Archive for August, 2007

by Matthew Roberts.
So it has happened. You had put your homework off for two weeks now and you find that you have only two days to turn it in. The thought of calling in sick at the day of the deadline crossed your mind but you knew your professor will not buy it. You have also considered saying your computer crashed, but, hey, it’s probably the oldest late excuse in the book. You’re actually left with no choice but to write that blasted paper in so short a time.

Let’s leave the lecture about time management for later and focus on the issue at hand. You have an 8-page reaction paper about a novel that you need to submit in two days and you have not read the book. You have three choices. You can either speed read the book (lucky you, if it’s short and interesting), scour the Internet for reviews and papers written about it in the past, or consult a Barron’s or Cliff’s Notes summary. For the purpose of this article, let’s talk about the Internet option.

There is a wealth of information available about anything and everything on the Internet, so you will not have a hard time looking for resources. It is advisable to read reviews and summaries from three or more Web sites for you to get a thorough understanding of the novel, and to make sure you have the right information. Remember that not all Internet sources are reliable, so this multiple-source strategy will set things straight.

You can do that in the first half of day one. Of course, since these already are summaries, it won’t take you long to read them and list down the pertinent data. And since you are required to write a reaction about the novel, it really won’t take genius to form an opinion.

Talk about the characters’ attitudes toward the challenges they faced and how they were able rise above them. Talk about the nature of the time the novel is set and relate it with the protagonists’ responses to the conflicts. List down what lessons might be inferred from their experiences. Finally, talk about the human condition or the human-ness of the characters and say something about the author’s effectiveness in bringing out out the fallibility of man. This you can do in the morning of day two.

By the afternoon, you’ll be sitting in front of the computer terminal and writing your paper. You might even be able to submit it hours before the deadline, leaving you enough time for a short coffee shop celebration with a friend or by yourself for this major feat. Why, if you’re really bent on making it happen, you can even complete the entire thing in a day.
This all sounds so easy. It really is. The most difficult part in writing a paper is having the courage to actually start. Conquer your demons and accept the fact that you have made a mistake of procrastinating, stop dwelling on the tight schedule and start working, all these while vowing never to make the same error ever again. Of course, common sense will tell you that during these two days of cramming you have to focus only on activities related to your paper. Lay off the party mode first and celebrate later.

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Matthew Roberts (the author of this article) has set you up with a special gift on his website.

In an exclusive personal interview he uncovered the secret success strategies of multi-millionaire John Di Lemme. For your FREE 18 minute extract of this interview, head on over to InspirationTo Achieve Goal Setting Success

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by Cheryl A. Clausen
Focus is a great time management technique. Many of you like to think you can multi-task ,and women are purportedly supposed to be good at it, but the truth is no one is good at it. Let me explain what I mean by multi-tasking. Multi-tasking isn’t planning ahead and recognizing that if you turn the oven on it can be heating while you’re putting a load of clothes in the washer so they can be washing while you prepare dinner. That’s efficiency not multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is when you think you can read your email, write a report, and give someone a verbal message while you’re talking on the phone. When you do that everything takes you longer, and you end up having to go back and correct mistakes.

You can’t possibly focus on thinking, talking, and writing all at the same time. Your brain simply isn’t wired that way. When you try to multi-task you aren’t focused on anything, everything takes longer, and you make more mistakes than you normally would if you just focused. Stop this insanity by developing the self-discipline to focus on one thing at a time so you can move to the next thing quicker, or you can take a much needed break. When you’re trying to read your email or write something at the same time as you’re talking to someone else either on the phone or in person you are sending a message loud and clear that says, “you aren’t important enough for me to devote my attention to so go away”. Is that the message you want to send?

Learning to group or categorize things is an effective time management technique. Rather than trying to deal with everything as it comes at you take control, and plan when you will respond or act on each group or category. Check and respond to your email no more than 1-3 times a day. When you check your email every time a new message arrives in your inbox you’re not only losing the 2-5 minutes you spend on the email, but your losing the time it takes you to return to what you were working on and get regrouped.

When you don’t focus you start, stop, and regroup dozens of times before you finish anything. With all that starting, stopping, and regrouping you could have had time to really enjoy something. Instead you end up feeling stressed out and overwhelmed because you feel inundated by a sea of endless tasks. Answering the phone and stopping your work just because it rings or talking with anyone who happens to walk by is just as bad.

You may not have a door you can close or someone who can act as a filter for you, but you can rely on your ability to focus as a time management technique that works for you. Have you ever noticed how mothers can drive around with a car full of screaming kids and not even notice all the noise? That’s because they’ve trained themselves to focus in spite of all this apparent chaos. It’s actually a matter of self-preservation through focus, but isn’t that what you’re faced with too? Aren’t you to the point where your just stressed out and overwhelmed by too much stimuli keeping you from being productive. Focus is your self-preservation self-discipline tool that will enable you to survive and thrive in highly demanding situations.

Would you like to learn more about your time behaviors? Try this Time Management Analysis and find out where your opportunities for improvement are. Start your journey for success. your journey starts here.

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“In preparation for your upcoming cruise, please choose among the available excursions for each of your stops. The icons will indicate the level of activity required for each one:

Moderate: Walking short distances over relatively level terrain.
More strenuous: Walking intermediate distances and climbing stairs.
Most strenuous: Participants should be physically fit.”

These were instructions I received in advance of an upcoming trip. Notable in using that exertion key is the point that you are not spending any more time on your excursion regardless of the level from which you are operating. The difference is that you have so many more options open to you and can cover more distance on your own if you are able to participate in the third level.

It struck me that these could be the same type of instructions that we might use in setting up a plan for getting organized to improve our work routine during the year. How much distance do you want to cover? How productive do you want your days to be? A person’s level of organization helps to explain why some people seem to accomplish so much in a day while others are left wondering where the day, or week, went because they have very little to show for it.

In an office setting, the same levels might be reflected as:

1) Moderate - Focusing on what you “have to” do each day, working on the daily routines of looking at email, returning phone calls, attending mandatory meetings, and dealing with immediate requests. (You are operating on level terrain.) You rarely have the time or energy for anything extra.

2) More strenuous - You also are involved in longer-term projects and manage to complete assignments at or close to the deadline. (You are climbing stairs.) Stress can build up from such crisis management, leading you to feel it was a strenuous day, that you overexerted yourself.

3) Most strenuous - Scheduling projects in advance of deadlines, following up with project participants, and creating your own ideas and solutions for future company growth in addition to keeping up with daily work flow. (You are physically fit.) When you succeed at this level, you’ve worked hard, with significant results, but, if you’ve been operating in an organized state, you end the day feeling energized rather than drained and stressed.

How can you build up your office organizing skills so that you can choose to operate from the most strenuous level when you want to, being extremely productive while still wrapping up a day feeling motivated and energized? The following steps will help you to achieve this:

1) Start with your desk area. Choose one system that lets you operate from a clear space with your daily work prioritized. A basic tickler file, with the days of the month, is one way to help you achieve this by giving you a place to put the work you need to do today, tomorrow, and next week.

2) Group daily activities like email, returning phone calls, paying bills, and filing so that you can perform like tasks together. When you focus on one type of activity at a time, you are four times more productive.

3) Set aside a block of time each day where you focus on the projects that require concentration, the ones that really affect the bottom line of your company.

When you enter an organized area each morning, with your work already prioritized so that no upcoming deadlines are overlooked, you start out energized. You have achieved a level of organizing fitness that allows you to handle the strenuous activities of your department or company without the stress of overexertion.

How do you want to cruise through this year?

Denise Landers is the owner of Key Organization Systems (http://www.keyorganization.com). She provides group productivity training and one-on-one assistance for businesses and individuals to organize their time, space, and information. She can be reached at 281-397-0015.

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by Cheryl A. Clausen
Controlling your accessibility is a time management skill that will increase your overall productivity. Do you pride yourself on your open door policy? Do you take all your own calls, stopping what you’re doing to answer the phone? Do you regularly check your emails throughout the day? Let me ask you, why is being so accessible more important than being productive?

Sometimes you think you have to allow everyone 100% access 100% of the time or people will think you aren’t friendly. You can be friendly, but you need some ground rules. When you were a little kid did your parents let you eat nothing but candy? Of course they didn’t. That wouldn’t have been healthy and neither is being 100% accessible 100% of the time. It may feed your ego making you feel really important because so many people need you, or want to talk to you, but it destroys your productivity.

So, how do you improve your productivity without destroying your relationships? It begins with you asking for assistance, and then training others to help you meet your expectations. When you ask for help rather than demanding compliance, people are always ready to help you out. Let those around you know that you have some changes you have to make because you’ve come to realize that your willingness to be accessible is destroying your productivity. Let them know what your new ground rules are, and specifically how they can help you to live by your own rules.

The very thing that’s feeding your ego is actually undermining your value. Others give your productive time the same level of importance you train them to give it. When you train people that they can interrupt you at any time for any reason you’re really communicating to them that whatever you’re doing isn’t important so interrupting you is no big deal.

You know what you don’t want, and that’s a good place to start. You know that you don’t want to take every call as it comes in, that you don’t want to stop what you’re doing to read and answer a bunch of time waster emails, and you know you don’ want people just dropping in your office any time. Based on what you don’t want identify what you do want, and start from that point to develop and train for your accessibility ground rules. You may be the biggest obstacle in accomplishing this as you’re obviously getting some enjoyment from all these incessant interruptions. Put your focus on the enjoyment you’ll get from increasing your productivity, and the time you can free up to actually enjoy the people who want to communicate with you.

Would you like to learn more about your time behaviors? Try this Time Management Analysis and find out where your opportunities for improvement are. Success happens one goal at a time? find Success here.

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by Matt Chilleri
The fact is if you desire to have a lucrative home based business, you must be rigorous with your time and have excellent time management skills. Only by possessing good time management skills can you ensure that you accomplish the key tasks that result in your business being successful. Additionally, the distractions present and inherent in the home and online make it absolutely essential to have control of how you spend your time.

The distractions that the home based business entrepreneur faces are many. Weather it be children, wanting to relax and do nothing, wanting to watch TV, the phone ringing, or whatever it may be, there are a plethora of distractions in the home. There are an entirely new set of distractions present when you actually get on your computer in the form of email, discussion forums, advertisements begging for your attention, and the urge to surf and check out your favorite sites. The multitude of distractions in the home and online can cause people to get off track very quickly. The result of this is greatly reduced efficiency and productivity with key tasks often being left incomplete. Not having control over how one spends their time when trying to have a lucrative home based business is a cause for failure. There are some things you can do to ensure you manage your time more effectively and get the most out of each day.

To have a lucrative home based business you must be in control of how you spend your time. By having control over how you spend your time will enable you to be sure your spending your time getting the key tasks vital to your businesses success completed. One way to do this is to plan out your days activities in advance. The act of planning out your day in advance will allow you block out specific periods of time for income producing activities. The fact is your business success depends on the successful completion of income producing activities on a habitual basis. Scheduling your day and blocking out when you can complete these vital tasks will make you much more likely to get them done. You will increase your efficiency as well as you will be able to get more done since you won’t have to waste time figuring out what you should be doing as you will already know exactly what it is you are supposed to be doing.

Another tip you can use to better manage your time and to increase the likelihood of having a lucrative home based business is to prioritize everything you must do. By prioritizing the activities you need to accomplish from most important to least important, you can then begin work on the most important and continue on down your list in order of importance. By doing more activities that are of greater importance, you are increasing your efficiency and productivity. It is truly a waste of time to be doing things that do not really need to be done (activities of little to no importance). Prioritizing will allow you to stay focused on the key result areas and not waste your time on things that do not have any real impact on your business.

To have a lucrative home based business, get in the habit of asking yourself, “Is this the most effective use of my time right now?” or “Is what I am doing helping me build my business and make money?” Asking these questions is a great way to keep yourself accountable and ensure you are working on tasks that are important and that directly impact your business in a positive way. If as you ask yourself these questions and answer no, start doing something else immediately. Your business success will be directly linked to your ability to complete key and vital tasks habitually. How well you manage your time can have a huge impact on this.

To have a lucrative home based business, you must effectively manage your time. Successful and prospering individuals spend their 24hrs more productively than those who are struggling. People who have lucrative home based businesses focus in on and complete income producing activities daily. The more effective you are managing your time, the more or these activities you will complete, and the more successful your business will be.

Matt Chilleri is a prospering and successful online entrepreneur and internet marketer. Matt offers in depth training, mentoring, and support to those looking to achieve financial success online. To learn more about Matt and how he may be able to help you reach your online business and financial goals, and to gain FREE LIMITED TIME access to his information packed 7 part success boot camp visit his website at http://www.jobfreein30.com.

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I don’t think I have to really tell you how easy it is to get distracted while conducting business online, especially from home. With all the tasks we have to undertake,it’s a wonder that anything gets accomplished. I thought I would take the time to share with you some of the things I do to help manage my time.

1. Create a To-Do List
I usually create my list the night before, or the very first thing in the morning. I simply make a list of all the things I need to get done that day, and work my way through it until all tasks are complete.

2. Keep Your Focus
This is probably the hardest thing on this list to do. Just keep telling yourself that these are things that you must do and the results from them will be a more profitable business. Do whatever it takes to stay on track.

3. When You Get Sidetracked….Get Up!
If you find yourself on a browsing or clicking binge when you should be working your task list, stop and get away from your computer. After a small break you will find yourself refreshed with a ready-to-work perspective again.

4. Set Time Limits
Set a limit for how long you have to spend on certain tasks. Set an alarm or use a timer to help keep track. When the timer stops or the alarm sounds, stop and move on to the next task.

5. Pull the Old Switcheroo
When there is something that you are working on and you just can’t seem to stay focused on it, stop and move onto another task for awhile. This break will help you feel more focused when you come back to it.

6. Breaking Big Rocks into Little Stones
When you have a very large task it can sometimes seem overwhelming and like you are getting nowhere fast. You may find yourself moving the same task from one day’s To-Do-List to the next. When this happens try breaking your larger tasks in smaller, more manageable tasks. The smaller tasks can be marked off your list more easily and at the end of the day you will see how much you have really accomplished.

A common issue among Internet based businesses is becoming overwhelmed and overworked. Keep in mind that Rome was not built in a day, and your business won’t be either. Take your time and cut yourself some slack if you don’t get everything accomplished as quickly as you were hoping.

Michael Melia is the owner of Earn24×7Online.com and writes on a variety of subjects. To learn more about this topic Michael invites you to visit: Earn24×7Online.com

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by Cheryl A. Clausen
This time management tip is about the importance of communication in your efforts to be more efficient with your time. Communication always involves at least two parties, and the more people involved the more likely communication problems will cost you time. As with any good plan you have to start right to end right, and it’s no different with communication.

Good upfront communication improves time management and lessens frustration. Before starting on any project clarify the expected results, and get agreement on both the results and the time line. In most cases any two people don’t have to take the exact approach to get the same result. It’s the result that’s important not the details of how. Setting time lines up front establishes mutually agreed upon time frames so no one feels let down later.

Tracking and measuring saves time and improves your time management. Establish the measurements that will be used by everyone involved to measure progress, and set a date and time for follow-up. Measurements and follow-up dates won’t prevent things from going wrong, but it will prevent them from getting ignored until it’s too late to correct things and get things back on track.

Communication provides an opportunity for you to learn things that will further improve your time management effectiveness. At the agreed upon date and time follow-up and get feedback. From the feedback you will learn about any problems or short falls, and you will learn information that will be useful if you ever have to do this again. Feedback is really important on several different levels. Through feedback you will learn how to effectively communicate with the other person, how to improve the system, what you’ve overlooked, and how to make the project efficiently repeatable if it needs to be.

You may have thought that time management tips were just personal pointers, but as you can see time management tips often extend to your interaction with others. You don’t usually get behind all on your own, so you need to learn how to help others to help you to stay on track. Communication with a few measurements and follow-up is a great way to improve your time management efforts.

Would you like to learn more about your time behaviors? Try this Time Management Analysis and find out where your opportunities for improvement are. Looking for success? find Success here.

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by mish su
One of the main causes of being stressed out in the office is lack of time for other important things outside work. Being so career-driven, an busy worker can even lose his touch with time…losing the ability to distinguish between sunrise and sunset. You are too busy even to have a social life and recreational activities. Eventually, this situation leads to stress and anxiety…and even burn out. It is important to know that you have control over time and that you can maximize to achieve your daily tasks, and still leave behind precious time for yourself and your family.

Stress Management and Time Management Principles:

KNOWING THE TIME WASTERS - recognize which activities that waste your time. Don’t concentrate anymore on what is unimportant and and irrelevant.

FOCUS ON PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY- check your schedule, you may get clues as to where as you’re losing more precious time. It could be unclear assignments or poor scheduling.

LOOK TO THE PRESENT, NOT STAY IN THE PAST- yesterday is gone. It is now part of history. You can’t bring it back anymore. Life is meant to be lived in the present. The “Now” that we are so capable of changing. The present on you can make vital choices that affects your future.

WRITE IT DOWN- a written daily schedule will aid you on how to budget your time. Write down your activities and include activities for your family and friends. Set a significant time for leisure like biking, watching a movie or reading a good book. a well written schedule is the way for you to have a more balanced life.

PRIORITIZE- write a list of things to do. Each task should be properly labeled in order of difficulty which is the toughest job first than the easier ones. Don’t let others dictate your schedule. Always be on charge. Don’t allow intrusions like a cellphone or telephone call. Schedule your appointments and create boundaries.

Turned your life around. Trying to do everything or being a workaholic so you can just be able to reach the top is not what success is all transformation will begin the moment you decide to change and make an intense personal commitment. Time Management affects your relationships, your physical needs, your attitude and your work life.

Make every minute counts. Make break apart your day into 10 minutes blocks of time to make quick re-evaluation and put it into practice, into action and not just visualizing. Time is the essence. Make it count and not in pursuit of things that gives you too much stress that may even give you anxiety panic attacks.

The hurdle to change is the first step—but taking action is another. After that, anything is possible. So manage your time so you can set achievable goals, strive for excellence, break bad habits, use money wisely, control your fears and anxieties, be more enthusiastic and gain more personal growth.

Life is a continuous process of learning something new. There are times that maybe even twenty four hours is not enough because if you look more closely in the bigger picture is like putting together a piece of the puzzle. That life is what we make. Working too hard and not spending quality time for others will determine if you have really been a success. Failure starts the moment that you made unnecessary pursuits and next thing you’ll know how you wished you can turn back time.

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by Matthew Roberts.
Do you feel like you always have too much on your plate? Like your day needs to be 48 hours because: your boss requested that you walk his dog, your wife needs your sheets changed, and you still need to edit your kid’s album on Photoshop?

Well, if you’re like me, your days stretch into 60 hours, right? Well, there’s a solution to that! You can prioritize.

Sure, it seems simple. But choosing which to prioritize is not. The trick is to have the willpower to drop whatever is not urgent and important in your day. So how do you do the choosing?

1) First, get a pen and paper. Or open your computer’s spreadsheet or word processing program.

2) Make categories: “urgent and important”, “important but not urgent”, “urgent but not important”, and “not important nor urgent”.

a. Under “important and urgent,” write down what you need to do now that is of high importance. The kind that if you don’t do tonight, you’ll get fired, or worse, your wife will make you sleep outside the house. Make sure that these are really important, that not doing this would have a big consequence. No, it does not mean the task of having to buy your wife a can of Pringles in the middle of the night. Unless she’s pregnant and you don’t want to wake up next to the dog.

b. Next, under “important but not urgent,” write what is of great importance to you but you can do tomorrow or next week.

c. Under “urgent but not important,” write down what you want to do today, but not really essential to survive another (normal 24-hour) day.

d. Finally, under “not important nor urgent,” write what you honestly could live without.

3) Next go through your list. For the ones under Category 1 (urgent and important), see how much you could squeeze today, with enough breathing space and time to sleep for 6-8 hours. Budget your day around that, and make sure you stick to that schedule. If your day still runs over, this means you need to choose some tasks and schedule them the next day. If it’s not on a deadline anyway, do so.

4) For Category 2 (important but not urgent), schedule a maximum number of 5 tasks from this list to do daily, with the task’s deadline in mind. Make sure to make some allowance for Murphy’s Law (everything that can go wrong will go wrong), if it’s a really important task.

5) For Category 3 (urgent but not important), if a task on the list says “send email greetings to mom-in-law (ordered by wife) today,” do it after everything else in Category 1 has been done. Unless mom-in-law’s birthday is today and not emailing will mean World War 800, that is.

6) Finally for Category 4 (not important nor urgent): Yes, you can live without checking MySpace (or your blog or whatever) today. So turn off your computer, take a bath, snuggle next to the wife, and rest well. For tomorrow, you’re doing another Category 1 list again.

Simple, right? Now, all you need is the willpower to stick to the list and learn to realize that not checking MySpace today will not result in severe stomach ulcers.

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Matthew Roberts (the author of this article) has set you up with a special gift on his website.

In an exclusive personal interview he uncovered the secret success strategies of multi-millionaire John Di Lemme. For your FREE 18 minute extract of this interview, head on over to InspirationTo Achieve Success

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by Timothy L. Drobnick Sr.
There is no reason you should need to sell your products and servicese the rest of your life, especially if you have already proven you are very good at it.

Now you can take on other salespeople and teach them to do what you do. If they earn good income as salespeople this means you are at a point to be a sales trainer instead of a salesperson.

If you have sold a lot of product and services or a long period of time, it will be much more to your advantage not put yourself back on the street. You would do well, but then you would not be training others for sales and helping them.

You should not hire salespeople until you have done sales yourself, and done well at it. Otherwise, you will not really know how to train your sales people, and they will not have a lot of respect for you.

But there is no reason that you must sell for the rest of your life. If you have proven it to yourself that you can sell, and have enough credibility to talk to your salespeople so they know you know how, then you are much smarter to train others to sell so you can multiply yourself.

Please remember it is urgent that you always continue to improve yourself as a sales manager, to always look for the best methods for your salespeople to use, and to make sure they have the best tools you can dream up.

After all, you really are still a salesperson, except now you are selling yourself, your services, your products, and your sales methods to your salespeople.

Timothy L. Drobnick Sr. is still helping people learn how to become the best salespeople. View the slideshow to see how Tim can help you be the best salesperson you can be.
This article is available as a unique content article with free reprint rights.

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