2008 October | The Time Finder with Paula Eder

The Time Finder with Paula Eder

The way you use your time is the way you live your life.

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Find Time as Daylight Saving Time Ends

Posted on October 31, 2008 by Paula, under Time After Time.

As I write this morning, it is hard to believe that another month is drawing to a close! Not only is October ending, but in the wee hours of Sunday morning, Daylight Saving Time comes to an end, too.

This interesting piece from The California Energy Commission gives a history of the concept, as well as some tips for making the most of it. And there’s an entire site dedicated to Daylight Saving Time here!

Did you know, for example, that Benjamin Franklin, at age 78, was the first person known to have proposed the concept of daylight saving – way back in 1784? Here you can read his modest (tongue in cheek) proposal. It wasn’t until 1966 that The Uniform Time Act was passed and Daylight Saving Time was firmly, officially established.

How do you feel about Daylight Saving Time? How about falling back, as we will on Sunday? If you’re like me, as our days shorten, you miss the daylight at the end of the day. Others love the additional light at the start of the day!

Either way, Sunday marks a change in our daily rhythms, and will require a period of adjustment. Pay attention to your energy, and plan in some extra time, as your body and mind get used to your changed time terrain!

I’d love to hear how the transition goes for you! Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below. Drop me a line!

What if you could find another hour every week? You can! For more Time Finding resources, you are invited to sign up for my free, twice-weekly Finding Time Tips. Each Tip is paired with a practical action step that you can use IMMEDIATELY … and as a bonus for signing up, you’ll also receive my free, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!

Let’s explore time together …

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Find Time with 7 Practical Internet Tips

Posted on October 30, 2008 by Paula, under Time Boundaries, Time and Technology.

Finding focus and maintaining it when you’re working on-line can be a challenge, as we’ve been discussing.

In one of my early articles on E-zineArticles.com I shared some time management techniques in 7 Tips for the Internet to Trim Time:

Whenever possible, limit your time online to certain times of day.
Close your e-mail and turn off your instant messaging and RSS feeds when you really need to focus
Keep your goal in mind when you do Internet searches.
Keep a running list of interesting links you uncover.
Set time parameters for your task, so you don’t get “Lost in (Cyber)Space.”
Keep an internet log for a week.
Keep your promise to yourself to return to the links and emails that are of real interest to you.

This last item – keeping your promise to yourself – is key! When setting any time boundary, be it an internal boundary or one that involves others, your follow-through is what builds trust and ensures that your boundary will “hold.” If you tell yourself that you’ll go back to something, and then you don’t, you’re less likely to maintain that boundary the next time you need it!

You can read my full article here. Another interesting source for time-saving internet tips can be found on the blog Internet Duct Tape. You’ll find some technical tips here, as well as time management ideas! Here’s one that I found intriguing:

Set up multiple Firefox profiles, one for work and one for fun. Your work profile will be barebones with Google Search and your Intranet / work bookmarks while your fun profile will have stuff like StumbleUpon, Gmail notifier, Google Reader, etc.

Can’t you just see the potential?

I’d love to hear what works for you! Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below. Drop me a line!

Let’s explore time together …

Finding Time and Focus On-Line: Tips from The Word Press Wizard!

Posted on October 29, 2008 by Paula, under Time Boundaries, Time and Technology.

Your computer puts worlds of information and opportunity at your fingertips. It also offers worlds of distraction! The time tools and time boundary skills that you develop for addressing this can spell the difference between your success and … maybe not your failure, but certainly less success!

Think about the social media, for starters. Facebook and Twitter are wonderful venues for connecting with others sharing your interests – or with those who could benefit greatly from knowing about you and your expertise! Both Facebook and Twitter are like wonderful virtual town squares or marketplaces. Everyone gathers there. It’s where news is shared and commerce often takes place. Like the marketplace on market day, Facebook and Twitter are also places where it’s tempting to “fritter away” an afternoon.

The social media can be tricky that way, and it’s important to have a plan, and very good time boundaries, when venturing into these wonderful worlds!

Cathy Perkins, The Word Press Wizard, recently suggested that we set schedules for ourselves, spending 5 minutes on Twitter, twice a day. She suggests a slightly longer time on Facebook, because it is a more complex medium.

In a recent blog post, Cathy also shared a great tool for Twitter – TweetLater. It looks like it can be very helpful – both for responding to new followers and for setting up tweets to fire automatically at selected times during the days.

Creating and sticking to time boundaries when you are working on the internet can require your best time skills, and time boundaries, as well as healthy doses of self-discipline and “self-assertiveness.” You can do it!

Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below. I’d love to hear what you’re discovering … and tune in tomorrow for more tips to help you find focus when you’re on-line!

Let’s explore time together …

Find Focus When You’re On-Line

Posted on October 28, 2008 by Paula, under Time Management Skills, Time and Technology.

Finding time by finding focus is a challenge that confronts us in many aspects of our lives – perhaps nowhere more than in our on-line work. Time management skills are nowhere more necessary than in this cyber-frontier!

To say that the internet has changed how we live and interact, and even think, may be an understatement. There is now so much information at our fingertips that it is possible to find answers to almost any question with a Google search or two. The internet gives us a powerful tool for connecting and learning. Facebook and Twitter and many other social networking sites offer opportunities to network. New communities and businesses are springing up everywhere in cyberspace. Meanwhile, powerful search engines chug away, mapping and knitting it all together with tags and keywords.

So where’s the challenge in all this richness, you ask?

Focus. Finding focus is the challenge.

Think about your typical time at the computer. How long do you stay on task before you veer off course? It might be an e-mail that pops up. It might be a question that comes to mind and that you decide you need to explore right then. Maybe you decide you need to check the news or the stock market.

What takes you off course, and how long is it before you return to your original task? When you’re on the computer today, pay attention to your focus. It’s important to get an idea of where you are, before you start to work on making a change.

Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below. I’d love to hear what you’re discovering … and tune in tomorrow for some tips to help you find focus when you’re on-line!

Let’s explore time together …

Find Time by Staying Focused

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Paula, under Time Management Skills.

Last week in The Time Finder we talked a lot about the time management skills that you can use to manage change.

This past weekend was a study in change here in New Hampshire! Saturday saw high winds and torrential rains that brought down many of the remaining leaves. Sunday dawned with an altered landscape, beautiful blue skies, and warm temperatures. Today the skies remain a beautiful, crystalline blue, but the temperatures are expected to drop considerably.

As we enter a new week, I’d like to introduce a new time management topic: Focus!

There are many facets to focus, and many, many ways that it can make or break our time management efforts. Consider the following Chinese proverb, quoted in an article (Finding Time Strategies – Identify 3 Common Culprits Who Steal Your Focus) that I published some months ago:

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.

Before you read the article, I suggest that you try this: Take out a pen and paper and write down the three things that most often distract you from a task or are most likely to knock your plans off course. As the week goes on, we’ll be exploring some of the things that can make focusing a challenge – and some great tools for dealing with them!

Would you like to share some focus challenges here? What’s your top focus thief?

Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below. I’d love to hear from you!

Let’s explore time together …

Finding Time Resources, and Some Tips for Weathering Change

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Paula, under Time After Time.

Finding time, whenever you’re able to do it, is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself!

Whether you’re confronted with a crisis, or dealing with a big project, or working through an episode of procrastination, your time is precious. As we say here at The Time Finder, “The way you use your time is the way you live your life.”

The Finding Time E-Zine is a great place to go for discussion of timely issues. Published once a month, the E-zine explores a wide range of topics. Today’s subject is “Finding Time for Balance” – a great example of our time finding fare! If you sign up in the sidebar TODAY before noon ET, you’ll receive this month’s issue!

Finding Time Tips bring you helpings of highly practical information in bite-sized portions, suited to your very busy day! Each Tip comes with an Action Step so that you can quickly transform theory into practice in your life!

Here are two sample tips!

TIP: Hold your plans loosely, to avoid needless frustration when unforeseen events arise.

ACTION STEP: Build buffer time into your schedule, and identify in advance which activities you can drop when confronted with unexpected demands.

TIP: In times of change, eat light and easy.

ACTION STEP: Resist the urge to dive into a pizza. A low-carb meal boosts alertness and puts you on top of your game. Always keep water nearby to sip when stressed. Munch on a salad for starters. And try dipping your fork into the dressing between bites, instead of slathering it on!

You can sign up for our FREE Finding Time Tips in the sidebar here, or on the Finding Time website. When you do, you’ll be giving yourself the gift of these practical Tips, along with the FREE Finding Time E-zine!

Do you have any tips you’d like to share? How do you manage, when change upends your plans? Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below. I’d love to hear from you!

Let’s explore time together …

Finding Time When Someone Else’s Crisis Calls!

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Paula, under Time Management Skills.

Change is a fact of life.
Sometimes it is predictable, and sometimes it comes unexpectedly and you need to “drop everything” in order to deal with it. There’s another category of change that we haven’t discussed yet. That’s the change that is introduced to your life through someone else’s crisis.

Others’ crises can appear in many guises:

The costume that your frantic child forgot to tell you about and needs for a skit TOMORROW!

The big project that your boss procrastinated about and that you suddenly learn is due on Friday!

The dinner guests that your spouse springs on you just 4 hours before dinnertime.

What do you do, when confronted with one of these crises?An important first step is to recognize that the crisis is not yours. It may feel like it’s yours, because of the urgency with which it’s shared … but it isn’t. Seeing this gives you some space to further assess the situation.

Don’t “leap into the fray” until you’ve explored the terrain more thoroughly!In my article titled Finding Time by Clearing Crisis Clutter – 7 Tips to Handle Crisis Junkies and Safeguard Your Time I explore ways to manage crises you’re presented with in the workplace. With some tweaking, many of these suggestions can be used at home, too. The crises that others present can really test (and expand) your skills around time management, boundaries, and communication!

How do you manage when others introduce crises into your life? What’s the hardest part? Do you have some success stories to share?

Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below. I’d love to hear from you!

Let’s explore time together …

Finding Time by Managing Predictable Change

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Paula, under Time Management Skills.

As they say about our climate here in New England, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait – it’s sure to change!” That concept, applied more generally, can be a very helpful tip for living life in today’s culture. (The stock market alone, gives us daily, if not hourly, reminders of the constancy of change!)

Yesterday I encouraged you to embrace the expectation of change and incorporate it into your time management repertoire.

There are two very different types of change:

The change that we can anticipate, like the change from summer to fall; and

The change that we can’t predict, or might never even imagine. (These are the unexpected changes that I wrote about last month when we explored Finding Time When Crises Arise and Finding Time to Plan for the Unexpected.)

Both kinds of change present challenges. Both present opportunities as well.

Consider the predictable change from summer into fall. There are many activities associated with this transition. You may harvest the bounty of your garden, put away summer clothes, get out skis and snowshoes, cut and stack wood – or any number of other seasonal chores. (more…)

Finding Time by Being Prepared for Change

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Paula, under Time Management Skills.

This past weekend we had our first significant frost. It had been so temperate, to that point, that many plants and flowers I associate with late summer were still gracing the gardens. Now the cosmos are gone, and the frost is on the pumpkin.

Change!

Time management, in many peoples’ views, is all about organization and planning and controlling your time. These are not bad goals, by any means. However, as I note in my new article, Time Management Techniques: 5 Ways to Profit by Mastering Change Management, “Life is always bigger than your plans.”

Whether changes are predictable, like the frost this weekend, or unpredictable, like a sudden illness or an accident, they can throw your plans out of sync.

And of course, changes aren’t just negative! Something like an unexpected windfall or a new friend still presents something new in our lives, and asks us to adjust.

This week on The Time Finder I’ll be exploring change and how we can make the most of it!

For now, I’ll leave you with this thought, from Charles Darwin:

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

What kinds of changes did you encounter and adjust to this past weekend? Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below, and share your experience.

I’d love to hear from you!

Let’s explore time together …

Finding Time You Didn’t Know You Had!

Posted on October 16, 2008 by Paula, under Time Choices.

At the end of every blog post I ask my readers, “What if you could find another hour every week?” It’s not a rhetorical question. You can find MORE than an hour every week, I’m positive.

Read on, and I’ll show you how!

The secret to finding more time for yourself is by developing the skill that I call “Thinking 15.”

‘Thinking 15” means looking at 15-minutes as the time-block that you build your day, and your daily plan around. It means knowing that 15-minutes is plenty of time for many, many tasks in your life. You may not be able to complete a task in 15-minutes – but you can always make a start!

When you’re “Thinking 15″ you’ll find that you are making choices about time in a whole new way. What if you have 15-minutes between the dinner dishes and your coaching call? You won’t let that precious time go, thinking that there’s nothing on your plate that takes just 15-minutes.

Something is better than nothing.
Rather than letting that time go by, when you’re “Thinking 15″ you might make a start on a task that you haven’t been getting to. Or how about jumping on the treadmill for a quick run, or lifting some weights? You could return a phone call or respond to some e-mails. Or you might choose to take the moment and sit quietly with yourself, as Connie Ragen Green and I suggested in yesterday’s post.

In all of these examples, the operative concepts are “Thinking 15” and recognizing that whether you consciously choose or not, you’re always making time choices!

As you go through your day, I guarantee that you will find “Thinking 15″ to be a very useful tool for both finding and using time more effectively!

How many 15-minute time blocks can you reclaim and put to use today? Click where it says “Please Leave a Comment” below, and share your experience.

I’d love to hear from you!

Let’s explore time together …