How To Spend Time

Archive for September, 2009

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a very simple, but profound
statement that literally began a change in me that has led to my extraordinary success in life. The little quip that began my life-long journey to success was, “Nothing great was ever
achieved without enthusiasm”.
What stirred the passions in my heart and my commitment to self-improvement was the thought that I too could achieve greatness in my life if I had the enthusiasm and commitment to go after the extraordinary. That high school American Literature class that I really did not want to take became the catalyst for my success. If I had not read Emerson, Thoreau and other great American authors
and thinkers, I may not be writing this to you today.
You see, I believe everything that happens to us happens by Infinite design. And sometimes, a high school English class can change your life. You know, one thing leads to another; good or bad.
Do not dwell on the negative; look for the positives in every situation. So instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over
past heartaches, embarrassment and failures, treat them as your teachers and they will become your tools in both self-improvement and success.
Do you remember the movie Patch Adams starring Robin Williams? Its one of the great films that will help motivate you to improve yourself. Patch Adams is a medical student who failed to make it through the board exams. After months of suffering in melancholy, depression and suicidal attempts he decided to seek medical attention and voluntarily admitted himself into a psychiatric ward.
His months of stay in this mental hospital led him to meet many different kinds of mentally ill people. He met a catatonic, a mentally challenged, a schizophrenic and so on. Patch found ways of treating his own ailment and finally realized he had to get back on track. He woke up one morning realizing that after all the failure and pains he has gone
through, he still wanted to become the a doctor.
He carries with himself a positive attitude that brought him self improvement and success. He not only improved himself, but also helped the lives of the
people around him. He improved their quality of life. Did he succeed? Some say he became the best doctor this country has ever known.
So, when does self improvement become synonymous with success? How do you go from ordinary success to extraordinary achievement?
Let me share some thoughts with you that will get you on the road to abundant living and success.
See Your Future
The first thing you have to do is stop thinking and feeling as if you are a failure, no matter what your life experiences have been up to now. You have to begin with clean slate. As motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, says, “You must change your stinkin’ thinkin’ today”. Start focusing on where you want to be. Now put all of your energy into achieving that goal.
Look forward and only use the past as a motivation to drive yourself to new victories. Many people expend far too much energy looking back at their failures and shorcomings. Look for new opportunities to stretch and grow.
Help Others
If you really want to help yourself, then start helping others. That’s right, when you help other people who feel so down and low about themselves, as their outlook improves you too will begin to rise up with them. Your confidence will soar and so will your results. Quoting my good friend Zig Ziglar again, “You can get everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”
Keep Learning
While it has been many years since I attended elementary school, I do remember vividly how I looked forward to each new day of school. Yes, I was
one of those kids who actually liked school. I loved being with my friends. I loved recess. I loved those special occasions where we would have parties
in the classroom. What I really loved was coming to school each day to learn something new.
It was so exciting to learn how to read and write; add and subtract; learning was a passion for me. I wanted to grow and expand my mind, but then
something strange happened. I became an adult and I looked at learning differently. It became a burden. I had too many other responsibilities to worry
about to learn more seemingly useless things.
It was at this same time that I found myself no longer enjoying life with the same enthusiasm as I did as a child. My point is simply this; if you commit yourself to a lifetime of learning you will find that you will rekindle the passion for living
an abundant life. Abundant living leads to extraordinary achievement!
Do The Little Things Too
Self improvement means doing the little things that most people will not do. So many times we get focused on the big, monumental goals and activities
that we forget the smaller fundamental steps that success requires. Warren Buffett grew his financial empire by paying close attention to the details of
each individual business. By doing the little things right, Buffett is now one of the richest men in the world despite starting with only one-thousand dollars
of his own money.
Embrace Change
If you are committed to self-improvement and living an extraordinary life, you must embrace change. You will find that you are constantly evolving in your
knowledge and beliefs so accepting change will be mandatory. In this fast-paced world of technological advancement, if you are not ready accept change,
then your success journey will be short-lived.
Self-improvement is an on-going process. There is no such thing as an “overnight success”. There is an ancient proverb that says, When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
Are you a student that is ready for extraordinary achievement?
If so, your teachers are here for you. They appear daily for you as parents, employers, co-workers, ministers, neighbors, friends, relatives and people from every walk in life. When we open our doors and our hearts for self improvement, we increase our chances of success on the road of life.

Reading a book is also self improvement and personal developmentOr to be more precise, reading the book alone is not really self improvement, but reading the book, and applying what you learn is…To illustrate my point lets talk about something very generic, if you read a book on lets say programming a webpage, it will perhaps help you understand how the programmer makes the web-pages, but the actual page you want to make, will not exist before you start programming it…And similarly the improvement of yourself will not occur just from reading a lot of books, but by applying what you learn in those books it will!A large number of people read a lot of self improvement books, or maybe I should say a lot of beginnings of self improvement books, but not that many actually finish the books, and even fewer start applying the ideas or exercises they are presented with in the books. While they may like the book and the suggestions in it, most people have a short attention span, and before they get around to applying the new information, their eyes gets caught by another great book, or something entirely different, and they quickly move on without getting any really life altering benefits from it.The secret behind good self improvement and personal development is that when you find something you think might benefit you, you look further into the subject, either by buying and reading a book about it, or finding information on the subject elsewhere, and finally applying the information in your own life and thereby creating the improvements you desire.Remember it is always good to learn new things from reading a good book on the subject, but the information has to be put to good use if you really wish to benefit from it.Even Faster Self Improvement Is PossibleIf you have interest in speeding up your self improvement even further, perhaps you should consider looking into self hypnosis or meditation.Meditation is good for the soul and helps creating an inner calm, while self hypnosis is a very useful tool for implementing changes in your behaviour.In order to get any benefits from either of these methods you will have to be consistent in using and or applying them in your life. Regular use of meditation or self hypnosis will strengthen what ever have gone before it so to speak.Actually it is like with every new thing, in the beginning it is not so easy, and it takes some effort both to apply it, and to stay with the programme, but after a while, it more or less becomes automatic or second nature to you, and that is when you will start to really notice the benefits.If you are interested in learning meditation I would recommend you look for a personal teacher, as you will be playing around with the powers of your own psyche and as you immerse deeper into the techniques you might be stirring up old emotions that can be difficult to tackle on your own.

Time management is basically about being focused. The Pareto Principle also known as the ‘80:20 Rule’ states that 80% of efforts that are not time managed or unfocused generates only 20% of the desired output. However, 80% of the desired output can be generated using only 20% of a well time managed effort. Although the ratio ‘80:20′ is only arbitrary, it is used to put emphasis on how much is lost or how much can be gained with time management.

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.

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

The intellectual aspect involves learning and other mental growth activities.

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

The career aspect involves school and work.

The emotional aspect involves appropriate feelings and desires and manifesting them.

The spiritual aspect involves a personal quest for meaning.

Thoroughly planning and having a set of things to do list for each of the key areas may not be very practical, but determining which area in your life is not being giving enough attention is part of time management. Each area creates the whole you, if you are ignoring one area then you are ignoring an important part of yourself.

Personal time management should not be so daunting a task. It is a very sensible and reasonable approach in solving problems big or small.

A great way of learning time management and improving your personal life is to follow several basic activities.

One of them is to review your goals whether it be immediate or long-term goals often.

A way to do this is to keep a list that is always accessible to you.

Always determine which task is necessary or not necessary in achieving your goals and which activities are helping you maintain a balanced life style.

Each and everyone of us has a peek time and a time when we slow down, these are our natural cycles. We should be able to tell when to do the difficult tasks when we are the sharpest.

Learning to say “No”. You actually see this advice often. Heed it even if it involves saying the word to family or friends.

Pat yourself at the back or just reward yourself in any manner for an effective time management result.

Try and get the cooperation from people around you who are actually benefiting from your efforts of time management.

Don’t procrastinate. Attend to necessary things immediately.

Have a positive attitude and set yourself up for success. But be realistic in your approach in achieving your goals.

Have a record or journal of all your activities. This will help you get things in their proper perspective.

These are the few steps you initially take in becoming a well rounded individual.

As the say personal time management is the art and science of building a better life.

From the moment you integrate into your life time management skills, you have opened several options that can provide a broad spectrum of solutions to your personal growth. It also creates more doors for opportunities to knock on.

If you have ever considered buying self improvement CDs, you know there are a lot to choose from. It isn’t just about different authors though. There are very different types to think about as well. Here is a look at five of them, with some pointers as to which may be best for you.

Subliminal Message CDs

We know that our unconscious mind picks up a lot that we are not consciously aware of. Science and common sense proves this all the time. What is not so clear, though, is whether subliminal messages are easily processed and as effective as the sellers of these things say. Many of the original studies (such as the one where movie-goers had “eat popcorn” flashed on the screen) were flawed.

There may be some validity to the use of subliminal audios for self improvement, but if so, the science hasn’t really caught up yet. Questions without clear answers yet include whether your mind really hears the messages that you can’t consciously hear, whether they influence you the way you hope, and even whether they are really on that CD (how would we know?). Because of these issues, I recommend only buying those subliminal products that come with a clear money-back guarantee.

Self Hypnosis CDs

Hypnosis makes more sense than subliminal messages (my opinion). We know that we are more susceptible to suggestions at times, and one of those times is when we are in an altered state of consciousness, a hypnotic state. Many people swear by hypnosis audios, and they are generally inexpensive. But given that some problems sometimes resolve themselves without help (not to mention the placebo effect), there is still reason for some skepticism here. You might want to try CDs that offer that guarantee again.

Affirmation CDs

The idea of listening to affirmations also makes more sense to me than subliminal messages. You are at least certain to hear the suggestions. The idea is straight forward enough: You condition your mind with the thought and belief patterns as those who are successful, so you’ll feel, act, and get the same results as they do. Repeating the affirmations aloud or in your mind may help.

It is easy to be skeptical of the impact of just repeating things of course. But this is one I have tried, and I can say that it really seems to have worked. My wife and I tried a self improvement CD that was meant to motivate us with affirmations of a sort. We let it play in the background for a week or two earlier this year (we work at home), and we were soon working much more. There could be something to this.

Brainwave Entrainment CDs

This is one of my favorite types of self improvement CDs. They are meant to make meditation easy, and they sure do that. Using “binaural beats,” they slow your brainwaves and relax you. All you have to do is put on your headphones and listen. Beats embedded in the background music (or rain, waves, or other sounds) slow your brainwaves into an alpha state or deeper (beta brainwaves, at 14 hertz or above, are the usual in a wide awake state).

They claim to raise your threshold for stress with regular use, and many people say they do just that. They may also help you increase your self awareness. I certainly find them to be a pleasant experience. They clear my mind and take away stress quickly. I also use them to put me to sleep when I need a “power nap.” There is no question that they powerfully affect your brain, and I have experienced and heard of only positive results.

Good Ideas Products

I’m not sure what else to call these self improvement CDs, but there are a lot of them. They consist of audio books and other programs that simply enlighten you with good ideas. Some are based on a kind of secular spirituality, others overtly religious, and many just provide great life lessons.

Many address a specific subject, like changing your ideas about money, relationships, goal setting or motivation. The best of them change your perspective and so change your life for the better. Some can introduce you to universal principles which alter your entire approach to life. Those are my favorites, especially if they’re not too full of mystical nonsense and when I can test and prove the concepts valid in my own experience.

Whatever self improvement CDs you try, the investment is usually reasonable considering the possible benefits. I have spent a lot of money and time on these things over the years, and I can tell you that even if most of them didn’t do much, the one or two that were truly valuable made it all worth it.

Many project managers are using a certain set of time management skills called project time management to better manage their short term and long term projects according to its rules.
There are various time management ideas that can be included into project time management that absorb making better use of your time, your equipments, your helpers, and any other reasons that aid you and help you in getting the project done for terms and in the time stage that has been arrange to you.
As you move forward, you will discover more and more blockages and those obstacles will become potentially difficult as time continues. These challenges include multiples assignments that you will end up wanting help on and end up wanting to control properly in order to require them finished when they are usually to be done. The issue with this is, of course, standard time management and how to start doing those time management tips is an important skill to master.
What type of experience can I get?
This project time management includes good management skills to manage a certain group of people tasked to you, good effective resources management and completion the stages of a task according to schedule.
Therefore, with all the skills that you are educated with frequent practice should be mixing well into your daily lives and working life. Your management should include types time management matters so that you can effect to balance your working day. It is crucial to roughly guess time properly. Make easy guesses so as to how long certain puzzle of a particular project will take and form your overall scope of the project around those estimates.
Experience know-how is the vital explanation over here as it is the understanding that many things are generally extra time are taken than forecasted, so to be safe give every item some extra time. Delegate responsibility to the smart people and ensure that they work as a team and that they complete their assignment on time and with correct work moral beliefs as well.
This is imperative to the success of your project time management strategy as it will express your guidance and organization skills to those that are watching.
Finally, to be certain that those you are working with understand your objectives and are clear with your project’s objectives. The meaning of time management, teamwork and the hard work that you are putting into have to be understood by your teammates working together with you.
Losing a team member is something you do not want to go through in the last minute, so be selective in this selection process and find the hardworking adults for the right jobs before it is too late. Project time management takes a lot of effort to work properly and effectively, but the rewards are definitely worth it.
Enhancing project progress is simply very easy in using this simple and effective tool.