I am so excited to be participating in the Day of Gratitude Blog Summit hosted by Joanna Lindenbaum! I hope you’ll check out my post, which was published yesterday.  It’s titled “Find Time to Walk, Live and Breathe to the Beat of Gratitude.”  The Blog Summit started on 11/10 and culminates on Friday, November 18th with The Gratitude Project.

The Gratitude Project is a full day of exercises and rituals based on Gratitude.  When you sign up to participate you will learn how to tap into heart-centered and consistent gratitude in your life … one of the key ingredients to success.  Remember – the Blog Summit will be going all week at … and The Gratitude Project starts at 9 AM EST on November 18th.  Activities run for the first 10 minutes of every hour on the hour until 4pm EST.  Here’s the schedule for the day (all times EST).  I know I will be calling in, and hope you will, too!

• 9:00 – 9:10am: Opening Ritual
• 10:00 – 10:10am: Mental Gratitude
• 11:00 – 11:10am: Emotional Gratitude
• 12:00 – 12:10pm: Heart Gratitude
• 1:00 – 1:10pm: Body Gratitude
• 2:00 – 2:10pm: Voice Gratitude
• 3:00 – 3:10pm: Spirit Gratitude
• 4:00 – 4:10pm: SURPRISE and Closing Ritual

And now for your timely tip.  This will come in handy during the busy holiday season that’s approaching … and really any time.

Time management skills usually work best when you’re familiar with your time demands and your terrain.  But during this time of year, routines are often disrupted and things are in flux.

At times like that you may not know what your top priorities are at any given moment. In addition, when others’ priorities are also clamoring for attention, recognizing your top priorities may become even more complicated.

Recently I was reviewing some of our Finding Time Tips, and came upon this one, which I think will be helpful. Try it out in situations where you’re not sure how to resolve your time priority conflicts:

Tip:  Compassionate curiosity can clarify priority conflicts in your schedule.

Action Step:  Identify which time choices reflect your ambivalence about what matters most, and invite a friendly “conversation” amongst your options to arrive at a satisfying resolution.

I’d love to hear what happens when you try this tip and action step. For me, when I initiate one of those internal “conversations” and bring plenty of compassionate curiosity, I am often surprised by the wealth of unexpected, helpful information that I receive!

Here’s another idea for taking your next step. Sign up for our free gift, “The New Finding Time Boundary Template: 9 Simple, Sequential Steps to Find More Time and Recharge Your Energy!”

This time template will help you move beyond overwhelm, disappointment, and frustration. Using a workbook format, with room to record your answers, you will discover that 24 hours really are enough!

It’s not just the content or your goals that bear reflection.  For your energy to be in sync with your time priorities and time choices, it’s important that your goals be connected to your core values.  That’s a big part of what Heart-Based Time Management is all about.

So, let’s step back and take a look at your goal-setting process.  To ensure that you’re setting goals in the most helpful and heart-connected frame of mind, you can use the following tips:

1. For starters, ask yourself:  How much time have you actually spent creating a clear picture of what you want and why you want it? If you have not seriously reflected upon this important question, or if your idea of what you want changes frequently, your goals will be written in sand. Give yourself the gift of taking 15 minutes a day for one week to think about what you truly want and why you want it. Jot down notes. At the end of the week, you will be ready to engage in goal-setting that will truly represent how you picture your ideal life.  And, not only that but by connecting more deeply with your heart-based values, you will have created the motivation to achieve those goals.
2. Building on Tip #1, examine the outcome you have defined to ensure that it’s realistic. You may find that you need to do some more specific goal-setting.  Or maybe you need to modify your goals to make them come alive in your mind.  Making sure that your goals are both achievable and energizing (i.e. heart-based) will go a long way toward assuring that you achieve them!
3. Cultivate awareness. This valuable state of mind is encouraged by your goal-setting activities and can dramatically improve your life. Make a habit of looking at your core, heart-based goals at least once or twice a day. You may find it helpful to use a timer to set aside 5-10 minutes on waking up … or before going to bed … to focus on this. Whenever you choose to do it, this discipline will help to ensure a constant state of awareness of your goal, and of why you want to achieve it.  This, in turn, helps shape your activities and offers fuel for your energy and motivation.

Bonus Tip:   Once you’ve thoroughly assimilated your goal, you’re ready to work backwards. Working backwards as you take steps to actualize your goal will prevent you from falling into the common trap of making action steps too big.  As you do this, be sure to document each action step you need to take to be where you want to be.

What’s your next step in making goal-setting a part of your success mindset?  How can I help?  Drop me a line – I’d love to hear from you!

And here’s something more to consider.  You can now access our Time Finder posts in real time … right on your Kindle.   Try it out for 14 days FREE!  You’ll receive new content wirelessly, 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! 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 …

Related articles

• Find Time by Breaking Your Gargantuan Goals into Actionable Steps! (thetimefinder.com)
• The 10 Things You Need to Know About Setting Goals: An Analysis of Designing a Plan and Sticking to It (bizcovering.com)
• Find Time to Step into Heart-Based Success! (thetimefinder.com)

Who and what do you listen to, when you are setting your priorities?  And do you set priorities at all?

These are good questions to ask yourself periodically.  Be sure to ask them in a non-judgmental way, so that the answers you receive are honest and open.

You may well find, when you explore your answers to these questions, that you are living your life reactively.  That means that your priorities and time choices are shaped by the demands of the day … not by a course that you have set for yourself.

It’s easy to slip into living this way.  Indeed, the busier we are, the more likely it is that this will happen.  And the end result is that we may be very “productive.”  We may be churning out lots of work and ticking things off of our To Do Lists.  But when we turn out the light at night, we feel exhausted, empty and unfulfilled.

It isn’t an oversimplification to say that this is how you’re going to feel when your time choices are not connected with your values.  Like driving your car when it is out of alignment, this is very wearing and inefficient.  The moving parts aren’t working in sync and, in fact, are sometimes working at odds with each other.

With your car, a trip to the shop is in order, to get everything back into alignment.  For us, it’s not a visit to the shop that’s needed, but a pause to connect with our values and inner wisdom.

It’s so vital to create the space in our lives to quietly listen to that voice – the Wise Inner Voice that can get lost in the noise and bustle of each day.  You know when you hear it and you know when you are living from its deep energy and power.

How do you know? Your activities and choices have a congruence that flows and you end each day feeling grateful and fulfilled – even in the midst of challenges.

The key is to listen to yourself and activate the powerful alignment between who you are and what you do.  What’s different is that you in sync with yourself and are joyfully living your very own life!

Want to explore your Wise Inner Voice more fully? Join us at 7PM TONIGHT for Activating Your Inner Wisdom: How to Bring Joy and Success into Your Life – the next interview in my Finding Time EducationRich and HeartBased Teleseries!  I’ll be speaking with Soulful Coach Joanna Lindenbaum – and you won’t want to miss it.

Sign up and join us for this free, info-packed teleclass! When you listen to that wise voice inside, the sky’s the limit!

PS Even if you can’t be there on Tuesday, sign up and we’ll send you the free MP3 when it’s ready.

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 …

Susan A. of Portland, Oregon wrote:

Dear Paula,

I have always tried to set priorities when I create my to-do list. My problem is that I have a tendency to think that every task is a high priority. Could you help me by explaining what a low priority task looks like?

Sincerely,

Susan A.

Dear Susan,

Your question is one that many people ask. One of the most difficult aspects of setting priorities is to develop a habit of not making everything a high priority.

You might want to set yourself this goal: Try to assign at least 50% of the tasks on your to-do list as a medium or low priority.

• A low priority task is one that can be deferred without a negative impact on anything if it doesn’t get completed.
• Also, a low priority task is one that can be moved to another day without any adverse consequences.

Keep in mind, when setting priorities, that being flexible and reality-based is key.  Situations change every day, and you may, quite often, have a legitimate reason to re-order your priorities.  Tasks that looked very important on Sunday night, may look different on Wednesday, after you have gained more information or the context has evolved.

In thinking about your top priorities, be rigorous about what belongs in that slot.  Stephen Covey suggests keeping two words in mind while setting priorities. One is ‘urgent’ and the other is ‘important’. The best guide for determining which task is the highest priority is to select the task on your to-do list that is both urgent and important. Some tasks may be one or the other, but only the one that is both belongs at the top.

Likewise, you may find it helpful to establish a “bottom” priority.  You may even have a small collection of tasks that fit this bill.  They would typically be things that can be deferred without dire consequence, but that it would be nice to accomplish.  Putting vacation photos into an album is something that springs to mind.  Or, perhaps, reorganizing a seldom-used closet.

Breaking your tasks up into smaller pieces (“chunking” them) may also help.  Even if you don’t have enough time to complete a task, you can use the time available to get it started.  Some of these “chunks” might be lower-level priorities, but completing them will help move a higher priority task along.

It’s helpful to choose a time to review your next day’s to-do list and the priorities you’ve established. Look at both the task and the priority you’ve assigned it.  This allows you to flex and fine-tune your priorities as you plan.  You might even take a minute or two and visualize each task. This mental rehearsal enables you to identify the number of steps required to complete a task and keeps your stress level down.

I hope that some of these ideas resonate for you, Susan … and I’d love to hear how your prioritizing evolves over time.

Best,

Paula

PS  Just a quick reminder that, though the call with Artist and Creativity Coach Ellene Breedlove Davis is over, you can still access the FREE MP3 by clicking the link for:  Finding Time to Be Creative: Portrait of the Artist.  When you use your creativity to enhance your life, you will develop even more incentive for developing your best ideas and making them a reality.

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 …

I am very excited to be putting the finishing touches on my upcoming teleclass with Ellene Breedlove Davis.  Our topic?  Finding Time to Be Creative:  Portrait of the Artist.  This is a free call, and you can join us at 7 PM next Tuesday, August 10th!

Ellene is an Artist and Creativity Coach, and she’ll be sharing her own experiences with making room (in both time and space) to nurture and sustain her art.  As you’ll see and hear from Ellene, art and creativity are not matters of magic.  They are better thought of as a melding of passion and skill … and readiness!

In a recent blog post, Ellene wrote:  “In my studio, I have a small blue chair that just calls me to create. Most of the time, I get my sketch book or journal, a favorite pen and just put the pen to paper. The ideas start to flow as soon as I relax, as my creative imagination starts to write or sketch.”

So, if we want to see our creativity take root, blossom, and produce fruit (moving back to that garden metaphor) … we need to give ourselves the time (and space) to tend it through its various stages!  We need to develop and practice the skills of our chosen craft, AND we need to give ourselves some version of Ellene’s blue chair, where we let ourselves open to our muse.

I would add that it is helpful and important to think of creativity in very broad terms.  Art takes many forms, and if you are limiting how you think about it, you are limiting the possibilities of your creative self!

I look forward to exploring creativity more fully with you in the coming days … and hope you will join Ellene and me on our call on August 10th!

In the meantime, do you have thoughts or questions about the creative process 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 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 …

Yesterday we looked at how the first step toward abundant living is to fully accept that time is limited.  When you stop trying to cram 2 days of living into one that means far fewer painful “time blisters” along the way! But of course, that act of letting go can leave lots of your plans in limbo. What will you do about those?

Try this:  Create CRYSTAL CLEAR PRIORITIES for yourself.  Once you fully grasp that each day is finite and can’t be stretched, it’s much easier to see that you MUST set clear priorities.

Creating a clear hierarchy of priorities is a cornerstone of developing an abundance mentality. It’s like strengthening muscles you needed all along, but never knew you had. One muscle you develop is the all-important skill of distinguishing your “wants” from your “needs.”

Simplicity’s reward: When you can tell your “wants” from your true “needs”, it’s easier to simplify your life WITHOUT feeling deprived! When you truly accept that some letting go is essential, your resistance to making tough decisions will gradually give way to inner contentment.

It may sound paradoxical, but try it.  It’s like living inside a deep, relaxed breath. Feel your shoulders soften! You will feel the space inside your body relax and expand as you stop trying to wedge yourself into a too-tight schedule! Feeling more relaxed does a LOT to contribute to a feeling of inner abundance.

Here’s another paradox. PRIORITIZING CREATES MORE YOU. Simplifying is challenging. You commit to making do with LESS of what you WANT to fill your day with. When you do this, you develop an inner resourcefulness. That’s why I call simplifying COURAGEOUS PRIORITIZING.

How does courageous prioritizing bring freedom and spaciousness? Because making these difficult decisions and living by them CREATES MORE YOU!

• You are more defined.
• You are more mature.
• You experience firsthand how simplifying your schedule to fit the 24 hours in a day EMPOWERS you to step off the treadmill.
• And the more you experience your personal power through wise time choices, the less you look outside yourself.

That is when your own INNER ABUNDANCE really shines.  This is something you can practice any time, any day. See for yourself how changing your mindset and strengthening your resolve eases your sense of stress and scarcity. The more you practice, the more rewards you enjoy!

Ready to give it a try?  Drop me a line and let me know how you’re doing with courageous prioritizing and with managing your finite time … I’d love to hear!

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 …