One of the very important time management tasks is filing. Time management is simply the practice of utilizing your time for maximum results. Whether you are striving to better manage your time at work, home, or on the road, your goals are one and the same: To get more done in less time, with total organization, reduced stress, and with all of your daily goals achieved. By implementing time management tasks into your life, you can manage your days for effectively, streamline your meetings, increase the speed of communications, and stay on top of your organizational needs.
Today we are going to cover why “filing” is such an important time management task, which invariably leads to the growth of your time management levels. Filing your paperwork and other clutter becomes even more important as the world grows increasingly more complex. Most people think of filing as simply a place to put your papers. But there is actually an art to it, and one that can make your office a more productive area to work in. There are few essential tools to proper filing which we will mention below, as well as explain how a creating filing system can have a unique way of serving the way you work.
Take a moment and think about how you feel when you think about getting organized for better time management, by filing your area. Do you look upon filing as an uphill battle, something of a drudgery? If you do, you are not alone! Let's be honest. Filing, especially piles and piles of clutter that have not been organized for years, is a rather tedious and mundane task. Does the word “boring” come to mind?
Now let's get your mind on to a more positive affiliation with filing. Yes it is boring and tedious, but what you need to keep your thoughts on are that when you are in control of your office, your desk, your files, and the proper resources assembled, you will be more focused, productive, and efficient at what you do at work.
Why should I file?
As a person who is striving for increased time management skills, you have learned to write down all time management tasks and goals on paper, as well as answering the question of “why” you are doing what you are doing. The same goes with filing. Before you take on this job, you need to ask yourself: “Why file?”
1. Value: The items that you deem necessary to store within your home or office are important enough to be organized in a safe place. This safe place should also be streamlined so that when you need to find a certain document, you can get it within seconds of looking it up.
2. Time Management: There are negative consequences for not filing. For example, what happens to those important tax records that you will need for an audit? How about needing to find all of your business expenses that you need to show proof of? How much time will be wasted trying to find these items when you need them in a short amount of time?
Hopefully this will help you to understand why filing is one of the most important time management tasks.
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Sunday, 18 September 2011
Building a Positive Self Image
Building a positive self image is a constructive approach to help you get to your destination. The practice of building a positive self image gives you a psychological map to your unconscious and conscious behaviors.
When you mentally focus on where it is you want to go, and you're committed to reaching your destination, your actions usually follow. Literally speaking, your actions come from your images. That is, you usually won't act if you haven't already seen yourself mentally rehearsing the situation. How you visually depict yourself, in any given situation, is what you will become, and how you will act. When you reinforce your images in a positive way, positive things happen. Focusing on making positive, pleasurable changes in your life reinforces you with uplifting feelings of self-confidence and self-determination.
Imagine yourself walking down a path across a field and coming to a barbed-wire fence. If you see the fence as an insurmountable barrier toward completing your goal, then the barrier will remain. When you see the fence as having a gate in it, or when you find a way of going over, around or through it, then the fence is merely one more obstacle to overcome. Nothing more, nothing less.
When you give too much power to any obstacle, or person, you automatically place yourself in a no-win situation. One way to overcome this no-win situation is to change the rules. See the situation as an opportunity, or challenge, to use your imagination - your mind. When the situation is no longer challenging or healthy, and you're using too much energy with few results, choose a new direction where there will be new challenges and opportunities. There's no reason to set yourself up for failure or punishment. Deciding to create positive beliefs and expectations about yourself influences the actions you take.
You can change your situation by focusing on making moderate changes and giving careful thought to your long-term goals. A goal to complete a degree from a four-year college within six years is not unrealistic. Don't expect to do it in two and set yourself up for failure. Choose a plan you can realistically follow. Emotional, physical, and mental plateaus and peaks are normal experiences on the road to success. Focusing on your progress and remembering where you started creates confidence and courage. Improving yourself, and your life, requires concentration and self-discipline. Appreciate the journey. When you apply yourself, you will do it!
When you believe in yourself, you feel capable of encouraging yourself and others, professionally and personally. Your attitude and self esteem reach new heights. High self esteem and building a positive self image may help you overcome problems that may otherwise overwhelm you.
Belief in yourself will ultimately result in having others believe in you. When you have a direction, and know where you are going, you will increase your ability to perform a particular task. When you build a positive self image and have social and emotional support from others, you're more hopeful and experience less stress.
You also have an amazing ability to cope with the damaging effects of negative or condemning statements from others. Hope and self-esteem are the medicine that transforms a negative self-image into a positive one.
When you mentally focus on where it is you want to go, and you're committed to reaching your destination, your actions usually follow. Literally speaking, your actions come from your images. That is, you usually won't act if you haven't already seen yourself mentally rehearsing the situation. How you visually depict yourself, in any given situation, is what you will become, and how you will act. When you reinforce your images in a positive way, positive things happen. Focusing on making positive, pleasurable changes in your life reinforces you with uplifting feelings of self-confidence and self-determination.
Imagine yourself walking down a path across a field and coming to a barbed-wire fence. If you see the fence as an insurmountable barrier toward completing your goal, then the barrier will remain. When you see the fence as having a gate in it, or when you find a way of going over, around or through it, then the fence is merely one more obstacle to overcome. Nothing more, nothing less.
When you give too much power to any obstacle, or person, you automatically place yourself in a no-win situation. One way to overcome this no-win situation is to change the rules. See the situation as an opportunity, or challenge, to use your imagination - your mind. When the situation is no longer challenging or healthy, and you're using too much energy with few results, choose a new direction where there will be new challenges and opportunities. There's no reason to set yourself up for failure or punishment. Deciding to create positive beliefs and expectations about yourself influences the actions you take.
You can change your situation by focusing on making moderate changes and giving careful thought to your long-term goals. A goal to complete a degree from a four-year college within six years is not unrealistic. Don't expect to do it in two and set yourself up for failure. Choose a plan you can realistically follow. Emotional, physical, and mental plateaus and peaks are normal experiences on the road to success. Focusing on your progress and remembering where you started creates confidence and courage. Improving yourself, and your life, requires concentration and self-discipline. Appreciate the journey. When you apply yourself, you will do it!
When you believe in yourself, you feel capable of encouraging yourself and others, professionally and personally. Your attitude and self esteem reach new heights. High self esteem and building a positive self image may help you overcome problems that may otherwise overwhelm you.
Belief in yourself will ultimately result in having others believe in you. When you have a direction, and know where you are going, you will increase your ability to perform a particular task. When you build a positive self image and have social and emotional support from others, you're more hopeful and experience less stress.
You also have an amazing ability to cope with the damaging effects of negative or condemning statements from others. Hope and self-esteem are the medicine that transforms a negative self-image into a positive one.
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
10 Powerful Positive Affirmations
Using powerful positive affirmations is a proven technique that works miracles in many lives. Ideally, you should look yourself in the eye as you make these positive affirmations. Don't be shy; go ahead and get started!
Repeat some of the following powerful positive affirmations to yourself every morning to get your day and week off to a great start:
“I clearly understand that failure is an event, not a person; that yesterday really did end last night; and that success isn't final and failure isn't fatal because I only fail if I quit.”
“I have the courage to admit a mistake and to say that I was wrong. I have the courage to ask for help and the courage to say "I don't know." I have the courage to continually strive to be the person that I am capable of becoming.”
“I have vision in my life, which means that I see not only with my eyes but also with my heart.”
“I am successful because I believe that to be truly educated, I must be mentored - either in business or in my personal life, by reading or by association - by superior minds with greater skills and mature spirits.”
“I discipline myself to do the things that I need to do when I need to do them, because I know that doing them will enable me someday to do the things I want to do when I want to do them.”
“I clearly understand that if I develop yearning power and apply learning power, I will increase my earning power.”
“I am successful because I don't confuse activity with accomplishment. I know that I can't make it in life as a wandering generality, so I am a meaningful specific.”
“I am like an eraser. I recognize my mistakes, I learn from my mistakes, and then I erase those mistakes from my memory.”
“I move forward in my life every day, even if it's only a tiny step, because I know that great things are accomplished with tiny moves, but nothing is accomplished by standing still.”
“Today I will seriously look for the good in every situation and find something about which to praise every person who works with me. Today I will be friendly to the people I work with and will treat them as though they were completely responsible for my career. Today I will express gratitude for the career that I have and the society of which I am a part, and specifically for my family and friends. I will also express gratitude for the fact that my career is rewarding in ways that go far beyond financial remuneration.”
Repeat some of the following powerful positive affirmations to yourself every morning to get your day and week off to a great start:
“I clearly understand that failure is an event, not a person; that yesterday really did end last night; and that success isn't final and failure isn't fatal because I only fail if I quit.”
“I have the courage to admit a mistake and to say that I was wrong. I have the courage to ask for help and the courage to say "I don't know." I have the courage to continually strive to be the person that I am capable of becoming.”
“I have vision in my life, which means that I see not only with my eyes but also with my heart.”
“I am successful because I believe that to be truly educated, I must be mentored - either in business or in my personal life, by reading or by association - by superior minds with greater skills and mature spirits.”
“I discipline myself to do the things that I need to do when I need to do them, because I know that doing them will enable me someday to do the things I want to do when I want to do them.”
“I clearly understand that if I develop yearning power and apply learning power, I will increase my earning power.”
“I am successful because I don't confuse activity with accomplishment. I know that I can't make it in life as a wandering generality, so I am a meaningful specific.”
“I am like an eraser. I recognize my mistakes, I learn from my mistakes, and then I erase those mistakes from my memory.”
“I move forward in my life every day, even if it's only a tiny step, because I know that great things are accomplished with tiny moves, but nothing is accomplished by standing still.”
“Today I will seriously look for the good in every situation and find something about which to praise every person who works with me. Today I will be friendly to the people I work with and will treat them as though they were completely responsible for my career. Today I will express gratitude for the career that I have and the society of which I am a part, and specifically for my family and friends. I will also express gratitude for the fact that my career is rewarding in ways that go far beyond financial remuneration.”
Monday, 12 September 2011
Strategies to Improve Memory
Many people are looking for strategies to improve memory. All memory, whether trained or untrained, is based on association. But that's stating it too simply. You will be taught many systems of association by doing your research on memory training, but it goes much deeper than that.
You see, when people say, "I forgot," they didn't, usually - what really happened was that they didn't remember in the first place. How can you forget something that you didn't remember, originally? Turn that around, and you have the solution to remembering - if you do remember something originally, how can you forget it?
One of the best strategies to improve memory is what we call Original Awareness. Anything of which you are Originally Aware cannot be forgotten. And, applying a system of association forced Original Awareness - Observation is essential to Original Awareness - anything you wish to remember must first be observed. Using association will take care of that, too.
But how in the world do you associate something that's intangible or abstract? That question leads to another one of the best strategies to improve memory. It is always easier to remember things that have meaning than it is to remember things that do not. You'll see that nothing is abstract or intangible so far as the systems are concerned. You will learn how to make any intangible thing, any abstract piece of information, tangible and meaningful in your mind. Once you've mastered that simple technique, all remembering and therefore all learning will be easier for you for the rest of your life.
Let's begin with association. First of all, you should realize that you've used association all of your life. The problem is that you have associated subconsciously, without recognizing the association for what it was. Anything you clearly associated, even if subconsciously, is sure to have been easily remembered. But since you have no control over your subconscious, association has been a hit-or-miss kind of thing all your life.
Here's a basic memory strategy to improve memory: You Can Remember Any New Piece of Information if It Is Associated to Something You Already Know or Remember.
Teachers in the early grades have been telling their students for years that it's easy to remember how to spell piece if you think of the phrase "a piece of pie." Since most young students already know how to spell pie, associating that old knowledge to the new—the spelling of "piece"—solves the problem. Again in this example of association, the basic rule has been followed.
You see, when people say, "I forgot," they didn't, usually - what really happened was that they didn't remember in the first place. How can you forget something that you didn't remember, originally? Turn that around, and you have the solution to remembering - if you do remember something originally, how can you forget it?
One of the best strategies to improve memory is what we call Original Awareness. Anything of which you are Originally Aware cannot be forgotten. And, applying a system of association forced Original Awareness - Observation is essential to Original Awareness - anything you wish to remember must first be observed. Using association will take care of that, too.
But how in the world do you associate something that's intangible or abstract? That question leads to another one of the best strategies to improve memory. It is always easier to remember things that have meaning than it is to remember things that do not. You'll see that nothing is abstract or intangible so far as the systems are concerned. You will learn how to make any intangible thing, any abstract piece of information, tangible and meaningful in your mind. Once you've mastered that simple technique, all remembering and therefore all learning will be easier for you for the rest of your life.
Let's begin with association. First of all, you should realize that you've used association all of your life. The problem is that you have associated subconsciously, without recognizing the association for what it was. Anything you clearly associated, even if subconsciously, is sure to have been easily remembered. But since you have no control over your subconscious, association has been a hit-or-miss kind of thing all your life.
Here's a basic memory strategy to improve memory: You Can Remember Any New Piece of Information if It Is Associated to Something You Already Know or Remember.
Teachers in the early grades have been telling their students for years that it's easy to remember how to spell piece if you think of the phrase "a piece of pie." Since most young students already know how to spell pie, associating that old knowledge to the new—the spelling of "piece"—solves the problem. Again in this example of association, the basic rule has been followed.
Friday, 9 September 2011
Do You Need to Sacrifice Something to Achieve Success?
Most people think they must work forty hours per week to gain more success and earn more money. For some, that's true. For others, it's sixty hours per week. For still others, eighty. (Ask any spouse whose "job" it is to care for the house, or creative person working on a project, or monk in a monastery, or social activist working for change). For some others, it might be five or ten.
Just as "the work expands to fill the time available," so, too, the "needs" expand to consume the money available. If we are bringing home forty-hours' worth of money, we will spend it. The rich live hand-to-mouth, too - just on a higher level. If that forty-hours' worth of work amounts to $150 or $1,500 or $15,000 or $150,000, or $1,500,000 - it will be spent.
Many people are trapped in the myth of a 40-hour work week.
If we define "job" as what we do (that we don't really want to do) to get money, then the number of hours we work depends upon (A) what it cost us to do what we want to do, and (B) how much per hour we get. What about our basic needs? Good question! Basic needs are often dictated by what we want to do. For example, someone who wants to pray all day and serve God might be able to combine that with life in a monastery and not have to work for even one hour per week at the local fast-food emporium. Someone wanting to make global changes could find the same all-expenses-paid fulfillment of a goal in the Peace Corps, or, if they wanted to do it domestically. The examples go on and on.
The meeting of our basic needs should be based on the fulfillment of our heart's desire, not on the latest style, or how to intensely fill the few "leisure" hours we have when not working at a job we hate.
To significantly raise your standard of living sometimes requires significantly lowering it for a while. Say you want to write a book, and you have a $25,000 car and a $2,000 per month apartment. You don't need those to write a book. A $5,000 car (or even a $500 moped) and a $500 per month apartment is all you need.
People who plan to "make it" had better plan to sacrifice - and that starts with creature comforts. It might mean a smaller living space, bringing in a roommate, or turning the current living space into an office. It may mean less dinners out with friends, less trips, fewer new clothes, not as many CD's, domestic wines, domestic sparkling water (aka club soda), domestic pasta, domestic vinegar - and no domestics.
Just as "the work expands to fill the time available," so, too, the "needs" expand to consume the money available. If we are bringing home forty-hours' worth of money, we will spend it. The rich live hand-to-mouth, too - just on a higher level. If that forty-hours' worth of work amounts to $150 or $1,500 or $15,000 or $150,000, or $1,500,000 - it will be spent.
Many people are trapped in the myth of a 40-hour work week.
If we define "job" as what we do (that we don't really want to do) to get money, then the number of hours we work depends upon (A) what it cost us to do what we want to do, and (B) how much per hour we get. What about our basic needs? Good question! Basic needs are often dictated by what we want to do. For example, someone who wants to pray all day and serve God might be able to combine that with life in a monastery and not have to work for even one hour per week at the local fast-food emporium. Someone wanting to make global changes could find the same all-expenses-paid fulfillment of a goal in the Peace Corps, or, if they wanted to do it domestically. The examples go on and on.
The meeting of our basic needs should be based on the fulfillment of our heart's desire, not on the latest style, or how to intensely fill the few "leisure" hours we have when not working at a job we hate.
To significantly raise your standard of living sometimes requires significantly lowering it for a while. Say you want to write a book, and you have a $25,000 car and a $2,000 per month apartment. You don't need those to write a book. A $5,000 car (or even a $500 moped) and a $500 per month apartment is all you need.
People who plan to "make it" had better plan to sacrifice - and that starts with creature comforts. It might mean a smaller living space, bringing in a roommate, or turning the current living space into an office. It may mean less dinners out with friends, less trips, fewer new clothes, not as many CD's, domestic wines, domestic sparkling water (aka club soda), domestic pasta, domestic vinegar - and no domestics.
Monday, 5 September 2011
The 80-20 Rule in Time Management
The 80-20 Rule in Time Management is a very important set of strategies necessary to speed you on your way to the accomplishment of your objectives and goals and hence the realization of your dreams.
There seems to be no limit to the long list of activities on which you can choose to spend your time. Therefore, there will seldom be a day during your life when you feel "caught up."
Think back. Can you ever remember a day when you felt that you had accomplished all the things you needed to do and would like to have done? I certainly cannot remember one. However, what's important is not that everything gets done during a specific day, but that the activities that are most important to the accomplishment of your dreams and goals have been completed on a schedule set by you.
To feel good about how you use time does not require being busy every moment, or constantly playing "catch-up." Positive feelings and the mental rewards associated with real accomplishments are produced through effectiveness, since only effectiveness produces results.
Think of it. If you can double your effectiveness, by definition you can accomplish twice as much in the same amount of time. You will double the speed at which you accomplish your objectives, and you will cut in half the time it takes you to achieve your dreams and goals.
To double your effectiveness, apply the 20/80 rule. Just 20 percent of the activities on which you could choose to spend your time will produce 80 percent of the results you're after. Conversely, spending time and energy on the other 80 percent of your possible activities will produce only 20 percent of the results you're after including only 20 percent of the total sense of satisfaction from accomplishment.
When it comes to achieving your dreams and goals, just 20 percent of your activities will take you along your pathway faster and farther than others. Identify that 20 percent and then spend the majority of your time and mental and physical energy each day on their accomplishment. Focusing first on the commencement and completion of that 20 percent is what transforms energy-wasting efficiency into results-producing effectiveness.
In the purest sense, it would be a waste of your time, talent, and energy to spend time on anything not in the top 20 percent of the activities on your list, at least until that 20 percent has been totally completed. That's the point.
There seems to be no limit to the long list of activities on which you can choose to spend your time. Therefore, there will seldom be a day during your life when you feel "caught up."
Think back. Can you ever remember a day when you felt that you had accomplished all the things you needed to do and would like to have done? I certainly cannot remember one. However, what's important is not that everything gets done during a specific day, but that the activities that are most important to the accomplishment of your dreams and goals have been completed on a schedule set by you.
To feel good about how you use time does not require being busy every moment, or constantly playing "catch-up." Positive feelings and the mental rewards associated with real accomplishments are produced through effectiveness, since only effectiveness produces results.
Think of it. If you can double your effectiveness, by definition you can accomplish twice as much in the same amount of time. You will double the speed at which you accomplish your objectives, and you will cut in half the time it takes you to achieve your dreams and goals.
To double your effectiveness, apply the 20/80 rule. Just 20 percent of the activities on which you could choose to spend your time will produce 80 percent of the results you're after. Conversely, spending time and energy on the other 80 percent of your possible activities will produce only 20 percent of the results you're after including only 20 percent of the total sense of satisfaction from accomplishment.
When it comes to achieving your dreams and goals, just 20 percent of your activities will take you along your pathway faster and farther than others. Identify that 20 percent and then spend the majority of your time and mental and physical energy each day on their accomplishment. Focusing first on the commencement and completion of that 20 percent is what transforms energy-wasting efficiency into results-producing effectiveness.
In the purest sense, it would be a waste of your time, talent, and energy to spend time on anything not in the top 20 percent of the activities on your list, at least until that 20 percent has been totally completed. That's the point.
Saturday, 3 September 2011
Just Open Your Heart, Just Open Your Mind
Just open your heart, just open your mind... Throughout history, people believed that love comes from the heart, and poets still pay homage to this notion. Surprisingly, the latest science shows that this idea may be based in reality. The function of the heart does affect the mind and emotions, possibly even more than the hormone-producing endocrine system, which is sometimes referred to as the "second brain."
The power of the heart to influence the mind and emotions was first examined scientifically in the early 1990s. Initially, researchers there were intrigued by the fact that transplanted hearts are able to beat immediately upon transplantation, even before nerves coming from the brain are functional.
This occurs, they discovered, because the heart has an intrinsic nervous system of its own, which can cause it to beat even without messages from the brain. This nervous system consists of masses of nerve cells, or neurons, similar to those in the brain. These masses of neurons include parasympathetic and sympathetic neurons that make heartbeat possible: contract, relax, contract, relax. Without them, the heart cannot function. This nervous system has been dubbed the heart-brain.
Most fascinating of all, researchers discovered that the heart-brain even has the power to send messages to the brain. The messages are sent via the spinal cord and through the largest nerve in the body, the vagus nerve, which stretches from the brain to the torso. Therefore, it's outdated to think that nerve messages travel only from head to heart: It's a two-way street.
Because the heart can "speak" to the brain, through the vagus nerve and spinal cord feedback system, it sometimes overrides messages that come from the brain - particularly messages of distress, which can trigger heart attacks.
As researchers continued to study the surprising autonomy of the heart, which was previously considered by most scientists to be just a simple pump, they found that the heart is also an endocrine gland, which secretes its own hormone, ANF (atrial natriuretic factor). ANF influences not only the blood vessels and kidneys, but also the mood-influencing adrenal glands—and the brain.
In the brain, parasympathetic or sympathetic impulses coming from the heart help trigger the onset of either calming or excitatory thoughts. This may be the reason why some heart transplant patients occasionally adopt personality tendencies of their donors, a phenomenon that has been noted since the beginning of heart transplantation.
In emotionally healthy people, there appears to be a strong tendency for the heart and brain to have smoothly functioning dialogue, and to remain in synchronization, or entrainment - hence "just open your heart, just open your mind". Entrainment appears not only to reflect a positive frame of mind, but also to help create it, in part by enhancing balance of the autonomic nervous system. The body, clearly, can help heal the mind. But what inaugurates this healing? The mind itself! Your mind, when focused on appreciation, has an unparalleled power to trigger physical and emotional healing.
The power of the heart to influence the mind and emotions was first examined scientifically in the early 1990s. Initially, researchers there were intrigued by the fact that transplanted hearts are able to beat immediately upon transplantation, even before nerves coming from the brain are functional.
This occurs, they discovered, because the heart has an intrinsic nervous system of its own, which can cause it to beat even without messages from the brain. This nervous system consists of masses of nerve cells, or neurons, similar to those in the brain. These masses of neurons include parasympathetic and sympathetic neurons that make heartbeat possible: contract, relax, contract, relax. Without them, the heart cannot function. This nervous system has been dubbed the heart-brain.
Most fascinating of all, researchers discovered that the heart-brain even has the power to send messages to the brain. The messages are sent via the spinal cord and through the largest nerve in the body, the vagus nerve, which stretches from the brain to the torso. Therefore, it's outdated to think that nerve messages travel only from head to heart: It's a two-way street.
Because the heart can "speak" to the brain, through the vagus nerve and spinal cord feedback system, it sometimes overrides messages that come from the brain - particularly messages of distress, which can trigger heart attacks.
As researchers continued to study the surprising autonomy of the heart, which was previously considered by most scientists to be just a simple pump, they found that the heart is also an endocrine gland, which secretes its own hormone, ANF (atrial natriuretic factor). ANF influences not only the blood vessels and kidneys, but also the mood-influencing adrenal glands—and the brain.
In the brain, parasympathetic or sympathetic impulses coming from the heart help trigger the onset of either calming or excitatory thoughts. This may be the reason why some heart transplant patients occasionally adopt personality tendencies of their donors, a phenomenon that has been noted since the beginning of heart transplantation.
In emotionally healthy people, there appears to be a strong tendency for the heart and brain to have smoothly functioning dialogue, and to remain in synchronization, or entrainment - hence "just open your heart, just open your mind". Entrainment appears not only to reflect a positive frame of mind, but also to help create it, in part by enhancing balance of the autonomic nervous system. The body, clearly, can help heal the mind. But what inaugurates this healing? The mind itself! Your mind, when focused on appreciation, has an unparalleled power to trigger physical and emotional healing.
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