Mindfulness

The Importance of Developing Mental Clarity

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Sometimes new ideas or opportunities can come at you in warp speed. That’s because we live life in the fast lane and that’s not likely to change. But it does mean that you have to be ready to grab the chances that come your way.

Life is not a yes or no experience. It’s more multiple choice. You won’t be presented with simply one choice or one route to take in life. Instead, you’ll get hundreds of choices that come your way every day of your life.

These choices that you make will decide whether you experience success or suffer through a setback. Sometimes we make choices based on what we’re focusing all of our mental energy on.

We can become so focused on accomplishing something a certain way or before a certain time that we close our mind off to any other options. This means a different opportunity – a better one – can get overlooked.

You should always take the time to develop mental clarity about every move that you make in life. Don’t allow yourself to be led by your emotions and don’t make snap decisions.

If you’re presented with an opportunity that requires immediate action, you’ll want to be careful that if you take this action, it keeps you on the track you want to be on.

Some opportunities really are a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and if you travel toward them, you’ll get success. But others only have an empty journey that takes us farther away from what we intended on doing.

Check every idea and every opportunity to be sure that it lines up with your plan – that you don’t have to lower your morals or change who you are to grasp the chance.

It’s better to remain true to who you are and the vision that you have for your life than to be misled by too good to be true opportunities that can affect what you really want.

This is why it’s important to have goals. Goals can help give you clarity when things become less clear to you. You can check every opportunity that arises against your goals.

Every opportunity that you take should bring you closer to your overall end result. If it doesn’t, then it could be a wasted experience. Having mental clarity can help you get in touch with your inner self and quiet the clamor that comes with a busy life.

It can let you see whether or not you’re engaging in peak performance in how you’re managing all areas of your life. Clarity comes from being mindful. Practice making thoughtful decisions and get in the habit of living life from a clear perspective.

Time Management

Just What Is Time Management?

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Forget all the complicated and sometimes confusing definitions you’ve heard in the past. Time management is actually very simple. It is the way you choose to spend your time.

Whether you realize it or not, you already do engage the process of time management. You simply can’t help it. If you are living and breathing, and make any move to do anything, you are applying a process in time management. In short, you are choosing what to do with your time.

What this means is that there is good time management and bad time management. When you choose to engage in productive or good time management, you are organizing the tasks or actions you want to accomplish into a logical and cohesive progression that will allow you to complete each and every task within an equitable time frame. At its best, this type of time management does not create stress or drive up your blood pressure. Instead, it actually makes the day run smoother, and empowers you a little more each time you can strike one action item off your list.

Good time management is a proactive process. You define what must be done within a given period of time, prioritize those action items and then develop a plan of action that will make it possible to successfully accomplish each one within the time allotted. With your plan laid out, you then take the initiative to start at the beginning and keep going until everything on your list is done.

By contrast, bad time management does not make the day pleasant at all. You are much more likely to feel constantly stressed out, as action items appear as if from nowhere. People are constantly demanding to know what a report was not completed or why there is no food in the cupboard.

Bad time management leaves you feeling powerless to do anything to improve the situation. The hopeless feeling continues to grow until you more or less shut down, deciding that those action items weren’t that important anyway. You put yourself into a state where you basically move through the day, never quite getting a handle on what is going on and only accomplishing something when pressured by outside forces to do so. At the end of the day, there are still many action items left to accomplish, leaving you a general feeling of having failed.

If you are still reading, then there is a good chance that you recognize a bit of yourself in both these scenarios. Most of us do tend to engage in both good and bad time management from time to time. The goal will be to rethink the way we apply time management principles so that we are exercising good time management more of the time and finding ourselves bogged down due to bad time management much less often.

Move forward

Not Moving forward? 10 reasons why!

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1.You are focusing on the wrong things or tasks. Sometimes, the thought of success and doing a lot of things for your business can get you to miss on seeing the real picture such as what your business actually needs.

2.Your projects’ aims or goals are not clear. What does your business actually need? What do you want to see it do for your business? Set your goals straight.

3.You think about yourself and what multiple projects can do for you compared to what it can do for your business. Come on, everything is not about you, and although being able to accomplish a lot for your company can make you look good, it would still help if you plan for the good of everyone else.

4.You overload yourself with too much information that you fail to distinguish which ones are relevant to your company. Pick out and use only the pertinent information, otherwise you will end up confused and unable to complete your tasks with accuracy.

5.Distractions can get the best of you. This means that having a lot of things on your mind can keep you from focusing on your goals. And take note, distractions are not just about other tasks that you have in mind, distractions also include friends, partying too hard and too often and those times that you spend lollygagging during office hours.

6.Disorganized and dysfunctional work system. Of course, this is pretty much understandable, considering that fact that having a disorganized system can greatly affect you and your company’s productivity.

7.You get affected by too much negativity from yourself and other people around you. Obviously, if you let yourself be taken over by all those negative comments such as: you are not good enough for the job, or that you are too much of a perfectionist that you can’t seem to focus on what you want and what you have to do. And if you procrastinate too much, this attitude will also pull you down. Besides, making up excuses for not being able to accomplish something is totally wrong.

8.Too much multitasking and very little single tasking can seriously affect your productivity. If you are taking in and doing too many things, you will find yourself being pulled away from your actual goals.

9.You are too afraid to fail, that’s why you think of several strategies to succeed. But in reality, instead of being led to one major achievement, you end up being a major collector of failed projects and tasks. Failure should not be taken negatively. Failure should be your fuel to propel you towards success.

10.Lack of strict rules and work ethics. The thing here is that, you should always have to have a strict set of rules to make sure that you and your team would be able to move according to your original plans.

Certainly, you can add more to this list. Just think about your old work practices that didn’t seem to work to your advantage. And now that you know what you have to avoid or what causes you and your work to stagnate, it’s up to you to work on things the right way.

Writers Block

Painlessly Overcome Procrastination, Foot-dragging And Writer’s Block

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When procrastination nags at you, you need some way to convince yourself to get moving right now. Try these five steps when you’re delaying on a consequential project:

1. Articulate what exactly you are doing or not doing, in place of the label “procrastination.”

Example: I just can’t get started. Or: I keep quitting halfway.

The all-purpose label “procrastination” isn’t as illuminating as a more specific description of your problem.
Get the medicine for writer’s block that gets you writing quickly, easily, consistently and well, and that you’ll enjoy “taking” again and again.

2. Ask yourself, “What could I possibly be afraid of here?”

Perhaps: Fear of talking with strangers; Fear of ridicule; Not knowing what you’ll do once you finish.
Unacknowledged fears are the #1 cause of continually postponed projects. Just naming the fear often enables you to ignore or overcome it.

3. Ask yourself, “Do I really, wholeheartedly want to get this thing done?”

Choices: Yes; No; or Maybe.

Ambivalence is the second major cause of procrastination. If you resent having to do something, or aren’t sure its the best course of action, recognizing hesitations allows you to make a deliberate choice of whether or not to go ahead.

4. Brainstorm ways to get the task done that would be fun for you.

For instance: Invite friends over for a most-hated-task party; do your exercise walking at a favorite place; turn music on and dance while cleaning up.

Who said your task has to be unpleasant? With a little imagination, you can re-engineer it so you’ll have more enjoyment getting it done.

5. Take some step immediately toward completion every time you find yourself thinking about the task you have the problem with.

Do something small right now! Make a phone call; collect your tax records; find the supplies you need.

By taking advantage of the energy of the moment, you make progress.

Know what you want

Know What You Really Want

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There are far too many people working hard to go after achievements in life that they really don’t even want. For some of these people, they’re following the advice of a family member or friend.

They’re allowing what someone else thinks is best to govern their lives. While everyone can benefit from guidance, it’s not beneficial if deep down, it’s not really what moves you.

Your core beliefs will propel you to carve out the life that you want. If, deep down, you’re telling yourself you’re never going to succeed, then you’ll make sure that comes true.

What would your life be like if there were no obstacles and you could have the life you dreamed of having – in the niche that made you extremely happy? This isn’t about winning the lottery and never working again – it’s about knowing what provides satisfaction in your world.

You can’t be excited about performance in any area of your life if it’s not something that you’re passionate about. Passion creates motivation. Motivation gets you going.

When you’re motivated about something, you can’t wait to approach it. The two work in tandem to make things happen. This is true for both your personal and professional life.

Motivation fuels the drive within you and causes you give everything you’ve got to a project. Knowing what you really want allows you to look for opportunities to do things that you enjoy.

It helps you learn to say no to even potentially good things if they’re not something that you’re passionate about. When you really want something, it’s easier to keep your motivation and your energy level up.

It’s easier to keep on going in the face of difficulties or setbacks. When you have a passion for something that stems from going after what you really want, you won’t stop until you find a way to achieve it.

When you care about something, it causes you to give your all – to do the best possible job that you can. It’s the opposite when you don’t care about something. You just want to get that task over with using as little energy and effort as possible.

Knowing what you really want makes it easier for your mind to come up with creative solutions and ideas to make your passions succeed. It unleashes a deeper problem-solving mentally.

Before you wake up going through the motions in your personal or professional life, decide what it is that you truly want and then you can focus your mental energy on making it happen.

Become very aware of every benefit regarding what it is you’re aiming for in life. Seeing those benefits mapped out can give you strength to plow through difficult times and reach the finish line.

Don’t just say what goals you have. List why you have those goals – how achieving them would better your life – what it would personally mean to you when it comes true.

Beat Procrastination

Seven Ways To Beat Procrastination

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Even though I am big proponent of Time Management, a big part of time management is actually about beating procrastination. We all procrastinate, even those of us who pride ourselves in having good time management skills.

From my studies, I have come up with seven proven ways to beat procrastination. You will notice that none of the following are actually about “time management” per se, they are about the emotions and psychology behind putting things off.

1. Do the worst task first: I have used this technique for years. I have even created more than one first thing. There is first thing in the morning, there is first thing after lunch, and there is first thing in the evening. I take a look at the items on my To Do List and figure out which one I am dreading the most and spend a limited time on it at least moving it forward. This is known as swallowing the frog first thing; if you begin your day by swallowing a frog, then the rest of the day looks good.

2. Break it down: Often the reason that we procrastinate is because the task ahead of us is too big. Often there are small parts of the task that can be done. How do you climb a mountain? One step at a time.

3. Use a friend: I am not actually referring to delegation (but of course I dont mind that either); what I mean is to tell a friend what you want to do and get them to help you start the task. Often it is the act of starting a task that is enough to get the task done.

4. Do the pleasant part of the task: Often many distasteful and large jobs have some parts to it that are not particular distasteful. Do them so at least you are moving forward on your most important items.

5. Fifteen (15) minutes: Just spend 15 minutes on a task. I have the attitude that I can spend 15 minutes doing virtually anything and I can certainly survive spending 15 minutes on something. Often by spending the 15 minutes on a task, I either complete it or I will get it moved forward enough that it has momentum to finish.

6. Track it: The simple act of tracking a goal is often enough to keep the goal moving forward. It seems odd, but knowing that you are going to write down whether or not you have done something is often enough to make you move forward.

7. Reward or punish: The reason we do something is because it is more painful than not getting it done, so if we can make the completion a task more rewarding or the consequences of not completing it more painful, then we tend to move forward on things. Tying successful completion of a task to a reward is often a successful technique.

Remember that even successful people occasionally procrastinate. Procrastination is not a permanent condition.

Perfection is Stagnation

The 3 Ps: Perfectionism, Procrastination, and Paralysis

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Do you set your standards high, but always feel like you’ve failed? Learn about the 3 “P’s” and end the vicious cycle that keeps you stuck and ineffective.

The Vicious Cycle
Perfectionism, procrastination, and paralysis one often leads to the next, in a vicious cycle, especially on large, long-term projects with no clear deadlines. Lets look at each part of this cycle, and explore some concrete steps that you can take to disrupt the cycle.

Perfectionism
Perfectionism can be defined as striving towards impossibly high goals. Perfectionists are caught in a trap they can never be good enough. They engage in rigid, black or white thinking about their own performance if it isnt perfect, its horrible.

Ironically, perfectionists often achieve a product that is far less than perfect. At times, their performance is mediocre. In contrast, those who aim at more realistic goals can outperform the perfectionists. How can this be? The procrastination and paralysis that results from overly high standards causes the perfectionist to wait until its too late, then rush to do something; anything. The more relaxed realist, in the meantime, is able to put an effort in earlier, over a more prolonged period of time, with more chance to let time and subsequent changes or editing improve the final product.

Procrastination
When you believe that your next project should set the world on fire, you are setting yourself up for failure. At some level you know that this level of achievement is unlikely. You lose your energy and excitement for your project.

On a football field, when the coach yells at the team that they are a bunch of @$#% for playing so poorly, the players may play better. That is because they are enraged at being humiliated and they can use the rage to batter their opponents. This doesnt not work in other spheres! Criticism, whether from your boss or your own inner critical audience slows you down, and interferes with your thinking process.

It is so easy to put off the next step of your project when thinking about it makes you experience unpleasant feelings. So you procrastinate. Ill get started tomorrow, and work twice as hard. But its hard for you to ignore the fact that you are not living up to your own high expectations for yourself. Im lazy. I have no will power.

As time goes on, you start to grind to a halt. That leads to the third P.

Paralysis
You do absolutely nothing on the very project that is most important to you. This is devastating for your self-esteem, and very discouraging. Its hard to plan your next project when you failed to complete your last one.

How to Avoid the 3 Ps
There are steps that you can take to avoid falling into the vicious cycle of the 3 Ps.
Become aware of the perfectionist audience voices in your head (no, you’re not crazy.) You cant learn to ignore them if you don’t know that they’re talking to you.
Learn how to answer them back (don’t do it out loud or people will think you’re crazy.) An example would be, OK its not my best work but at least I’m finishing it.
Look for role models who are satisfied with good enough. Note how they get things done and are not looked down on by others.
Set up realistic goals. One way to tell if a goal is realistic is if you can actually do it. For example, Read two articles and write for 15 minutes before 5:00 tonight is a realistic goal. Read two articles and write for 6 hours and write 10 pages before 5:00 tonight is not a realistic goal.
If you have reached the third P, drastic steps are needed. Talk to a trusted friend, find a project buddy, or seek coaching. Do Not Give Up it is very possible to get yourself out of the paralyzed state and back to productivity with just a little help.

A Final P. Or Maybe Two.

Productivity
Start with baby steps. Do a little every day. As you observe your own productivity, however small it may be, you will start to feel better about yourself. You were capable all along its just that your unrealistic expectations stopped you from functioning optimally. Eventually your productivity will start to look like Progress. And that’s the last P for today.

The right time

Procrastination Kills

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Ever find some things you start without ever thinking about it. Other things just get set aside and end up at the bottom of your “to do list”. How about I will get around to do it? Quit procrastination and start taking steps to end this dreadful disease.

Many people today suffer from procrastination. Stopping procrastination is not very hard actually. It is just hard in our minds. When making decisions on what is important to do and then getting it done fast. This will put you in the fast lane towards opportunities and success. There are two simple ways to put an end to procrastination. The first way to put an end to procrastination is to make a decision. Either do it or don’t do it. If you are going to do it put it in your planner right away and block a time to get it done. By making a decision, there is no reason to procrastinate. Most decisions take only a few minutes to decide on. When you ignore or walk away from the decisions, you will pay a consequence at the end, whether it will be good or bad.

The second way is to learn to recognize your behaviors. Some people avoid making decisions by watching T.V., going shopping, going to bars, all attempts to hind the decision that needs to be made at that time. I know this first hand because I have used shopping to walk away from decisions that need to be taken care of in the past. Ignoring issues will not make them go away. It takes self-discipline and self control to break this dreadful disease. However once you break through this barrier, your life will start to transform. Amazing things will start to happen in both your personal and business life. So recognize your behaviors, step up, and make a decision. Take action today.

Time Management

How Do I Get Started With Good Time Management?

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As with many roads, the path to effective time management is paved with all sorts of good intentions. People sometimes have the dream, but lack the drive to take that first step and then keep moving up the path. Often, the lack of progress is for no reason other than a failure to prepare for the trip. Here is what you need to do if you are serious about leaving your slovenly ways behind and becoming the master of your own time.

  1. Adjust Your Attitude

This is the step that many people leave out of the equation when they decide to get on the road to good time management. Unfortunately, not all those self-help books and seminars include any ideas on how to begin to change your outlook on life so that you can embrace the basics of managing your time effectively.

One of the easiest ways to initiate this change of heart is to make a list of the benefits you will immediately receive if you start managing your time to better advantage. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the list has to be loaded with all sorts of impressive advantages or big events. After all, it is the day to day tasks that usually give people the most satisfaction anyway.

For example, your list could include benefits like:

  • More time to play with the kids
  • The kitchen cupboard has real food in it that can be used to make a decent meal.
  • The utilities will stay on all the time, because the bills will be paid on time.
  • You’ll get to see the opening scenes of the movie, catch the first inning of the baseball game, and get the best pickings at the yard sale, all because from now on you will be on time.
  • Your coworkers will be friendlier, since they are not waiting on you for something they need to get their jobs done.
  • Your boss will take the “Help Wanted” sign out of the store window.
  • You will feel more relaxed at the end of the day, because you know there is not a bunch of old stuff to do when you get to work in the morning.

Zero in on what poor time management has taken away from you over time, and how much fun it will be to have all those things back. If that’s not enough incentive to make some changes in the way you look at things, then you are probably dooming yourself to failure once again.

2. Start Small

It’s hard to break old habits. That’s what poor time management is, nothing more than a bad habit. As with many habits, you have to start with small changes if you want to succeed over the long term.

There are a couple of good reasons to begin with the little things and gradually incorporate more of the bigger things in your new time management scheme:

  • You’ll gain confidence. Nothing motivates people like a sense of accomplishment. It doesn’t matter that it is only one small change. The important thing is you did it. And if you did it today, you can do it tomorrow, and the day after that. Each day you manage to repeat that one small time management process, you will feel more empowered to make another change for the better.
  • People will notice. Loved ones and coworkers will see you are serious about learning how to practice effective time management, and begin to rally around you. True, their support may be tentative at first, especially if you’ve tried to become more organized in the past, but given up the effort after a day or two. But as you become consistently more dedicated to setting the little things in order, they will come around and compliment you on your efforts.
  • You’ll discover strategies and ideas that might work with some of the bigger things. As you master the little tasks that come during the day, you will probably begin to notice that some of the larger tasks can be addressed with the same approaches. This can be a good thing, as it helps you to brainstorm on ways to deal with different situations by using a tool you already have on hand and know how to use effectively.
  • You’ll become better at prioritizing your action items. It won’t take long for you to notice that the day went much smoother when you performed Task B before Task A. Finding just the right order for those small daily tasks will allow you to move through them quicker and with more proficiency. As a result, you will begin to develop little pockets of time that can be devoted to other endeavors.
  • Your stress level will begin to decrease. The more in control you are of your time and tasks, the less you will feel overwhelmed and unable to cope. This ties directly back into building a sense of empowerment and confidence in your ability to manage your time effectively. One feeds off the other two, giving you a strength and focus you may have never experienced before.

3. Reward Yourself

Think of it this way: if you won a prize, wouldn’t you celebrate at least a little? Making forward strides with learning how to manage your time is something worth acknowledging and celebrating. Sure, the fact that you go to work on time every day for a whole week now might not seem like much to anybody else, but that is not the point. The point is you made a positive step that put you back in charge of a part of your life and you are now managing it properly.

Of course, it is important to make sure your reward does not create yet another time management disaster that has to be straightened out. But assuming you have some spare time on the way home Friday evening, why not reward yourself with some little something you will enjoy, like a cup of your favorite coffee or picking up a copy of a magazine you really enjoy?

Keep in mind that a reward does not have to be big, splashy, or expensive. As you are learning by taking control of the little tasks in your life, a lot of satisfaction can come from little things. So go right ahead and allow yourself a small reward and enjoy it to the fullest. And if you want to have more rewards, continue to incrementally expand the control you have over your time.

4. Expect The Occasional Setback

Even the most proficient of time managers don’t always hit the mark. As you begin the process of learning how to do a better job with your time, there will be situations where you overlook something or encounter circumstances that temporarily derail your newfound ability to get things done.

It is as this point that many people choose to decide they simply can’t change and slip back into their old habits. While you certainly don’t want to brush off a setback as being nothing of consequence, you also don’t want to allow it to undermine all the progress you’ve made.

Instead of burying the setback or allowing it to lose confidence, try this third approach. Take a long look at all the circumstances surrounding the setback. Were there extenuating circumstances that you did not notice on the front end? Did something completely unforeseen arise as you were attempting to complete the task?

Knowing what happened and why it happened can be turned into a learning experience. By stepping back and examining the situation as dispassionately as you can, there is a good chance you can learn a few things from what appears to be a failure in managing your time effectively.

You may learn such valuable lessons as:

  • Points to clarify or data to double-check before you attempt the same or similar tasks again.
  • Additional tools or resources to assemble before tacking a task of this type.
  • A more effective process to deal with the situation.
  • Ways to defuse factors that led to the problem in the first place.

Never allow a setback to stop you in your tracks. Acknowledge it, learn from it, and then move on. Remember that you have other things that should be occupying your time.

Learning to implement solid time management practices and attitudes is an incremental process that involves the acquisition of knowledge, the application of what you learn, and the accumulation of personal experience. As you continue to move forward, your supply of all three components will increase, and your ability to manage your time will increase right along with them.

Focus

Importance of Working on A Single Task

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This is not about completely discouraging you to stop working on several things at once, if that’s what you feel and believe would keep you focused and closer to achieving your goals. This is about giving you another option if you want to keep yourself from burning out and drying out of ideas and concepts without even getting somewhere.

There are many reasons why working on a single task is important advantageous for an internet businessman like you.

  • You can actually focus on the most important aspect of your business. If you set your sights on one thing, distraction will and cannot be entertained. Another thing, some tasks cannot be done while doing other things, and it doesn’t matter how good you are at multitasking, if the task calls for your complete or undivided attention, pairing it with other stuff just won’t do.
  • You can ensure quality. Who doesn’t want to be proud of their work? And having too much on your plate can sacrifice the quality and effectivity of your project. Remember that the success of your online business is in your hands, so putting all your effort and attention to one task can definitely do wonders for you and your business.
  • You get to enjoy your work more. Have you ever experienced feeling too swamped with work and because you had so many things to do, you have completely forgotten what it’s like to enjoy and love the work that you are doing? Well, if you focus on doing one thing, you can, not only savor every bit of success that you gain out of your task, but also appreciate your work and your talents more.
  • Relaxation is just around the corner. Yes, you may achieve m any things out of multi-tasking, but at the end of the day you will feel really tired and burned out. You will also feel that with everything that you have to do; and that there is no end to all of this. Whilst when you work on one thing, every time you finish a task, you will feel rewarded and will have room for relaxation as well.

Working on one task at a time will help you weigh out and prioritize the important things. Compared to multitasking which treats everything important and urgent even if the tasks can be left in the other room and can wait another day.