Handling Procrastination
October 17, 2007
"TIME CANNOT BE ‘MANAGED.’ THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF TIME MANAGEMENT IS A BIT OBSCURE. THE ONLY THING THAT CAN BE MANAGED IS YOUR ACTIVITIES WITHIN THAT TIME."
I am quite confident I have never had an original idea in my entire life. What I have done, however, is create new ways of expressing old ideas. In this respect, I now invite you to approach, with a new perspective, the way you manage your activities.
Need-to, Ought-to, Can-do
Say it a few times to yourself: "Need-to, Ought-to, Can-do." Tongue-twisting aside, it represents three categories, within which falls everything that you are presently capable of. (Any activity that you are not presently capable of would perhaps fall into a forth category of "Can’t-do," and yet I would submit that if you are spending much time considering what you cannot do, you are not only mismanaging your time-you’re throwing it away!)
Balancing Your Work, Family and Social Life
September 9, 2007
Balancing Your Work, Family and Social Life
By Gene Griessman, PhD
Many of us have an image of personal balance as a set of scales in perfect balance every day. But that’s an unrealistic goal. You are in for a lot of frustration if you try to allocate within every day a predetermined portion of time for work, family and your social life. An illness may upset all your plans. A business project may demand peaks of intense work, followed by valleys of slow time.
Balance requires continual adjustments, like an acrobat on a high wire who constantly shifts his weight to the right and to the left. By focusing on four main areas of your life ? emotional/spiritual needs, relationships, intellectual needs and physical needs ? at work and away from work, you can begin to walk the high wire safely.
Here, drawn from my conversations with many high successful Americans, are ten ideas for balancing all aspects of your life:
Use Your Time Wisely!
August 3, 2007
When I was small, I have never considered the importance of time.I would just laze around, watch TV, lie in bed, and play videogames. As I grew older, I thought about the things that I haveachieved. To my surprise, I haven’t accomplished a lot.
I resolved to myself that I will do things that will contributeto the benefit of mankind. I studied very hard and learned alot of lessons from my experience. I lack self-confidencebefore, so I want to help other people overcome this predicament.
I became obssessed with self-improvement, so I started anewsletter. I’m also working on an ebook about persuasion asI’m writing this. I want to help anyone in need because it feels so good to solve other people’s problems.
I urge you now to make the most use of your time. It may bejoining a fundraising organization. You may also learn newskills or crafts. Create a goal and go for it!
Don’t be a couch potato. Don’t just sit around and be contentedwith the monotonous patterns of your daily activities.
Do something nice and give all your best to the fulfillmentof a worthwhile endeavor. It will give you a very deep sense of happiness and satisfaction.
Find The Time — Before Its Too Late!
June 29, 2007
People always seem to be in such a hurry, everywhere I go.
Always rushing to get to the next thing, as if someone is holding a stopwatch over their head, timing them to the second.
When I lived downtown I expected it, but here, nearly 50 miles from the city, I kind of thought life would be a little slower, and a little more forgiving.
Recently, on the Fourth of July, my neighbor was coming in late, around 9:30 in the evening, with her two children (who are just lovely, I might add). As usual she was rushing them along, trying to keep everything in order, and seemed as if she was held inches above the abyss by a very thin string.
Her children, of course, being children, had stopped to watch the fireworks display they were putting on at the park down the street. Her son, about three or four, kept saying, mommy, mommy, look at the fireworks! His voice had the excitement that only a four year old’s voice can contain.
She scooped him up quickly, and rushed him inside with a ‘come on, sweetie, it’s late,’ and never even turned for a moment to enjoy the wonderous display in the sky, not even for a couple of seconds.
Schedule Time for Interruption
May 23, 2007
One of the most challenging situations people face when planning their day is how to stick to their schedule when they are constantly being interrupted. Just when your activities are organized, someone else’s emergency seems to get in the way. A client has a crisis, co-workers are in a jam, your boss is breathing down your neck, a friend calls, or any of the dozens of other interruptions you face on any given day.
The solution is extremely simple and equally powerful ~ Schedule Time for Interruption. That’s right, just as you would schedule a meeting with a customer or event with your boss, scheduling a specific time in your day for interruptions is a technique that our students nationwide continually tell us is one of the most powerful time management tips they have ever used.
How does this work? There are two components. First, as you are planning your day or week, allot a certain amount of time for the sole purpose of dealing with ‘other people’s emergencies.’ What normally happens when someone calls or comes running into your office with something that they need your immediate help with? You drop whatever you are in the middle of and rush to their attention. Not only is their issue something that may not be of any importance to you, but I recently heard that it takes most people around 20 minutes to return to the level of focus they had before being interrupted. Wonder where those ‘lost hours’ go each day? Rebounding from all your interruptions!
