Come. Let’s unfold some time together.

What are we going to do with this notional thirty hours per week (if we’re not otherwise committed to other discretionary tasks already)? I’m implying choice here.

These discretionary hours are considered after our non-discretionary time is spent: most of us need to include eight hours for sleep; ten hours, five days a week for work and travel to and from; and, then say three hours per day for meals and catching up with loved ones and friends.

Using what’s left responsibly is up to each one of us as individuals to decide.

Spare Time – What’s That?

And this itself is the key. With so many potentially gorgeous things to get our teeth into, chances are we’ve already become swallowed to a passion or two – but are these things you? Without trying to dissuade you, there is only one person who can decide. It does, of course, take reflection, insight and courage to change – if change is considered necessary.

It’s your life. Nobody can really complain for having insufficient time. It’s ironic that many of the busiest and most productive people don’t ever complain about not having enough time.

That complaint is a nonsense much of the time – an excuse we shouldn’t buy into.

Optimising Each Hour

We can optimise every hour of the day and not be rushed one little bit. We’ll simply be making our life work more productively and we’ll experience more joy and fulfilment as a result of stoking the furnace of our hearts with joy and optimism.

But we do need to break down our hours and begin to plan. This means starting out manually, making lists and breaking down and analysing our days – if we’re serious.

Ten Minutes

What if we disassembled each hour into six segments? We’d all of a sudden have up to 180 discreet blocks of time to do many good things well. This is what explains the productivity of some; they use this incredibly vast resource of time really well.

(That’s 1,800 minutes per week. That’s a lot of minutes. Every week.)

We can achieve an immense amount in ten solitary minutes if we’re focused and motivated, splitting even the minutes and seconds. This isn’t about us rushing about all in a fluster. It’s simply being as efficient and diligent as possible.

A Final Word on Rest

We need to be diligent – even to the point of diligently getting the necessary rest we need. Rest this way, too, is time used productively. In fact, we’ll never get close to our potential productiveness if we don’t first get our rest. Rest comes first. It’s our platform. Our rest defines the quality of our productivity.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.

Steve Wickham is a Registered Safety Practitioner (BSc, FSIA, RSP[Australia]) and a qualified, unordained Christian minister (GradDipBib&Min). His blogs are at: http://epitemnein-epitomic.blogspot.com/ and http://inspiringbetterlife.blogspot.com/

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Well, a couple of days went by and I had not heard back from her so I called her up to chew her out. And much to my surprise, she chewed right back! "I’ve been so busy. I had a home inspection this morning. I have to go back to the office to prepare for a listing presentation. I have to drive my son to his baseball game." And she went on to name a half dozen more things she had on her plate. (Sidebar: Another friend of mine once told me she was talking to a friend and was telling him how she was overloaded with all the things she had to do and that she just had too much on her plate. He responded by saying, "The problem is not that you have too much on your plate, the problem is that you’re not eating fast enough!")

So, that got me to thinking about the importance of prioritizing. Because at times, with all the things we have to do, tasks can seem overwhelming. Prioritizing can make things more manageable. Here are some tips for staying sane in an insane world:

1. Do a Brain Dump.
Think about what you want to accomplish. With your goals in mind, write everything down. You can focus on short-term, intermediate, or long-term goals or all of them. You can focus on one aspect of your life or all of them. You decide. But do not include routine tasks such as "eat lunch" or "use the bathroom."

2. Make a To-Do List.
Not just any list, but a list that includes sub-lists and categorizes tasks into: Hot, Warm, Cool, Cold, Back Burner.
a. Hot List. The Hot list should include top priorities. These are tasks that are important and urgent. It should consist of things that have to get done today or tomorrow.
b. Warm List. The Warm list should include tasks that are important and have to be done soon, but not necessarily today or tomorrow.
c. Cool List. The Cool list should include tasks that are somewhat important, but which you have some time to complete. For example, you’re attending a fundraiser in two weeks and you need to buy a new suit to wear.
d. Cold List. The Cold list should include low-priority tasks. These are tasks that you would like to accomplish, but time is not of the essence.
e. Back Burner List. The Back Burner list should include tasks that… well, should be put on the back burner. These may include tasks you’ve been trying to accomplish for a long time, but just never seem to get done. Or tasks that should be delegated to someone else. Or tasks that belong on your bucket list instead of your to-do list (e.g., things like climbing Mount Everest or visiting the Grand Canyon).

As you create your lists, rank tasks in order of importance. So, for example, on the Hot list, the most important task would be ranked 1 or H1. The next most important task would be 2 or H2 and so on.

Remember the lists are fluid and can be edited at any time. For example, a task that is on the Warm list today may need to be moved to the Hot list tomorrow. Update the lists as necessary.

3. Take Action. A wise person once said, "If you do nothing, nothing happens." So after you’ve prioritized, it’s time to take action. Before scheduling each task into your day, week, month, or year, consider the following:
• How much time will it take to complete the task?
• Deadlines and due dates.
• Level of difficulty. What is involved in completing the task? What resources will you need? Where will you have to go? Will you have to make calls? Send emails? Is money required?
• Who else is depending on you to get the task done?
• Consequences. What are the advantages of successfully completing the task? What will happen if you do not complete the task or do not complete it on time?
• What is the return on your investment of time, energy, and resources?
• What is the likelihood of completing the task within the prescribed deadline?
• How will you accomplish the task? Is there a learning curve or do you know what to do?

Compiling the lists in order to prioritize tasks will clarify things. With clarity comes direction. With direction comes the ability to move definitively toward the goal: an organized, less stressful life in which, ideally, you never have too much on your plate.

Shana Douglas is a real estate attorney, real estate broker, CPA, and blogger. She blogs about real estate law, real estate marketing, and real estate news. She can be reached at http://lakeviewtitle.com/ and http://kellihersalzer.com/

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Versus if I create this sales letter that’s going to sell a bunch of my products, how much value will that create? And on the e-mails, I might estimate, “You know what? If I answer all those e-mails, it’s probably going to be worth like $50.00, where as if I create this sales letter, it’s going to lead to the sales of thousands or tens of thousands, or probably more; probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products. Clearly, doing this sales letter is more important.”

Now you have to deal with the competition between things that are urgent and things that are important, as Stephen Covey likes to talk about. But once you can really get a beat on the value of things, and you can challenge yourself and ask, “Okay, if I had to guess, how much money would this thing be worth if I get it done?” Then it’ll quickly show you which things are more important. So the first technique: just put a value next to it. Put a dollar value. How much will it be worth if you get that thing done? Then put the highest value thing at the top. Now the other technique is actually counter-intuitive, but it can be very valuable. And this is usually handy where you’ve got a list of a bunch of different things that you have to do, and you want to make sure that you get all of them done.

And again, this works when you’ve got a lot of things. They might not be big projects. They’re just kind of a punch list of things to do. What you do is you take the thing you don’t want to do most, the thing that is going to suck, and you put it first. Then you put the second worst thing second and the third worst thing third. And let’s say you have a list of ten things. By five or six, you’re getting into things that you kind of like doing and enjoy, and you want to take the best thing, the most enjoyable, the most fun thing to do, and put it last. Now the logic here is that if you make your list in reverse order of the things that suck the most, the things that are going to be the hardest to do, the least fun, that you’re going to plow through those things because you’re going to want to get them out of the way, and you’re going to want to get to the thing you really enjoy doing the most.

So take these two techniques and try them out right now. Make a list of all the things that you need to get done right now, and then next to each of them, write down the dollar value. If you get the thing done, how much will it be worth to you in money? Just estimate. Then take the thing that’s worth the most and put at the top and do that one first. That will dramatically increase your productivity and your results. Next, take the list of things and put them in order from the worst thing, the thing you’re going to not enjoy the most, all the way to the best thing. The thing that will be the most fun, and then get to work. So try these two techniques. They both work great. I use both of them. Try them out, and let me know how they work for you.

I’m Eben Pagan, creator of the Wake Up Productive Time Management and Productivity Training Program. If you’d like to watch my 47-minute video on how to manage yourself and your time and become dramatically more productive, just go to http://www.WakeUpProductive.com and enter your name and e-mail address, and you can watch this video worth $100.00 for free.

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You may discover that new goals, like new shoes, require some breaking in!

Let’s say you have set a goal, only to find that you feel trapped by it later. Feeling saddled with a goal that doesn’t work for you wastes your time and saps your morale.

Yet, you’ve probably experienced first-hand how productive goals energize you in countless rewarding ways!

What distinguishes workable goals from burdensome ones?

And how can you keep your goals healthy?

Here are three common ways that goals become traps, along with specific strategies to handle each one:

Trap Number One: The Impulsive Goal.

Do you have goals you set hastily? Perhaps you set yourself a challenge to overcome a feeling of paralysis. Or maybe you haven’t considered creating a coordinated strategy. If so, your new goal may face some stiff competition from prior commitments! You need to create a goal with an end point and action steps; otherwise, it’s not really a goal.

• Think clearly about the implications before you set a goal.
• How exactly will it serve you or move you ahead?
• How passionate are you about it?

If you care enough about this new goal to coordinate it with the rest of your plans, you are much less likely to feel trapped by it.

Trap Number Two: The Overambitious Goal.

Perhaps you wish to jump-start your productivity, so you create a benchmark for success and a timeline. Then, when you are part of the way through, you find yourself floundering. The more frustrated you become, the more you try to put the whole project out of your mind. Before long, it’s become an unworkable burden.

What went wrong?

There are several ways that overambitious goals can put the squeeze on you. Your timeline might be overly tight, especially if you venture into new territory. Who knows what challenges you’ll encounter along the way?

Or your understanding of how to reach this goal might be incomplete. It’s often helpful to write down every step you anticipate taking. Make it as detailed as possible, breaking it down into single work sessions. Estimate the time you think each step will take, and then double it.

This allows you to reap one of the most important benefits of a new project – learning along the way.

Trap Number Three: The Hand-Me-Down Goal.

What do your goals say about you? What do they say about your past? If you feel trapped by a goal that bristles with "shoulds", explore whether you have taken on someone else’s agenda for your own.

Hand-me-down goals are doomed for failure because they are weighed down with impossible expectations. In fact, the higher the imagined stakes, the more you might feel tempted to avoid the project altogether, especially if you allow your fear to drive you.

Any time a goal is burdened with symbolism, lighten the load with realism. Ask yourself questions like:

• "Whose goal is this, really?"
• "What am I trying to prove, or make up for?"
• "What will this give me?" or,
• "What might the realistic outcome be?"

By removing the symbolic trappings from a goal, you may find it easier to move forward. Write down a grounded revision of the goal, and refer to it as often as possible to remain mobilized.

As you work to keep your time commitments manageable, remember that each new goal requires that you give something up in its place.

Taking the time to consciously prioritize and harmonize your goals will reward you on a daily basis!

So, what is your very next step to move forward with your goals?

To take your next step, sign up for our free gift, "The New Finding Time Boundary Template: 9 Simple, Sequential Steps to Find More Time and Recharge Your Energy!" at http://www.thetimefinder.com

This time template will help you move beyond overwhelm, disappointment, and frustration. Using a workbook format, with room to record your answers, you will discover that 24 hours really are enough!

Offered by Paula Eder, Ph.D. The Time Finder Expert.

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Learning how to avoid procrastination is not as hard as it seems. It is simply a question of overcoming laziness and getting started on what you must be doing. The first step towards learning how to avoid procrastination is to define it.

Procrastination is that state of mind where the individual feels he is committed towards doing unimportant things while she could have done more important ones. You must try to understand that objectively there is no such thing as important and unimportant. These things are subject to time and place. The importance of things tends to change with circumstances and situations.

One of the most important thing to learn when you’re trying to avoid procrastination is that you should be attuned to the circumstances and situations around you and make the best of them. Procrastination is basically your inability to do so; and this is what drives you mad.

You know you could have made the best of the situation that you have, which can be an opportunity to present your talent at a job, to do your best at home work and get a good grade, to spend more time searching for employment, or simply learning a new hobby or art instead of doing petty things at random intervals.

There’s a very simple secret to accomplishing anything and it is this: get started! Yes, it is really that simple whenever you’re trying to accomplish something just get started without any thinking, whatever you need will simply fall into place or you will actually require much less effort than you previously anticipated. It is rightly said overthinking about something often becomes its undoing. Thus you should stop thinking and once you have made up your mind just get down to doing it. You’ll realise how easy it is and that all the fear and suppositions were out of place and were simply the product of your imagination. Remember the Chinese saying “do not fear moving slowly, fear Sting still”. This simply means even accomplishing a small task is a lot better than accomplishing nothing.

Procrastination is something which is best left till tomorrow! The worst part about dealing with procrastination is that it applies to itself. This means you can keep putting off trying to get rid of it indefinitely.

Click here to learn how to tackle procrastination in the most easy manner possible.

Stop giving in to this sad habit and learn how to beat it from the experts themselves which will help you get more done out of you than you could have never imagined.

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If you remove your hat you need not at the same time bend the dorsal vertebr’ of your body, unless you wish to be very reverential, as in saluting a bishop.

If an individual of the lowest rank, or without any rank at all, takes off his hat to you, you should do the same in return. A bow, says La Fontaine, is a note drawn at sight. If you acknowledge it, you must pay the full amount. The two best-bred men in England, Charles the Second and George the Fourth, never failed to take off their hats to the meanest of their subjects.

If you have anything to say to any one in the street however intimate you may be, do not stop the person, but turn round and walk in company; you can take leave at the end of the street.

If there is any one of your acquaintance, with whom you have a difference, do not avoid looking at him, unless from the nature of things the quarrel is necessarily for life. It is almost always better to bow with cold civility, though without speaking.

Good sense and convenience are the foundations of good breeding; and it is assuredly vastly more reasonable and more agreeable to enjoy a passing gratification, when no sequent evil is to be apprehended, than to be rendered uncomfortable by an ill-founded pride. It is therefore better to carry on an easy and civil conversation. A snuff-box, or some polite accommodation rendered, may serve for an opening. Talk only about generalities, the play, the roads, the weather. Avoid speaking of persons or politics, for, if the individual is of the opposite party to yourself, you will be engaged in a controversy: if he holds the same opinions, you will be overwhelmed with a flood of vulgar intelligence, which may soil your mind. Be reservedly civil while the colloquy lasts, and let the acquaintance cease with the occasion.

Some people view time management as a list of rules that involves scheduling of appointments, goal settings, thorough planning, creating things to do lists and prioritizing. These are the core basics of time management that should be understood to develop an efficient personal time management skill. These basic skills can be fine tuned further to include the finer points of each skill that can give you that extra reserve to make the results you desire.

But there is more skills involved in time management than the core basics. Skills such as decision making, inherent abilities such as emotional intelligence and critical thinking are also essential to your personal growth.

Personal time management involves everything you do. No matter how big and no matter how small, everything counts. Each new knowledge you acquire, each new advice you consider, each new skill you develop should be taken into consideration.

Having a balanced life-style should be the key result in having personal time management. This is the main aspect that many practitioners of personal time management fail to grasp.

Time management is about getting results, not about being busy.

The six areas that personal time management seeks to improve in anyone’s life are physical, intellectual, social, career, emotional and spiritual.

1. Physical Aspect
The physical aspect involves having a healthy body, less stress and fatigue.

2. Intellectual Aspect
The intellectual aspect involves learning and other mental growth activities.

3. Social Aspect
The social aspect involves developing personal or intimate relations and being an active contributor to society.

4. Career Aspect
The career aspect involves school and work.

5. Emotional Aspect
The emotional aspect involves appropriate feelings and desires and manifesting them.

6. Spiritual Aspect
The spiritual aspect involves a personal quest for meaning. Share and Enjoy:

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