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H.E. Huhn Training Services Specialists in Educating, Training, Developing, & Coaching of Adults.
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by Stephen R. Renfrow Time Management is geared to accomplishing your goals. So if you don't have any goals, or you are not acquiring your goals, you must outline them (or reevaluate them) on paper. Why? Because, and most people overlook this most basic fact and fundamental truth, that by writing them down, "Is the first step in realizing your goals. In other words, from bringing them forth from the mind - as a dream - into reality, or our physical world!" S.R. Renfrow, What is success anyway? "It is the progressive realization of a worthwhile goal." Paul J. Meyer, Pres. Success Motivation Inc. Here is an outline of what I call, "The MILLIONAIRE MINDSET": I. Get a GOAL: Genius is the ability to clearly visualize the objective. What you tell yourself you are - you are! Subdivide your goal into smaller ones and have good reasons for each. To know and not to do, is not yet to know! II. Design a STRATEGY, a Business PLAN: You don't have to be wealthy to have a wealth plan. Poor people spend their money first and save what is leftover. Wealthy people save first and spend what's leftover. Work full-time on your wealth plan. Be Specific! III. Get CONTROL of your Life - Time - and your Discipline: PMA = Positive Mental Attitude. Don't let yourself get discouraged or sidetracked by negative people. Surround yourself with Positive people and Successful people. Tithe 10% of your income. Learn to live on 70% of your income. Save and invest the other 20%. Never be poor. Use a daily planner (more below on time mgmt.) and break your goals down - 5yr, 1yr, 1mo., Today. IV. Get yourself moving - ACTION: Like the NIKE commercial - "Just Do It". Don't put off till tomorrow, what you can accomplish today. Ask yourself . . . "What am I doing to move forward towards my dream?" Are you Stumped? Ask. . . "What is stopping you?" (mentally, physically, spiritually) V. Get FOCUSED & Restrategize: What do you love? What is your passion? What motivates you? Your Business Plan is a Roadmap if you will, to your future. Expect and anticipate roadblocks, learn from mistakes, revise your plan accordingly. Remember your passion - passion sells and creates energy, creativity, enthusiasm, inspiration. *** TIME MANAGEMENT: *** A successful manager of time is willing to do, that which the unsuccessful manager of time is unwilling to do. Have you heard that before? The basic element of time is an event. Therefore . . . Event Control = Time Management. To gain control of our lives, we must gain control of our time. There are events we can control, but we believe we cannot. Examples: Fear, Stress, Guilt, and Anxiety, Low self-esteem. We then become affected by "conditioning". To gain control, we must plan. Planning is predetermining a course of events. "There is no chance, no destiny, no fate that circumvent, or hinder, or control, the firm resolve of a determined soul." This is a biblical principle - and must be for the good of man. This will ensure "inner peace", or harmony and balance in our lives achieved through appropriate control of events. We change our lives by changing our attitudes and perceptions. How do you perceive life? What is your highest priority? Right now, Make your "List of Values". Go ahead - just start writing them, don't stop, just let the juices flow and write them down. Afterwards, go back and prioritize them - A, B, C, then A1, A2, A3, etc. Now write your Affirmation regarding "A1" which is your highest priority. Do the same for B1 and C1. These are our Governing Values! Your principles and qualities that are of your highest priority. Why do all this? Because: when your behavior is in line with your values, you experience optimal "Event Control". Make your commitment right now. I will spend 10 to 15 minutes/day planning my day! a.) Review long range objectives b.) Evaluate your time versus tasks c.) Prioritize tasks - identify the appropriate value and order of events. d.) Set specific objectives e.) Anticipate obstacles Prioritize Your Daily Task List - [ used to be To Do list ] 1) Make a list of every thing you need to accomplish. 2) Give a value to each item on the list. A. vital B. important, should be done C. could be done today, but can do tomorrow 3) Give a numerical value to each item on the list - A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, etc. ***** USE DISCIPLINE ***** Five Keys to Effective Goal Planning 1. Supported by your governing values. 2. Be constantly aware of Time dimension - your time line - from birth to death. Once its gone - its gone! 3. Clearly and Specifically define your objectives. What is it exactly that you want to accomplish? 4. Balance all your Goals and Objectives - (spiritual/financial/ personal/physical/social/educational) 5. Realistically assess the obstacles, and ask yourself - "Am I willing to Pay the Price?" Remove the obstacles, such as time, money, fear. What are you more committed to - Your Dream OR Reality, as to where you are right now? If; (a) Your Dream/Goals - you should be gravitating towards them. (b) Reality - your FEARS are holding you back. FEAR IS THE NO.1 KILLER OF DREAMS Lock: Projecting fear and doubt into your Dream. Key: Belongs in reality - not the dream. Which one are you more committed to ... Your Dream/Goals OR Reality/Fears ??? *** 7 Essentials of a Good Daily Planner *** 1st. A Yearly Calendar: Month at a Glance - card catalog to the system, can refer to #3 below, [ Sam (8-8-97) ] Use ONLY 1 calendar. 2nd. Place for Daily Task List: Prioritized A, B, C. Also discretionary time, and schedule time for yourself. 3rd. Place for Daily Appt. Schedule: Non discretionary time. Can refer to #1 above. 4th. Place for Daily Notes: Right hand page from #3 above, daily record of vital events. Add extra pages if necessary - have NO Floating Paper!! (this is essential)! 5th. Place for Goals and Values: in order to review, revise and update. 6th. Address and Phone Directory: Only have one - One system. 7th. Flexibility: makes it simple. 3 Keys: a) Have it with you at all times ( when you think of something - write it down ) b) Use only one calendar c) Do Not write on floating pieces of paper anymore. Use Symbols Examples: [checkmark] = Done . = Call initiated, need to call back -> = Forward to future date, forget for now O = Delegation, must receive a [checkmark] or -> X = Deleted task () = Date and time referring to a past event Remember, we all learn by observation, imitation, and repetition. By committing yourself to Event Control - every day, you will gain higher productivity and a higher self-esteem as well. The Order goes like this: Your highest productivity point begins with your daily task list, governed by your Intermediate Goals, governed by your Long Range Goals, governed by your VALUES. Now - did you make that prioritized value list earlier? Be a student - not a follower. Accumulate a library of books, tapes, videos and info on your subject's) of interest. Read a book a week! Invest more in yourself (between your ears) than on your job (Just Over Broke). Become a "Master of the Game". Here's a trick the Pro's use; before you go to sleep, start visualizing your future! DO IT NOW!!! ------------------------------------------------------------- About the author: Stephen R. Renfrow, Creator/Webmaster of the HOME BIZ NETWORK < http://www.homebiznet.nu > The Globe and Mail, Monday, March 20, 2000 Time management makes leisure a growth industry It is a striking fact that leisure no longer increases with income. Those who have more income tend to work longer and harder for it. The new scarcity is time and therefore there are business opportunities in time management. To that end, we offer concepts for the new age: 1. Time architecture: A service that would help individuals reconstruct their days and weeks, set priorities, find time for important activities, and rebalance the 24-hour days from peaks of crises to longer periods when the same work can be done. The business could serve owner/operators who find themselves slaves to their businesses and have almost no personal time. The firm might subcontract to time managers, a.k.a. personal assistants, to manage the time-consuming trivialities of life from running to the dry cleaners to getting the kids to the dentist. Call this one a personal nanny. 2. Home administrators for those who are seldom there: For road warriors who seldom get home, everything from paying bills to washing windows is a serious time challenge. Few professionals can afford full-time maids or butlers, but many could afford a combination administrator/butler who would appear at fixed intervals to do what a resident administrator/owner does. 3. Car fleet management systems for the small business: Multivehicle families are common; keeping the fleet up to warranties, tires inflated, antifreeze checked, body work done, insurance paid. The work is computer-based and administrative and could be sold as a value-added service through tire and battery dealers, auto repair shops, and automobile dealerships. The value to the repair industry is that they can sell their services, to dealers it's making appropriate offers. This is a volume business that would involve low unit cost. If successful, it could be franchised. 4. Purchasing assistants: A development in the consumer's end of the retail world made possible by the rise of firms such as priceline.com, which make it possible to bid for airline tickets through a variety of vendors. Other auction services such as eBay, numerous vertical stores and sites on the web, and the digital catalogues maintained by Land's End and L.L. Bean expand the potential shopping region globally. That's the shopping opportunity, but few people whose time matters will take the time to exploit the global market. That's where purchasing assistants come in. Each assistant could have a sign-up fee and a transaction-based commission based on amount saved in comparison with a local price standard. The market for the service would be buyers from busy professionals to small firms that don't have purchasing departments of their own. 5. Communications management: For the person or business with phones, fax machine, perhaps a cable modem, cell phones, pagers, call forwarding, and portable computing devices with wireline and wireless connections, potential communications costs are large, excess capacity is immense and potential for savings are huge. And while large firms can employ managers to balance capacity and cost, small firms are usually at the mercy of ads, the Yellow Pages and hunches. Into this space, the wise communications consultant can move, charging a fraction of sums saved for a period of months after a system is modified compared to what it was before. Where capacity and cost go up, a different pricing schedule for services may be applied. In the world of optical fibre networks, where capacity is increasing explosively, it will be possible for a single cable to handle every home and most small firms' communications. The problem will be buying services economically from what one can anticipate will be a host of proliferating resellers. 6. Computer recycling: The growing mountain of perfectly sound computing hardware shows that functionality now deteriorates much faster than metal rusts. The world continues to build up mountains of used computers, old servers, printers and peripherals. Of course, the value of an IBM 386 is questionable, for they tend not to be able to handle state-of-the-art applications or to run web applications. But in such functions as intelligent switches for home utilities, complex task scheduling, and small systems telecoms management, the old hardware still works. In this business, the costs of equipment are modest, but the need for ingenuity is high. The potential for whizzy results remain high. And for equipment that can't be turned into something useful, there's always demolition, for computers contain useful amounts of steel, copper and gold. 7. Risk adviser: The down-side of making money as rapidly as possible is ignoring risks of loss. Insurance companies help their larger business clients reduce employee injuries, cut fire losses and reduce lawsuit exposure. Families with substantial homes and small- and medium-sized firms can make use of the same advice, billed on an hourly rate or sold as a value-added benefit to insurance brokers for resale with commission to their clients. 8. High-end coffee bars: The extended lunch hour is going the way of the siesta. What's needed as a replacement is the quiet, restful restaurant where time briefly stands still, where executives can take guests for a chat without losing half an afternoon. The knack: lose the lunch and substitute an elegant coffee hour. To that end, elegant coffee shops would be acceptable venues for serious business. These would not be the familiar franchised coffee bars. Instead, imagine one very different where waiters would wear waist-to-floor aprons, barmen would tend huge copper espresso machines towering over marble counters, and Mozart and Handel would play softly. Behind immaculate display cases there would be chocolate Sachertortes, mocha Doboschtortes and sultry strudels. The trick is to price the product high enough to reflect the costs of turning out the very best coffees and cakes and, incidentally, to maintain a sense of exclusivity. With high margins, modest traffic should produce good returns for investors. Copyright 2000 | The Globe and Mail Visit the globeandmail.com Web Centre for your competitive edge. News: http://www.globeandmail.com Books: http://www.chaptersglobe.com Careers: http://www.globecareers.com Mutual Funds: http://www.globefund.com Stocks: http://www.globeinvestor.com ROB Magazine: http://www.robmagazine.com Technology: http://www.globetechnology.com ROBTv: http://www.robtv.com Wheels: http://www.globemegawheels.com ------------- Onvia.com. Work. Wisely. Onvia.com is the premier e-marketplace for small business and entrepreneurs Find the resources you need to build your business. Check it out. < http://www.onvia.com/canada
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