Newsletter I

While all of these things have happened to most of us at one time or another, if you, your family or co-workers could add extensively to your list, then you might have a problem.

Peter Drucker made an excellent point of the importance of ProActive time management when he said, “Time is the scarcest resource and unless IT is managed nothing else can be managed.”

While exceptional time and task management skills are one of the basic requirements for success in almost any endeavor, these are the very skills most people are deficient in. Most people don’t even keep a personal calendar, let alone realize the true value in one.

You can spend hundreds of hard earned dollars on a day planner or palm organizer, but if you don’t use it effectively, that’s just wasted money. There are less expensive portable video games than the Palm5x™ and cheaper places to keep your loose papers than a Franklin Day Planner™.

If you have invested in one of these or other powerful organizer tools and are not sure how to use them, there are classes, books and coaches to help you use them and get more than your money’s worth out of them.

Perhaps the most asked question regarding calendar systems is, “what is the BEST one available on the market today?”

The BEST time and task management, all purpose do everything, organizer available on the market today is. . . the one YOU would use!

It can be a calendar on your refrigerator or a 5¢ sheet of paper with the days of the month scribbled out in crayon or a $700 palm top computer, etc. . . The most important thing about the tool that you decide on is that you USE it!

The second most important thing about the tool you decide on is that it be the ONLY PLACE YOU RECORD YOUR COMMITMENTS! If you think about it for a moment it makes perfect sense. If you have a calendar on your refrigerator, one at your office desk, one in your car and 14 people have access to them to book your time, you don’t stand a chance.

If it is necessary to have others schedule appointments for you assign them blocks of time to do so. That way you are still in control and still maintain veto authority. If you have multiple calendars it is imperative that you coordinate or “sync” them daily in order to identify any conflicts before problems arise.

Once you have your system down to a science and develop the habit of ProActiveÔ Time Management you will be surprised at how powerful and empowering it is to be able to know what your time limitations really are.

Once YOU begin respecting your time, others will respect it as well.

Right now many of you are in the habit of poor time management. As Og Mandino pointed out in his world famous scrolls, only a habit can subdue another habit. We, as adults are slaves to our habits. It is up to us to recognize the bad habits that limit our success and replace those limiting habits with good habits.

This is the perfect habit to begin with. By mastering ProActiveÔ time management principles you can turn your dreams into reality. It is possible to live your life by design rather than by default.

The time is NOW, the choice is YOURS! Make the decision to begin today. You will be glad you did!

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Personal Journals

In earlier generations it was common to keep a diary or personal journal. Today few people do it, and very few recognize the value and astonishing power of keeping a journal. If you can read and write, you have access to the most amazing source of personal power and magic! Try it for 30 days and watch it transform your life! Clients periodically tell us they couldn't possibly find the time. I ask them to try it for 30 days. Then clients often tell us they couldn't possibly live without the power of their journals. The following are my top ten reasons to keep a journal.

2. A journal will simplify your life. Spending as little as 10 minutes with pen and paper describing your values, noting your achievements and giving thanks for the joys of life, will make you less tolerant of life's distractions. Things become much simpler when you write them down.

3. A journal will strengthen your relationships. It will give you time and the words to express your feelings, it will help you understand and be patient with your loved one's peccadilloes, and it will teach you to love more powerfully.

4. A journal will make you more attractive. Socrates said, "Know thyself." Keeping a journal will help you know yourself and express yourself more clearly, and that is amazingly attractive!

5. A journal will empower you. Thinking with pen and paper forces you to eliminate fuzzy or confusing images and "laser" in on precisely the right word, the most powerful image to express yourself. Keeping a journal will make you a better communicator, and that can make you rich!

6. A journal will eliminate temptation. Some ideas sound great in our imagination, but when written on paper they just aren't the same! It's easy to blurt out "I hate my job!", but writing about what it means to quit, change careers and start over will quickly result in one of two things: The temptation will go away, or you'll start generating actual plans to make your life better. Either way, you win!

7. A journal affirms the reality of your life. Writing about life adds meaning and power. Journal your child's first steps or first tooth, starting school, her first date and high school graduation adds substance to these things.

8. A journal helps you be quiet. Journaling has been called a form of meditation. It has a similar power to quiet the mind and focus your thoughts. It even has the power to turn off the TV! It can heal anxiety, change your breathing and make you smile. What more could you ask?

9. A journal helps you speak out. A journal helps ideas become words, and it provides a nursery for words to grow into sentences and paragraphs, until finally they need a stage on which to express themselves. Sometimes that "stage" is a candle-lit dinner, other times it's a protest sign or a letter to an old friend. Whatever form it takes, many of those messages would never have been born without the safety of a journal in which to grow.

10. Finally, a journal just feels good! Using quality paper and a fountain pen or other a beautiful instrument with just the right "heft" and feel is a wonderfully sensuous, delightful experience. It will cheer you up, reduce your stress, make you smile and add to your life. Who knows, it may even improve your sex life or make you more patient with the kids! (Well, it could!)

“Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.” - Norman Vincent Peale-

“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, you think it's only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think it's two hours. That's relativity. “
- Albert Einstein-

“It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly.”
- Mabel Newcomber -

“If you learn life’s lessons, you will do well, If not, life will just continue to push you around.”
- Robert T. Kiyosaki -