? What skills have you developed in this and can you measure the increase in effectiveness?

Do you assign time to every work? If yes, is that allocation on the higher side or lower side? With higher allocation of time, you will waste it and with lower allocation, you will undergo stress. How do you do that? I have a small suggestion. Estimate fair time and give a tolerance of about twenty five percent to that. For example, if you allocate one hour to write a report, take fifteen minutes as tolerance. So you will not undergo stress at least till one and quarter hours.

Are you assigning time to unexpected developments? You might be working on an assignment and suddenly your client calls you with a complaint that needs immediate attention. What will happen to your schedule? It will all go haywire. To avoid time management problems here, separate the most important tasks that must be done in the given time and draw another list of tasks that can be safely postponed. This will help you avoid stress.

Time management is both an art and a science. Don't become its slave. Make it your tool to work efficiently. Avoid getting pressurized by your own goals.

Sabtu, 29 Oktober 2011

How to Make More Time for Giving

Do you have a desire to spend more time giving to others but you don't know where the time is going to come from? Have you tried several time management approaches all of which gave limited results or didn't last beyond a few weeks or days? I had the same problem and so did my friend David.

David Perdew has just written a new book called "Bad Dad: 10 Keys to Regaining Trust", is developing and teaching an online course, makes time for his family, and works a full-time job. Some students in his class have recently stated they don't know how he does it all. I recently talked with David about his "secret." It was no surprise that he has learned what I have.

You need to determine what your values and life purpose are and then spend your time doing those things that are most important to fulfilling them. Everything else should be delegated to someone else or not done at all. If giving to others is high on your list of values, you will make the time to do it more and feel great about it.

I spent the energy to determine my values and life purpose in my mid-forties. Some people might think I was going through a mid-life crisis (or man-o-pause as my friend Nick would call it). You are never too young or old to take your life purpose seriously.

The following two books were very useful to me and I highly recommend them both:

- "The Power To Be Your Best" by Todd Duncan
- "The Purpose-Driven Life" by Rick Warren

If you don't know your life purpose at this point in your life, you need to take the time to discover it. It will be a life changing experience.

Jumat, 28 Oktober 2011

How Much Time is Worth Volunteering?

I am amazed by the number of people that I hear from who apologize for only being able to volunteer one or two hours a week. Some of them don't feel like the time they have to contribute can make a difference. Some even avoid volunteering because they consider their potential contribution a waste of time. Does this describe you?

This way of thinking couldn't be further from the truth! Let me prove it to you by walking you through a short exercise. It will only take you a few minutes to do this exercise, but it will be worth it.

* Think back over your life and make a list of every person that had a positive impact on you.

* Once your list is complete, write down the amount of time it took them to make that contribution.

* Review your list for at least one person that helped or encouraged you in a short amount of time.

Most people that do this exercise will uncover memories of several individuals that contributed to their life in a positive way. Many of those did it through something they said or a small gesture they made. If they could do it for you, you can do it for others!

There is someone in this world that is waiting for you to donate whatever time you can afford to make their life and the world around them a little bit better. Don't let your thoughts of wanting to have more time keep you from giving to that person today.

Kamis, 27 Oktober 2011

3 Actions You Can Take Right Now to Bring Your Dream to Light

You hear it all the time; “follow your dream”, “discover your dream”, “dreams do come true”. This article shows you how to go about bringing your dreams to light.

Copyright 2006 Cari Vollmer

You hear it all the time; “follow your dream”, “discover your dream”, “dreams do come true”. The way people talk about LIVING YOUR DREAM, it’s as if everyone must have one!

I think they do, which means I think YOU do! So, if in fact the rather bold statement I just made is true, how do you go about bringing your dream to light? These tips will help.

1. ALLOW yourself to dream.

We STOP dreaming because at some point in our life we were told the dream we had was unrealistic. And after hearing it enough times from others we started believing it too. A dream that once felt so good to think about and seemed so possible to achieve, suddenly left us feeling silly for ever having it. So we did the only thing we could do, we packed our dream(s) safely away, not to be shared again.

Just because your dream is packed away for safe keeping, doesn’t mean it no longer exists. In fact, it might be the thing that keeps trying to get your attention! If you’ve ever had a notion there was “more” to life, listen up – your dream is talking!

How can you gently coax your dream back into the light?

You can ask yourself: “If money was no object, and failure was not a concern, what would I do with my life?”

As we get older we get more practical. But when you’re trying to unleash a dream there’s no room for practicality. Asking the question above will give you free rein to dream away! There will be plenty of opportunities for practical matters later on. For now, give yourself permission to once again dream and when you do, dream BIG!

2. Don’t judge your dream.

There isn’t a scale on which dreams are measured. In other words, one dream is no better or worse than another dream. Your DREAM is YOUR dream!

If, since the time you were eight years old, you’ve wanted to study the life and habitat of iguanas, perhaps your dream is exactly what you need to do to feel your best and to live a life you find meaningful.

The consequence of not living your dream? What about the poor iguanas!

There’s a reason you have the dream you have. In the big cosmic picture of life, your dream serves a purpose to all life on this earth. If you don’t live your dream, the rest of us are missing out.

The second tip for bringing your dream to light: Don’t JUDGE your dream. Rather, embrace it – it’s yours for a reason.

3. Practice patience.

Dreams take time to unfold, especially when you haven’t allowed yourself to dream for awhile.

Some people know their dream from an early age. For the rest of us, we need to remain open and curious as to what our dream is. Listen to your gut, heart and soul and trust they have the answers you seek.

It may take some time for your dream to be revealed. Therefore, the last tip is to HAVE PATIENCE. It may take time to bring your dream to light, but it’ll be worth the wait.

Allow yourself to dream, don’t’ judge the dream you have and practice patience: three actions you can take today to bring your dream to light.

“There is a giant asleep within every man. When that giant awakes, miracles happen.” Frederick Faust