The Time Finder with Paula Eder
The way you use your time is the way you live your life.
Archive for June, 2009
Find Time With Some Timely Tips from David Pogue
Posted on June 30, 2009 by Paula, under Time Management Skills, Time and Technology.
Last week a Time Finder reader sent me some time management tips that she had found interesting. They come from The New York Times’ prolific and informative tech writer, David Pogue and offer some great ideas – especially for managing information and work flow.
The article – “Pogue’s Productivity Secrets Revealed” is in response to the following question from one of his readers:
“When will you share your productivity tips with us? Not everyone can write five books a year, file two columns a week, churn out a daily blog, speak 40 times a year and film a video every Thursday. What are your secrets?”
I was certainly interested to read tips from someone so productive!
Among his time management tips was the use of voice recognition software. I have always heard great things about Dragon Naturally Speaking and recently invested in MacSpeech Dictate for myself. I am looking forward to learning and using this technology and anticipate that it will be a big time-saver for me. Have any of you used voice recognition software to help streamline your daily work?
He also writes about typing expansion software – something that I have shared with my VA. She is exploring setting up some keyboard shortcuts for herself using AutoHotkey (one of the programs he recommends). Describing how text expansion software works, Mr. Pogue writes,
… I type only the first couple letters of many common words, and the software expands the rest. Since so much of my writing is technology-related, a lot of these words come up often—and they tend to be long ones.
If you have words or phrases that you find yourself typing frequently, it certainly sounds like using these shortcuts could save you lots of time (not to mention avoiding frustrating typos). I’ll keep you posted on what we learn about this through the summer.
Do you have time-saving tricks, tools, and tricks that you use to help with your daily work flow? What are they? I’d love to hear how they work for you!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time for Twitter AND Everything Else!
Posted on June 29, 2009 by Paula, under Time and Technology.
Finding time to use and manage all of the social-networking tools available to us can be a major challenge. This is true whether your interest in social networking is to keep in touch with friends and family … or is to expand and deepen your connections in the on-line community.
This Cyber Monday I would like to share with you a tool which I read about this weekend on TwiTip – Darren Rowse’ blog about all things Twitter! This particular post was a reader review by Jeff Russell of a Twitter tool called HootSuite.
As he notes in his post, HootSuite is a tool that he finds can help him “contribute to the twitosphere, but still have time to actually work and spend time with my family.” The way that it does this is by automating a number of Twitter functions.
While there is debate in the twitterverse about things like automating and delegating tweets, there is certainly no debate about the time that it can save. TweetLater is a tool that arrived on the scene earlier and can also be used to do this. It works well for scheduling tweets and has a nice feature whereby you can store draft tweets for later (or repeated) use.
One of the features on HootSuite that sounded interesting was the ability to clip and tweet material right off the web using their Hootlet tool. In addition, HootSuite has the capacity to integrate with your RSS feed(s) and tweet them at intervals you choose. (This is a very nice feature and avoids the phenomenon, which some find annoying, of posting a string of tweets all in a row.)
HootSuite also allows multiple users to work in the same account – a functionality which is likely to be of great interest to larger business organization that are exploring the utility of Twitter!
Do you already use Twitter tools like TweetLater or HootSuite? Are you ready to jump in and see whether they can help you find more time? I’d love to hear how they work for you!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Finding Time and Success with Small Steps!
Posted on June 26, 2009 by Paula, under Time Choices.
Finding time to plan, implement, and sustain success strategies is a process. It involves both seeing your big goals and following through on the incremental steps that carry you from where you are to where you want to be.
In my recent article on E-zineArticles.com titled Time Management Tips – 3 Golden Rules to Create Big Results Using Small Steps I explore the “brick-by-brick” process of building toward your goals.
To me, this is one of life’s great truths and great mysteries – how the path to transformative change is incremental!
You know the adage, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Indeed, it was built brick-by-brick. Imagine the challenge of keeping sight of the goal while stacking bricks for months or even years on end! So it is for us, very often, as we build toward our goals.
This is why it is so important to acknowledge and celebrate each step along the way – realizing that no matter how “small” a particular piece of the journey may feel, each piece is an important and necessary part of getting there! Learning to truly value each and every step anchors you in the moment. It can help relieve some of the pressure to “get there” that our excitement and enthusiasm about our big goals can sometimes exert.
Knowing that “getting there” is a process means accepting that a span of time is involved and holding the dual realities of our big goal and our everyday, small steps in balance. This is a recipe for lots of small celebrations as you take each step toward success!
How do you sustain yourself through this process? As you take the small steps, are you able to manage (and celebrate) the daily steps while keeping your goal in sight? I’d love to hear how this works for you!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Finding Time When You Are on Overload-3 Tips
Posted on June 25, 2009 by Paula, under Time and Energy.
How do you find time when your to do list is full, you’re already rushing, and then some small glitches throw a wrench into your already overloaded plans?
I had just such a morning, not too long ago, and it certainly presented some challenges!
Here are 3 tips that helped me get back on track. I hope that you will find them useful, too!
- Most importantly, notice that you are feeling overwhelmed and give yourself the space to pause and take a deep breath. Acknowledging what is happening in the moment is very important. This will get your feet back on the ground and give you an opportunity to recalibrate and do some quick planning.
- Quickly scan the tasks on your to do list. Are there some that you can either move down the list or take off entirely? Creating some space on your list will give you breathing room, relieve stress, and open up your energy and creativity again (both of which are constricted and curtailed by stress).
- Make an “appointment” with yourself for the end of the day. Think of this as a time to review what happened, look at things that you might have done differently, and celebrate the fact that you made it through! This doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but it is important. It gives you a point of both accountability and self nurturing. A review like this puts a frame around your day. It helps to reinforce the fact that you are in charge. It moves you out of a victim stance, putting things into a positive perspective and relieving the stress of the moment.
These three responses, when you feel on overload, only take a few minutes and can easily change your outlook, your energy, and your productivity — all for the better, I might add! Try them the next time feelings of overwhelm come up. How are things changed, as your day moves ahead? Please drop me a line – I’d love to hear how these tips work for you!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Finding Time to Celebrate and Look Back with Appreciation!
Posted on June 24, 2009 by Paula, under Time After Time.
Finding time to celebrate anniversaries, accomplishments, and milestones is one way that we find time for what matters most in our lives! The graduation season that many just celebrated is a great example.
These rituals reinforce our values and give us an opportunity to feel our growth, appreciate our connections and relationships, express gratitude, reflect on the past, and make new beginnings. Pausing and finding the time for a mindful experience of these milestones offers an awful lot, doesn’t it?
Here at The Time Finder we are very pleased to celebrate the completion of our first full year of blogging! So much has happened, both in the world and right here at Finding Time, LLC since we first posted on June 24, 2008!
Now here we are, 249 posts later, appreciating new and old friends and feeling glad and grateful for the exploring that we’ve done together.
We are also looking ahead with anticipation and renewed energy to what the coming year will bring. Some of it we can predict – like offering new products to help you find time and exploring new media here on The Time Finder! There will also be things that come as a surprise, I am sure. Either way, we are so happy to be sharing this journey through time with you!
What milestones have you celebrated lately? Are there gratitudes, accomplishments or new beginnings that you’d like to share? Please drop me a line – I’d love to hear!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to Start Freeing Yourself from Perfectionism Now!
Posted on June 23, 2009 by Paula, under Time and Energy.
Finding time to overcome perfectionism in your life can free you up to be your most creative and productive self. Conversely, allowing perfectionism to shackle you and your energy will leave you frustrated, discouraged, and perpetually spinning your tires. This is because perfection is an illusion, and a harsh one at that! The difference between striving for excellence and striving for perfection is something that we explored not long ago on the Time Finder, where we concluded:
- Excellence is always evolving and changing. You attain one level of excellence and then strive for the next. Each moment offers new opportunities for excellence.
- Perfection, on the other hand, is where you stop. What could follow? There is something about perfection that is, at its core, inimical to the human condition.
Your inner critic thrives on the expectation of perfection. Your creativity, on the other hand, is stifled as fear constricts the free flow of your energy and ideas. This, in turn adds even more fuel for your inner critic’s constant, unhelpful messages. Indeed, the more that perfectionism affects your energy the less you are able to accomplish, enabling this debilitating cycle to perpetuate itself pretty much endlessly.
In our recently-featured article on Solo-E titled “How to Unlock the Shackles of Perfectionism to Win Back Your Time” you can find a quick exercise to help you identify the ways that your self talk (and the illusory beliefs that it springs from) can hold you back.
Is perfectionism something that keeps you stuck and unable to access your fullest energy and richest creative powers? I invite you to begin the process of identifying and unlocking the messages that hold you back, and then freeing yourself from them, one-by-one. Make a start today – and drop me a line. I’d love to hear how it goes!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Finding Time To Master Your Inner Game – in Your Work and in Your Life
Posted on June 22, 2009 by Paula, under Time After Time.
Finding time to attain mastery isn’t easy … nor is accessing the best tools to attain your goals.
That’s why I am very excited to depart slightly from my Cyber Monday routine, to tell you about an exciting opportunity to learn from some of the most skilled, experienced and creative business-building experts I know! To find out more about this opportunity, click here!
They are men and women of incredible depth, talent and integrity – and this week, they are coming together in what they call a “radical experiment.” For one week, they’re practically giving away their premium products and programs to help you grow your business and increase your personal mastery.
The Ultimate Entrepreneur Toolkit gives you 20 business-building products for a tiny fraction of their real cost. I feel so strongly about this toolkit and the people involved that I signed up for mine just before I went live with this post – and I couldn’t pass up the chance to tell you about it, too!
Here’s a sampling of what’s included in the toolkit:
- Andrea Lee’s Pink Spoon Marketing gives you a detailed step-by-step roadmap for creating multiple revenue streams and marketing funnels that attract paying customers to your business
- Nancy Marmolejo’s Quick and Easy Social Networking is a proven 3-Part System to boost your visibility and expand your network using Facebook and Twitter
- David Wood’s Explode Your Practice (6 CDs of material) is chock full of essential strategies and practical how-to information for building a 6-figure coaching practice
- Brad Fallon’s “Stomping the Search Engines 2″ is a cutting-edge video training program that will teach you how to use Search Engine Optimization to bring free traffic to your web site
- Patricia Fripp’s “Become a Masterful Speaker” includes 4 audio training products that will teach you how to become a masterful speaker with superior sales and presentation skills
- Brad Smart’s “World-Class Interviewing and Hiring” video training course will show you how you can identify hire superstar talent for your business
- Ken McArthur’s “Information Product Blueprint Workbook and Action Plan” (an incredibly comprehensive, 674-page manual) will show you the step-by-step process for creating your own information product
… and that’s just a small taste of what this Toolkit gives you access to!
The Ultimate Entrepreneur Toolkit is only available through June 26th, because of the massive discount involved. I hope you’ll consider taking advantage of this amazing opportunity to get some of the best courses, programs, and tools for business building available anywhere – and save 95%!
To get all the details, click here. I was very impressed by the value offered in this unique product, and I’m confident that it’ll be worth it to you and your business.
Is finding time and tools for keeping on top of your game a challenge? I urge you to check out The Ultimate Entrepreneur Toolkit … I think you’ll find it a wonderful resource for your work and your life!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to Capture Your Creative Ideas!
Posted on June 19, 2009 by Paula, under Time After Time.
Finding time to capture creative ideas when they come is a perennial challenge.
Opportunity is a bird that never perches. Claude McDonald
So often our best ideas arrive when we are least in a position to do something with them. I don’t think this is accidental so much as a reflection of how the creative process works. After we’ve worked away at a problem, using all the tools at our disposal … it’s when we step away and shift our focus that our unconscious has a chance to contribute. This is when a solution or creative new idea bubbles up, seemingly without effort. The effort was invested beforehand and we needed to let it all percolate — but it certainly can seem like magic!
So, if we recognize and accept the fact that many of our most creative ideas are going to occur to us at odd times, then how can we make sure that we capture them?
The solution is to give yourself some portable tools for recording what comes to you.
For many years I have carried a small notebook with me. It accompanies me on walks and car trips — not just big trips, but trips to the grocery store, the vet’s, the dentist’s — wherever I go in my daily round of chores and activities. I keep it at my desk, and by my bed at night, too.
Small tape recorders can be handy and, if you’re digitally minded, a digital voice recorder may be an even easier and more flexible tool for you to use. These easily fit in a pocket or purse, and can be kept handy on a bedside table, in a car, exercising — wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.
An added benefit of a digital voice recorder is that many of them will interface with the voice recognition software packages that are available for your computer. This extends the functionality of the voice recorder even further.
I could have dictated this blog post into a voice recorder, plugged it into my voice recognition software, and had it all transcribed for editing without touching the keyboard. I’m not at that stage yet, though! For me, simply capturing my ideas easily and quickly … no matter where I am … remains the biggest plus of this tool.
What tools or tricks do you use to snag your creative ideas when they come? I invite you to write a comment and share your thoughts and experiences … I’d love to hear!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Find Time to Manage Your E-Mail-5 Tips
Posted on June 18, 2009 by Paula, under Time Management Skills, Time and Technology.
Finding time to keep your in-box manageable and your e-mail organized is probably not one of your favorite tasks. However, it’s one of those daily necessities that can become a nightmare if not tended to regularly.
Having some routines and structures in place for dealing with your inbox will do wonders to keep you organized, save you time, and enhance your peace of mind!
Here are 5 quick Finding Time Tips to help you manage your e-mail efficiently and free up your time and attention for other things:
- Think of your in-box as your “To Do List.” The e-mails there should be items that require your attention, that are important to remember, and that you haven’t attended to yet. Everything else should be moved out of your in-box!
- By the end of each day, aim to be able to see the entire contents of your in-box without having to scroll down. If you can’t attain this goal, you may be receiving too much e-mail. Take a look at unsubscribing from non-priority items.
- Set up “rules” for your incoming e-mail. This will sort items and send them to folders before they even land in your in-box. For example you could set up an “Alerts” folder for your Google Alerts – or folders for different e-zines that you receive. Be sure to make time to keep them culled, too!
- Create folders for different subject areas, tasks, and/or categories of e-mail. Suit them to the way that you work. You could have a “read later” folder, or a folder for blog ideas. Aim to “handle” your e-mails only once. Make your decisions quickly and don’t be shy about deleting items that you’re not interested in.
- Decide how much time you want to spend on your e-mail. If you are in a position where you need to be accessible and responsive, you might choose to do a quick 10 or 15–minute scan, several times a day. If timeliness isn’t key, maybe once a day for 15 or 20 minutes will do. What’s most important is to figure out what works for you and then stick with your plan. Use a timer to keep you on track.
Kelly Forrester has put up a helpful post at GTD with some additional suggestions for managing your in-box with a particular focus on managing high-volume e-mail!
Is keeping on top of your in-box a challenge for you? How do you find time to keep up? I urge you to try these tips … and let me know how it goes for you!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
Finding Time for What Matters Most
Posted on June 17, 2009 by Paula, under Time and Values.
Finding time to clarify what you value, and then put those values into practice in your everyday life is an ongoing challenge. Yesterday we looked at the impact that our time choices about the internet can have on other things we value – like family time.
Making these time choices consciously, rather than by default, is an important step toward finding time for what matters most.
But what does matter most? This morning, let’s step back and take a look at how clarifying what we value can help us clarify our time choices. In a recent article titled Finding Time by Championing Your Values – 3 Essential Steps to Reclaim Your Time at EzineArticles.com I explored a 3-pronged approach to help you get your values and your time choices into better alignment.
- First, take some time to sit with yourself and identify what you most value. One great avenue for doing this is to visualize your ideal day. Be as specific as you can – the more detail you include, the easier it is to follow your “map.” I suggest that you revisit this exercise fairly often – and at least seasonally. Your ideal day will evolve as you do – and it’s important to keep it fresh and in sync with where you actually are!
- Next, look at your actual day. Be factual and dis-invite your inner critic (who may be very eager to help with this part of the exercise)! What do you typically do? Where do you get bogged down? What goes smoothly? Be as specific as possible – each small moment is important. Pay particular attention to your feelings as you do this.
- Your third task is to put your two days side by side, and identify places where you can bring elements of your ideal day into your real day. It’s important to be concrete and realistic here, so that you do not set yourself up for failure. Recognize that change can be a challenge, and some changes may take more than one step. Start small and build toward success!
Finding time to live your values is one of the most rewarding time management tasks you can undertake. As you make your time choices more consciously, you’ll find the time for what matters most – guaranteed. Give it a try … and let me know how it goes for you!
What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up and download The New Finding Time Boundary Template. It’s FREE, and when you sign up you will also receive (if you don’t already) my FREE, weekly Finding Time Tips and my FREE, monthly Award-Winning Finding Time E-zine!
Let’s explore time together …
Other Posts You Might Enjoy!
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