Post from: Blisstree

Use Your Time Wisely – Tick Tock Tuesday

There is something about music that gets you going and gives you some energy. Who knows…maybe you’ll start to even enjoy doing tasks like these because you know it’s your time to turn up your favorite tunes and escape into your little world of music.

Give it a try. You won’t know if it’ll do the trick until you try it. This is multi-tasking at its best!

Post from: Blisstree

Feed Your Soul While Doing the Dishes – Tick Tock Tuesday

For those of you that are new and have no clue what I am talking about, lol, here is a list of my Monday through Friday topics:

• Motivate Me Monday
• Tick Tock Tuesday
• Where’s My Desk Wednesdays
• Tame Those Toys Thursdays
• Find It Friday

Here’s a brief description for each day which I posted awhile back:

• Motivate Me Mondays - Every Monday I will issue you a challenge. Either to go through one drawer in your house and purge and organize it. Or, to take a trash bag, go through one room in your house, set the timer for 5 minutes, and get rid of some stuff. Or, to sit down and write out a step by step plan for the room that bothers you the most. This plan would involve everything it is going to take to get your room back! From beginning to end.

• Tick Tock, There Goes That Darn Clock Tuesdays – This day is all about time management. We will learn together how to get back our days and weeks and be able to look back on them with a smile on our face.

• Where is My Desk? Wednesdays - This day is all about that home office. From bills to files to piles and piles of paper. We will also cover the computer, your office supplies and when to turn off that phone so you can get some work done. We have voice mail for a reason people!!

• Tame Those Toys Thursdays - This isn’t just going to be about toys. Toys just happened to start with a T. This day is all about your kids. (If you don’t have any, well, email this day to a friend who does.) We will be talking about kids’ schedules, bedrooms, school work and whatever else is in between. Teaching our kids good organization skills at a young age is something they will take with them and benefit from for the rest of their lives.

• Find It Fridays – Are you sick and tired of always looking for things? Do you find yourself rummaging through drawers and closets and under the bed for who knows what? Well, this day is all about finding everything within a few seconds. It really is a good thing to know where your keys are as you are leaving the house. Or to know exactly where those twin sheets are when you need them. Or to be able to look in your closet and see exactly what you have in your wardrobe.

I’m also adding a topic to Saturdays and Sundays:

• Supper Saturdays will be all about meal planning, grocery shopping and kitchen related organizing.
• Sweep Through Sundays will be a day that I “sweep” through the b5media blogs and find topics that other bloggers have written that I feel you can benefit from. We have an amazing group of bloggers here and they all have something great to share.

Alright, I think that does it! Let’s get started….

Post from: Blisstree

A Note from Declutter It!

There’s nothing like hitting a good sale to start off the day right!

I was in Michael’s this morning to pick up some craft supplies and they had a ton of 2008 calendars on sale for $1. Yes, $1! I grabbed several of these Studio 18 Family Calendars that are pictured here. I’ll give it away as gifts or something, but I am also looking forward to using one for myself.

It’s a 16 month calendar and it also has a contact & phone number page and 170 colored stickers. Not bad for one buck.

I like how it has individual spaces for up to 5 family members. Two of my kids are old enough to start writing things down on the calendar (my daughter already does this) and this way, they will have their own spot to write down events they need (aka I need) to remember.

The calendar is absolutely adorable too. It’s one my kids will enjoy using.

The regular price for this calendar is $9.95 and you can pick up one over here and pay shipping costs too, or head on over to Michael’s and spend $1.

Now I’m just waiting on 2008 so I can break it open!

Post from: Blisstree

Calendars on Sale at Michaels

I’ve been reading Timothy Ferris’s book The Four Hour Work Week again. I’ve already skimmed through it once. Yes, I said skimmed. It’s this weird thing I do with all books and magazines. I like to speed read through them once and then if it’s something I really liked, I’ll sit down and really read it.

Anyway, in this book he has a chapter entitled “The End of Time Management“ and it has really started changing the way I look at this thing called time management. Here’s an excerpt from the book:

Just a few words on time management: Forget all about it. In the strictest sense, you shouldn’t be trying to do more in each day, trying to fill every second with a work fidget of some type. It took me a long time to figure this out. I used to be very fond of the results-by-volume approach.

Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions. The options are almost limitless for creating “busyness”: You could call a few hundred unqualified sales leads, reorganize your Outlook contacts, walk across the office to request documents you don’t really need, or fuss with your BlackBerry for a few hours when you should be priorotizing.”

What’s your first reaction when you read that? Agree or disagree?

I’ll admit it. I am one that LOVES to check things off a list and yes, I am busy. I work from home, I have 3 kids and I am a wife. I volunteer at church, at school and at my kids’ extra curiculur activities. In fact, I have something going on every night this week. Yes, that is abnormal for us, but it just so happens to be one of those weeks.

The end of time management? When I first read that line I think I actually laughed out loud. But them I started really taking a look at my day and seeing what I was filling it with. Am I filling it with stuff that matters, really matters or am I filling it with busy work?

I think that we as a society thrive on “looking” busy. If you don’t look busy, well then you are just down right lazy and that’s all there is to it, right? If you are always in a rush, always on the phone, always headed out the door, always in demand, then by golly, you must be a succesful person.

Well, I have decided to slow things down a bit. How do I plan on doing this? First off, by reading Tim’s book again and applying his principles. I am really going to start prioritizing things in my life. I’m wiping my hands of this “looking busy” all the time stuff. I’m done with it!

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Coming Soon…Home & Dining’s Fall Harvest Scavenger Hunt. Stay tuned for details.

Post from: Blisstree

The End of Time Management

There is a little trick called layering activities which can save you so much time. Layering activities is simply accomplishing 2 things at once.

For example, one of your goals is to read one book a month, but you seem to be having some trouble accomplishing that goal. Instead you’re lucky if you read one book a year. (No, magazines don’t count! If they did I’d be considered an avid reader. lol! )

Let’s say you have a long commute to work. What are you doing in the car the whole time? Maybe you could get books on cd and listen to a book in the car. You see, you are accomplishing 2 things at once.

Or maybe your long days at work are cutting into time with your kids. If you cook dinner on a regualr basis, have them come help. I’ve had some good conversations and some of the best memories being in the kitchen with my kiddos. Although, this is a tip I need to use myself more often.

You would be amazed at how many things you can think of that you can do at the same time. If you come up with some ideas, please share!

Post from: Blisstree

Tip of the Day #16

Since I am in a book mood, I thought for my time management series I would show you some books that I recommend. (I also recommend the blog Declutter It!. I’ve heard that gal has some good info. )

Here are a few books that can help you with your time management skills, or lack thereof.

The book Never be Late Again is a really good read. I have yet to hear of a person who didn’t like it, although I am sure they are out there. In every crowd there’s a critic.

Not only does the author, time consultant Diana DeLonzor, have some practical time management ideas, but she does it in an entertaining manner. There are way too many dry time management books out there. This one is a breath of fresh air.

Diana shares real stories about how real people have been able to take control of their tardiness and do something about it. She also has a chapter for us early birds on how to deal with the chronically late people. I think I read that chapter at least 5 or 6 times.

The book is about 177 pages long and is the result of her extensive research. So, needless to say, she knows what she’s talking about!

Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It - That title grabbed me. I struggle with procrastination. There are some things I really don’t like to do and so I put them off again and again. But I also thrive on deadlines. In highschool I was on the newspaper and while I was sitting down at the computer piecing the newspaper together to be sent off to the printer, I would be typing my article into the little box where it was supposed to be. (I hope my journalism teacher isn’t reading this!!) If something has a die date, I’m going to push it until the very end.

That decision has come back to bite me a few times. When I saw this book I thought, I need to know why I do this and how I can stop! I am still a work in progress but ever since I read this, it has shed some light on some things about me.

In this book the authors reveal some of the reasons we put off tasks like: fears of failure, success, control, separation, and attachment. If you are a procrastinator and you really feel like you are ready to deal with it head on, I recommend this book. You will feel like the authors are talking right to you and I guarantee it will be hard for you to put it down.

I hope you find those two recommendations useful. When we really truly learn how to grab a hold of our time, we open up our lives to so many possibilities.

Post from: Blisstree

Tick Tock Tuesday/Never be Late Again and Procrastination

So for Tick Tock Tuesday, I decided to go to my fellow friend and blogger Thrifty Mommy’s site. I knew she would have a funny story about something time management related. Boy was I ever right!

You have to go read her post entitled “Another Day in the Life of a Time Management Fiend“. She had me laughing SO hard!

Oh, and the moral of the story…When you have kids, some days there is no such thing as “time management”. You just try to get from one minute to the next without any drama.

Thanks for the laugh Thrifty Mommy!

Post from: Blisstree

Tick Tock Tuesday/Just Go With the Flow

If there is anyone who knows about time management, it’s Steve. He has so much useful information about just life in general. I spent weeks and weeks digging through it all and still didn’t scratch the surface. I did start with his most read articles and then dug a little deeper into subjects that I found interesting.

One article that I thought was really good is Conscious Procrastination. In his article he is talking about spending too much time on low value tasks. He explains that you should make a conscious choice about the things that are really important to you – things that will matter years from now. Here’s a quote from the article.

Will you invest your time in what really matters to you, or will your tombstone ultimately read like this:

Here lies John, who passed away
While answering his email one day.
No friend, no child, no loving mate
Could keep poor John from working late.
With each new mail, he worked like hell
To click ”reply” instead of “del.”
A prompt response he’d always give
But somehow he forgot to live.

He mentions the email situation. Now I know I talked about email last week, but our world’s almost addiction-like attitude (hence - crackberry) to email, has grabbed my attention the last few days. It all started when I heard about Tim Ferris from Problogger.net. This guy has totally messed with my thinking, in a good way.  :)  

Can you imagine checking your email once a day, or once a week or heaven forbid….once every ten days!?!

Anyway…for this Tick Tock Tuesday I wanted to send you over to Steve Pavlina’s article and to Tim Ferris’s website and blog. My husband and I ordered his book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich 2 days ago and are awaiting its arrival. My whole look at time management and what I do with the hours I have been given, have been shaken up a bit this week. (Thanks a lot Mr. Ferris.)

If you take the time to look at all of this, drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Post from: Blisstree

Tick Tock Tuesday/More Email Talk

I don’t want to delete them. What if I need them to reference back to someday? But do I ever remember that one little thing I read in that newsletter from what’s his face? No!

So this Tick Tock Tuesday is as much for you as it is for me! Today we are going to go over some simple tips to keeping your inbox manageable. I’ll be pulling in some advice from Jeremy Wright’s time management series as well as from Julie Morgenstern who wrote the book “Never Check Email in the Morning“.

Here are 3 quick tips from Jeremy over at Ensight that I thought were great. Later in his series, he plans on dedicating a whole article to email. I’m looking forward to that one!

1. Most decent email programs will let you “transform” an email into something more useful. In Outlook, you can drag an email onto your calendar and it will automatically be transformed into an appointment. Just change the date and time and you’re set! No more keeping upcoming meetings in your inbox!

2. Your inbox is just like your kitchen table. If your wife is anything like mine, she doesn’t appreciate having 15,323 pieces of mail on her kitchen table. And while some people think moving the file to a chair in the living room (ie: another folder) solves the issue, it actually just makes it worse when it comes time to fix things. So if you’re going to put things in a different folder, do it properly. 2 quick rules for folders: a) Put together a structure that makes sense for your whole life. 3 good top level folders include: Work Critical, Work Reference and Personal and b) whatever structure you use for email, mirror that structure in your “My Documents” (or wherever you store your stuff on your computer) on your computer AND in your filing system. This will ensure that if you know you received a “something” but don’t know if it was physical or virtual, that you can find it quickly.

3. When you turn on the computer in the morning, doing “passes” through your inbox can often speed up your processing. I use 5 passes: a) delete junkmail, b) read short stuff that’s purely informational and then delete it (I know I probably won’t go back and read it later, but if I really want to I can file it under Work Reference), c) things I can reply to quickly (less than 2 minutes), I do, d) file away anything that doesn’t require you to DO SOMETHING and e) book appointments into my calendar. You don’t need to do it this way, or even do all of these steps. For me, this allows me to get through the 1000+ items in my inbox every morning in 10-15 minutes, often leaving me with just 5-10 “new” items since I last saw my inbox.

I really like his 5 passes routine. That’s something I need to get into the routine of doing, instead of the “read all the personal ones and save the other miscellaneous ones for when I have more time to read them later” routine. It’s a failed plan. It doesn’t work! As I have said before, later never seems to come.

Here is a tip from Julie Morgenstern:

Don’t look at E-mail first thing. Instead, use the morning to focus on your most important tasks. Most people’s minds are sharpest in the morning, and completing important responsibilities before lunch creates a sense of relief and accomplishment that can carry you through the afternoon.

Helpful: When you reply to an E-mail, try to fit your entire response in the subject line. Some people waste hours each day crafting long responses when short ones are all that’s needed.

Alright, so what do you think of that “Don’t look at email first thing” rule? For me now, it just wouldn’t work. When I was working a full time job though, I took that rule to heart. When I got to my job I did the things that took the most thought, the most brain juice and the most energy. My job required a lot of planning and coordinating and seeing to it that all of the events flowed properly. I could not have done that in the afternoon, right after I had eaten lunch. I just am not at my best then.

So when I was in that situation, I did not check my email when I first got there. I would usually do that right before I went to lunch or right after I got back. Now, I am weird because I love checking my email. I’m sure I’m not the only one who looks forward to the inbox. Right? I hope not.

Anyway, my life now is a little bit different. I work from home and my “assistant” can be so needy. I’ve tried firing him but he is just so darn cute! Okay, okay…my assistant is 3, but he is really cute.

My time is extrememly limited in the morning. The first thing I do when I get up (Ms. Morgenstern, please close your ears) is check my email. Then I get the two older ones ready for school, send them off to the bus and then I turn around to a 3 year old who is ready to P-L-A-Y!

I actually do all of my work that needs some brain power (like this here article) after the kids go to bed. It’s just what works for me and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I love working from home.

So my point in saying ALL of that is: what works for me might not work for you and vise versa.

To wrap this up I would like you to read this excerpt from Gina Trapani of Lifehacker. She is talking about email and how she, and the rest of the team, had to end up dealing with the email dilemma.

Get your priorities straight

It doesn’t feel like it – especially at the beginning of what seems like a long work day – but your time is limited. There are only a certain amount of hours in the day, but there are an unlimited number of things you could work on. Make sure you work on the most important tasks.

Recently we had to make a tough decision here at Lifehacker. For the past year we’ve prided ourselves on the fact that we responded to every email that appeared in the Lifehacker inbox. Over time, the amount of messages we receive each day kept increasing into the hundreds, and even though we’d applied every shortcut in the book to our process, it took us more and more time to get through the onslaught of messages.

When the amount of time we spent processing email started to cut into the the time we spend writing posts, something had to give. A post benefits all of Lifehacker’s readership, where an email only benefits the recipient, and we’ve only got so much time. So, we decided to reduce our responses to only the messages which absolutely need one to focus on keeping the site fresh. This was a very difficult compromise to make, but posts are more important than email responses. It’s as simple as that.

If any of you have some tips on taming your email, please do share.

Post from: Blisstree

Tick Tock Tuesday/Emails, Emails and More Emails