boundary template - 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.

Find Time to Nourish Yourself with a Summer Reverie

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Paula, under Self-Care Time, Time and Energy.

Finding time to look, listen, and touch the moments of our lives can be an elusive goal.

It doesn’t need to be that way, but we often get so caught up in our lists and tasks and goals, and we forget that there is a world of depth and texture inside that is incalculably enriching … and ALWAYS accessible.

Here’s the powerful (and magical) thing about time, as summed up by the writer James Carroll:

We spend most of our time and energy in a kind of horizontal thinking. We move along the surface of things [but] there are times when we stop. We sit still. We lose ourselves in a pile of leaves or its memory. We listen and breezes from a whole other world begin to whisper.

It may take some practice, but any time you choose to be still and focus inward, things open up. It might be a memory, a long-ago feeling or moment, or a heart connection that warms you.

Whatever it is that comes, know that it is part of you. It reveals something about your inner terrain … the rich worlds that you harbor.

Summertime, with its soft breezes and slower rhythms, offers a wonderful opportunity to start making these small journeys inward.

I encourage you to dip into the silence and see what you discover. What images bubble up from inside? How does it change your energy?

This is a really wonderful way of coming to know and nourish yourself more deeply. Take the first step today … and you’ll see! (Oh, and the more you do it, the easier and more enjoyable it gets.)

Speaking of “first steps” here’s an exciting first for me! I am pleased to share that I am The Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to “Time Management”. When you visit you’ll find time management articles by experts in the field, along with a vibrant and welcoming on-line community. Stop by my Expert Page and leave a comment or question … or just say hello. There are lots of ways to connect … let’s get started!

So, what if you could find another hour every day? You can! You can explore some practical and effective options for taking charge of your time by signing up for our free gift – “The New Finding Time Boundary Template: 9 Simple, Sequential Steps to Find More Time and Recharge Your Energy!” Claim it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!

Let’s explore time together …

Find Time to Step into Heart-Based Success! (thetimefinder.com)
Find Time to Turn Your Fear Into a Path to Your Strength: Empower Yourself and Recharge Your Time! (thetimefinder.com)

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Find Time to Go Green With Your Info Products, Too

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Paula, under Time Management Skills.

Finding time is a challenge for everyone – and perhaps especially so for solopreneurs. When you are managing a business, producing products, interacting with customers … and also striving to live your moments fully and find time for what matters most … time management tips can be real life-savers.

That’s why it’s so important that you pay attention to this time tip: Go Green with Your Info Products. You see, going green doesn’t need to be only about our stewardship of the planet. Let it include how you think about your time.

How would that work with your info products? Basically, to borrow a wonderful expression from a recent blog post by Michelle Shaeffer, it means making sure that you “Re-use, Rewrite, Recycle” the content that you create.

Think about it this way: You have invested time and energy in what you have created, and there are many, many ways that it can be shared. Don’t limit yourself to just one or two formats or venues. For example, when people sign up for our Finding Time Success Kit, they receive, along with our Finding Time Boundary Template, a subscription to our e-zine, and a weekly Time Management Tip in their in-box.

Taking the tips as an example, each and every one of them can be expanded into an article or a blog post, and can be shared as Tweets. Likewise, if I write a blog post that includes some tips, these can then be added to our Time Tips collection, to be shared with everyone on our list. And don’t forget press releases – another excellent vehicle for sharing your free content and enhancing your presence on the web.

When I publish an e-zine article at EzineArticles.com, I am already thinking about ways that it can be repurposed. Maybe I can break it up into several blog posts … or expand it into a free report to share with my list. The possibilities, when you start thinking about it, really are endless.

Connie Ragen Green is another source for excellent ideas about repurposing your content to make the most of your time. As she notes, this is not only a way to work more efficiently – it also honors the fact that you are communicating with a wide variety of people, each having different preferences and learning styles:

Everyone has a different learning style and wants to consume information in a way that is comfortable for them. You can start with one article and end up with ten or more different methods of distributing that same information out to your prospects. Think about how you can turn your ideas into written material, audio recordings, and video in order to get your message out to those who want to learn more from you.

So, are you ready to start repurposing your info products? Think about going green, not just in terms of your stewardship of the planet … but of your own time and energy. Finding time gets easier and easier, the more you let your content work for you!

Are you inspired to find time and increase your effectiveness? Here’s a new option for following The Time Finder … we are now available at Amazon, so you can follow The Time Finder on your Kindle. You can try it out for 14 days FREE, then continue to receive new content, right on your Kindle, every time we post!

So, what if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for your FREE Finding Time Success Kit. It puts 3 key tools for your time success right into your hands! Grab it and see how you can recharge your energy, reduce overwhelm and frustration, and come to learn that 24 hours really ARE enough!

Let’s explore time together …

Are you ready to get more mileage out of your content? (buildabetterblog.com)
5 Ways to Repurpose Content for Social Media (businessinsider.com)
Find Time to Avoid Productivity Traps and Keep Moving! (thetimefinder.com)
Find Time to Avoid Productivity Traps -5 Time Tips for You to Use Today! (thetimefinder.com)
Find Time to Connect with New Content Quickly and Creatively with Zemanta (thetimefinder.com)

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Find Time to Expect the Unexpected-5 Tips

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Energy, Transitions and Time.

Our world is filled with change … all the time! Finding time to deal with the sudden changes that can present themselves to us is a difficult challenge that is compounded by the fact that, by definition, we are unprepared for them!

What can you do to prepare? You can establish a base so that when the unexpected occurs, you have a toolbox of skills and responses to draw from.

Here are 5 tips to help you keep sudden change from totally disrupting your time choices, your ability to take care of yourself … and manage your life.

1. Remember that your time choices, and the values that drive them, are yours. Even when your established priorities need to take a back seat to the urgent choices you may need to make, remember that the time choices remain yours. The more you can own your choices, the less you will feel victimized by your situation.

2. Establish a habit of defining options. Ensure your resiliency by defining options for each of your daily priorities. This gives you a wider repertoire of priorities, should you to flex in light of something unexpected.

3. Explore adjustments in your personal and work schedules that you can make quickly if you need to. Flexibility is a key skill here! Sometimes our daily list of activities and priorities becomes inflexible. This can be disastrous if sudden change occurs. You can introduce flexibility into your daily habits around time by changing your routines and assessing your reactions to these changes. It’s really helpful and important to pay attention to this when you aren’t being forced into it by circumstances!

4. Re-examine your personal boundaries. In times of sudden change, your usual personal boundaries may have to flex. Take a few minutes and reflect on those you’ve established. Write them down. This keeps them from becoming unconscious or rigid. By remaining aware of your usual boundaries, you are more easily able to adjust them when sudden change occurs.

5. Be willing to tell others about any sudden changes that affect your usual time choices. When sudden change occurs, don’t bottle it up inside. Family, friends and coworkers only can understand, accept, and support you if you alert them with at least a brief description of any sudden change.

Have you needed to deal with sudden change in your life? What have you found helpful? Challenging? I’d love to hear!

What if you could find another hour every day? You can! You are invited to sign up for the Finding Time Success Kit starting with The New Finding Time Personal 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 … key tools for your time success!

Let’s explore time together …

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Find Time for Cyber Monday on Tuesday This Week!

Posted on January 5, 2010 by Paula, under Time and Technology.

Finding time to keep up with time-saving technological innovations is always time well spent, isn’t it? Today let’s take a look at one such tool, even if our Top Posts feature yesterday bumped Cyber Monday into Tuesday this week!

Last week David Pogue of the NY Times published his Pogie Awards, citing The Year’s Best Tech Ideas for 2009. Lists and compilations like this can be time-savers because they often give an excellent snapshot of a subject area, leaving you the option of delving more deeply into whatever captures your interest.

In this case, I think (and it sounds like he agrees) Mr. Pogue saved the best ’til last. Readability is a clean, simple, ingenious bookmarklet that you can configure, drag to your toolbar, and use for your reading on the web. I highly recommend it! Here’s how David Pogue describes Readability:

When you click it, Readability eliminates everything from the Web page you’re reading except the text and photos. No ads, blinking, links, banners, promos or anything else. Times Square just goes away.

You wind up with a simple, magazine-like layout, presented in a beautiful font and size (your choice) against a white or off-white background with none of this red-text-against-black business.

You occasionally run into a Web page that Readability doesn’t handle right — no big deal, just refresh the page to see the original. But most of the time, Readability makes the world online a calmer, cleaner, more beautiful place.

I have been using Readability since discovering it on David Pogue’s list. The boost that it gives to the reader’s ability to focus while on line is a big time-and-energy-saver. Removing distractions and offering a simple, uncluttered format for the written word has a calming effect that diminishes stress and “static” while clearing and consolidating energy as each of our days unfolds.

Readability is free, easy, and worth a try. I’d love to hear how it saves you time and/or helps focus your energy … so please feel invited to drop me a line!

Let’s explore time together …
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have no material connection with the brands, topics, or products that are mentioned here, and have not received any compensation for writing this content.

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Find Time for December’s Time Finder Favorites

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Paula, under Time After Time.

Finding time to review the Time Finder posts that caught your eye during the previous month is always an interesting window on readers’ time choices, priorities, and challenges. December was an eclectic month, with Twitter topping the list of the top 5 posts, exercise rounding it out, and flexibility, focus and reflection finishing strong, too. Here are the details!

At number one we have a post titled The Time Finder’s 10 Top Time-Saving Twitter Tools of 2009 that was written as part of a group writing project sponsored by Daniel Scocco on Daily Blog Tips. In the post we explored our 10 favorite Twitter Tools, and the project brought lots of traffic and new subscribers to The Time Finder. Were you one of them?

Second on our collection of December’s top 5 posts is a perennial favorite: Finding Time by Being Flexible-3 Timely Tips! Do you sometimes feel challenged when you need to shift gears? You might want to check out these 3 tips and try approaching flexibility in a new way.

Finding Time and Focus Even When Internet Distractions Call! advises, among other things, using a timer to help set time parameters and stay focused while on the internet. Did you make any New Years’ resolutions that had to do with on-line time? This post will be of interest to you!

Number 4 on our list is a post titled Find Time to Remember and Move On. It offers some thoughts about anniversaries and is a timely post as we begin a new year and new decade:

This acknowledgment of the events of our lives honors our stories (and ourselves) in a very real and healing way. Each time we “go deeper” we forge an ever-stronger connection with ourselves, and this allows us to move forward in our lives with strength and dignity. We accept and celebrate our stories, but are not necessarily bound to them self-in limiting ways.

Last, but certainly not least, is Find Time to Exercise, Whatever the Season – 3 Tips! – a post that will help many of us stay on track with at least one of our New Year’s Resolutions!

What was your favorite Time Finder post this past month? Is it on the list? Something different? Let me know … I love hearing from you!

Let’s explore time together …

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Find Time to Ring in the New

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Paula, under Time After Time.

Finding time to welcome newness into our lives can be a wonderfully expansive, deepening, and, yes, renewing experience.

Our entire culture celebrates the coming of a new year with reflections on the previous 365 days and then with hopes, plans and resolutions for the coming year. This year the transition feels even more momentous because we are marking the end of one decade and the beginning of another.

While these benchmarks and touchstones are, in some sense, manufactured (Have you noticed the cottage industry in “Best of the Decade” lists?), they also provide us with wonderful opportunities to pause, get our bearings, think about our values and priorities, and make new beginnings.

And what I’d like to remind you of today is that we each have the capacity to do that … to pause, get our bearings, think about our priorities, and make a new beginning any time that we want to. We needn’t wait for the passing of a year, or a decade.

Each morning, we could choose to enter the day in that way. Or each night as we go to bed. Or every Saturday afternoon.

It’s in each of our hands to live as deeply and as consciously as we want to. We don’t have to wait ’til New Year’s rolls around, or the next blue moon!

So here’s to ringing in the new, whenever our spirits move us to renew our energies and commitments. Do you have rituals of reflection and rejuvenation in your life? Would you like to include them in your repertoire in the coming year? Why not begin today? And let me know how it goes – 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 Personal 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 …

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