My Favorite Self-Help Stuff

Okay, here’s another time management article, and part three of the time management guide to various approaches to time management..

This one is on Bill Burns’ approach:

He says there are two types of people: validation incarnations and change incarnations.

The change incarnation people are those for whom the traditional time management systems work nicely. Since they’re also in the majority, that makes it seem like this is the way it should work.

This reminds me of the time when the prevailing “wisdom” insisted on making us all follow a low fat diet, which caused some of us a lot of misery and weight gain.

Now we know that many of us are designed to thrive on a LOW CARB diet, with ample protein, quite a bit of good fat, and as few carbs as possible, other than mostly veggies. And most of us do much better without eating grains too. There goes another sacred cow of nutritionists.

Time management is much the same.

Yes, it works great for Change incarnations.

It causes a lot of grief for the rest of us — the Validation incarnation people.

How so? Because validation incarnation people “function” pretty much exactly the way that’s best in alignment with Abraham Hicks’s teachings.

In fact, I’m sometimes wondering if Abraham Hicks are simply just talking to Validation incarnations, since their teachings are perfect for us. Maybe that’s because it’s really mainly validation incarnation people who are open to that kind of teaching.

And if Bill is right, change incarnations won’t need it — all they have to do is work their plan.

But for validation incarnations… things are different. If they follow their gut, and focus on doing the things that feel right, while feeling good about themselves at all times, things tend to fall into place.

Yet if they push and shove and force themselves to keep up with something they don’t really want to do, they tend to get into trouble.

Now that doesn’t mean they can be irresponsible. They still have to do the regular stuff, but overall, the emphasis is on following your bliss — just like Joseph Campbell used to say., obviously another validation incarnation.

And just as Abraham says.

And once again, Jason’s time management course is really quite compatible with that, if you need to reconcile getting stuff done and following your bliss.

Want to preview some of Jason’s stuff and get a five-part series on overcoming your bad habits? Just click here: Overcome Procrastination.

Want to know more about Bill Burns?

Just click on his name above and check out his stuff. The guy is brilliant!

And under the downloadable mp3 section, you’ll find a program on Validation and Change incarnations. I highly recommend that if you find the above at all interesting. And tell him you read about it on my blog (i.e., Elisabeth Kuhn’s blog).

Anyway, it’s time to chill, isn’t it.

Have a fantastic day.

Elisabeth Kuhn

P.S.: Want to know if you’re a validation or a change incarnation? Here’s a quick test:

1) Have some of the best things in your life come to you out of the blue?
2) Does planning often lead to disaster or get you stuck in a place you’re not happy with?
3) Did the above speak to you?
4) Do things work best for you when you feel good about yourself?

If you answered Yes to most (or all of the above), you can pretty much count on it. If you answered no, you should probably think about your answers a bit harder since most change incarnation people would have stopped reading this post long ago.

If you’d like more info, check out Bill Burns’ downloadable audio lecture on validation and change incarnations (fifth one down in the list). It’s fantastic! And no, this is not an affiliate link. Tell him I sent you if you want to give me credit for helping you find his material.

I promised you a time management article or post on alternative approaches to time management. So here goes:

Here’s Abraham Hicks:

Their most famous approach is the Place Mat Process:

Here is how it works:

You write down your to-do list (if you haven’t already).

Then, you take a big sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle and write a REASONABLE number of items on the left side, underneath the heading “Things I am going to do TODAY.”

Make sure there are only enough things that you can comfortably finish. No pushing yourself.

Then, on the other side, you write the heading, “Things for the Universe to do”

And write everything else underneath that heading.

Okay, I know, this may sound a bit crazy, BUT…

You’re human. You can only do what you can do, and there’s no point in pushing yourself beyond that or for feeling bad about the fact that you can’t do it all.

The thing is that a considerable number of those things you have assigned to Universe will be done by the Universe, one way or another.

And the next day, you go over the list, look on the Universe’s side to see whicfh one of those you want to tackle that day, and put them on your own side.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Here’s the thinking behind this exercise:

Things go MUCH better when you’re feeling good and well-rested. Otherwise, you’re just sabotaging yourself. Your vibrations will be off-kilter.

In fact, in other places in the Abraham books, they focus even more directly on the feel good “mandate.”

I just read an older book and was stunned at the clear instructions there — even easier than the placemat process. If you’re stressed or overwhelmed, the first item of the agenda must be to get to a better feeling place. No ifs and buts here.

So then, what do you do?

Here’s a cool line from a famous poem by David Wagoner:

LOST

What do you do when you’re lost in the forest?

Stand still.

The trees ahead, the bushes beside you are not lost.
Wherever you are is called here…

It’s a powerful poem, in his collection “Traveling Light”

It’s also recited frequenty by David Whyte and others.

The point of it is that when you’re overwhelmed and lost, stand still.

Abraham recommends to stop, back up to a place where you feel good,
then start over from that good feeling place.

Now I realize this is almost the antithesis of traditional time management, where it’s all about beating yourself up and sticking with your agenda etc.

But give it a try.

As I mentioned in the other post, when I’m tired I’m hugely less effective. When I’m stressed, I’m practically non-functional. So the agenda has to be to get some rest, and to get rid of the stress.

For the stress thing, check out my free stress tips report or my free eft ebook (and my not quite so free ebook that right now comes with a special stress relief hypnosis audio bonus).

And for a time management approach that focuses on the feel good thing, try Jason’s outstanding time management course.

I was going to write about Bill Burns’ approach too, but that would make this time management article too long, so I’ll write another post

Enjoy your day

Do you have too much to do? And far more than you have time to do it in?

Chances are, the answer is yes. And the result — Time Management Stress Big Time!

In this post, I’ll go over a variety of approaches that you might find helpful — and some of them are quite contrarian.

I’ll skip the truly traditional approaches, but will give you a resource for one that is taking it to the next level: Brian Tracy — the big guru of high performance action:

21 Great Ways to Manage Your Time and Double Your Productivity

That’s a good way to get started, and it complements some of the other things I’ll suggest. Tracy does believe in those charts and cschedules, but he lets you draw up your own. He teaches a whole philosophy around it, which, he says, should be internalized.

He strongly believes in focusing on the highest pay-off tasks, and includes positive self-talk, modeling, visualization and other such techniques.

Then, there’s my friend Jason Fladlien’s approach, which is VERY heavy on the carrot side of the carrot and stick approach, and will transform how you’ve been thinking about time management. In fact, where Tracy uses the 80/20 technique (focusing on the hightst pay-off tasks), Jason takes that principle to a whole new level.

He includes lots of principles from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), but gives it his own twist, and manages to double, triple, and in some cases even quadruple people’s productivity, much of it by taking away resistance and ambiguity and helping them to get super motivated to tackle whatever it is that needs to get done.

When Jason put it together, he had especially internet marketers in mind as his primary audience. There’s a reason for that. That’s what he knows really well, that’s what his clients do, and that’s where there are a LOT of built-in obstacles to productivity, yet without producing you won’t get anywhere, especially not there.

And internet marketing is filled with distractions. All those enticing emails with the “next big thing”… And then, of course, there’s the “day job” that also requires attention.

That’s why his program includes a bonus called “Day Job Annihilator” that will help replace the money from the day job quickly.

Is this course only for internet marketers? Of course not. It’s great for any professional who works under a lot of pressure, especially time pressure, and who struggles with procrastination and difficulty deciding what to do first and next.

I’ve found his course very helpful — in fact, I’m IN the course. I was one of the people in the original webinar, which is also included. That’s where Jason went in and gave people some laser coaching on how to overcome their biggest time challenges. The guy is brilliant!

Click the following link to find out more about Jason’s Time Management approach.

Both those approaches have to do with increasing your productivity, and they both help.

Next time, I’ll talk about a couple of other approaches that will approach this issue from a rather different angle.

In the meantime though, don’t overdo the productivity thing. If you’re tired, you’re not going to be productive. If you’re stressed, you’re not going to be able to do good work. So it has to be a priority to take care of yourself FIRST.

Take a nap. Get help with stress management so you can tackle your deadlines and tasks with a refreshed body and mind. Trust me, you’ll be MUCH more effective.

Quick case in point — if I have to grade papers, one particular paper might take me 5 to 10 minutes of focused attention, which will allow me to read it, understand what needs to be done to improve it, and write a few comments to help the writer to upgrade it significantly.

If I’m tired, that same paper will take me half an hour OR MORE — because I end up reading and rereading it and my brain simply won’t cooperate. Should I struggle on? Absolutely not.

Getting through a stack of 10 papers will take me 5 hours or more, and the feedback will be far less useful than it would have been if I had been well-rested and could have done the job in an hour and a half, or maybe two.

So if you’re tired, go take a nap! And if you’re stressed, listen to a stress relief hypnosis CD or do some deep breathing or any number of other techniques designed to relieve that stress.

More next time

Elisabeth

Oops. I just noticed that I said would write “tomorrow” and now it’s almost two weeks later. Should have set up a reminder note.

Here’s Roger Mellott’s Pie Theory though (it’s all about energy).

You know how you sometimes are too tired to do much of anything? And just because there’s time left in the day and you feel like you really OUGHT to get some more stuff done, you just can’t bring yourself to do any of it?

And you beat yourself up about it?

I’ve been there. Still am. But at least I know Roger’s pie theory — and once I remember, I go easier on myself. And do you realize how much energy it takes to beat up on yourself? Just eliminating THAT helps enormously.

So here’s the theory:

He basically uses a pie as the metaphor for the amount of energy we have every day. Each of us gets a pie a day. And before you get all worked up about those people who seem to have boundless energy…

Pies come in different sizes — we dn’t all get the same size pie, and not always the same size pie every day either.

Some days, it’s a huge pie (oh, how I love those days), and some days the pie is the size of a dinner mint (Roger’s words). And we use up just to get out of bed. Been there too.

And so we need to be conscious of how we spend our pie/energy and not waste any (or at lesat not too much) on things that aren’t worth it.

Like arguing with people who are just not going to get it anyway. Or beating up on ourselves for not having the energy to do whatever.

I think that realization alone is helpful.

Can we replenish our pie? Yes. We can rest. We can do things that “feed” us. We can do things that make us happy. We can do things that feed our physical bodies with things that they need to work really well.

But the biggest things that give us pie is to do things that make us happy. To be excited about life. And accept that some days, we may not have as much energy as we would like — and use what we’ve got prudently.

What does that have to do with time management? A lot.

Especially when you approach time management like my friend and mentor Jason (see http://www.IMTimeMastery.com for more info on that).

And what about energy? I’ve recently come across a new way to approach weight management along with time management, and one of the things that inspired my interest in this particular approach is that it promised to give more energy after a few weeks.

And no, not because of any stimulants — there aren’t any, except for the occasional cup of Java. I’m going to work on my weight loss program review site to finally get it set up properly, and this is the first diet that I’m going to review in depth. If you’re curious, you can check out that program here:
http://www.myweightlossprogramreview.com/eodd.php

And my review site (soon) here:

www.myweightlossprogramreview.com

Once I have figured out how to set it up properly, you’ll be able to vote and leave feedback on the various diet plans.

But I’ve gotten a bit side-tracked here. This was supposed to be about energy. And even though lugging lots fewer pounds around presumably should increase energy levels, so let’s leave it at that for now.

Wishing you a very energetic day!

Elisabeth

P.S.: What do you think about Roger or his Pie Theory? Do YOU ever run out of energy? Leave a comment please! If you do, I might share a few more techniques by Roger

Hello all,

what happened to my self help blog? Maybe you’ve been wondering… Have I been procrastinating?

Truth is, I got swamped. I mean way beyond swamped. Somehow several major “engagements” all came together at the same time, and I was scrambling and begging forgiveness left and right, trying to postpone whatever could be postponed. And no, that doesn’t really fit the regular meaning of procrastination. (hmm, I think I’ll write about that sometime soon too).

What does all of that teach me about time management though? Other than put it in my calendar and beware of making commitments too far into the future?

This: There’s only so much time in the day and so much energy in me. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.

I actually learned that a long time ago — from one of my favorite teachers, the late Roger Mellott. I was going through a very stressful time then too, and was beating up on myself because I seemed to “procrastinate” just about all the time.

I mean, the evening wasn’t half over yet and I had a translation job to do. So why the heck didn’t I do it? Well… yes, there was time left in the day, but there was no more energy left in me. I simply could not do it. I was so tired I couldn’t get off of my bed if I tried. And my brain refused to cooperate as far as the translation went.

I felt that way the last few weeks at times… And I remembered Roger.

He had this brilliant theory — the pie theory of energy management. If you’ve been reading my newsletter, you’ve probably read about it. But if not, I’ll introduce you to it right here, again.

Tomorrow

For now, all I want to say is — it was a life-saver.

Meanwhile, I do have another trick up my sleeve, this one related to Time Management.. It has helped me make myself way more productive. Probably doubled my speed with which I can get stuff done. And it helps give me energy when I need it, plus focus, and more.

Still, I’m human, and my mind can always visualize way more than physical me can get done.

So anyway, please check back tomorrow to read about Roger’s Pie Theory and how it relates to time management.

Have a great evening.

Elisabeth

And here’s a related blog post on time management.

Take time off for stress relief? Absolutely! The core of any stress relief or stress management program is to take some time off periodically. But those of us who have our own businesses find exactly that VERY difficult at times. We feel like we constantly have to keep all the balls in the air — and continue marketing as well, or else, our business will just evaporate.

And that can cause problems. Burnout for once. Or just exhaustion, or disenchantment. We might wish it would all just go away. I’ve been there, and the horrible thing is that our wishes tend to become true.

A few years back, I was getting very burned out from working double shifts — running a business in addition to my more than full-time job, and within weeks, my business went POOF!

It was weird. All my clients suddenly disappeared and/or no longer needed my services. One person moved away. So did another one — completely unrelated to the first one. Another became pregnant and no longer wanted to continue with my services.

Yet another didn’t like the way I had handled the increase in my fees (which was my mistake, I admit, and I did learn a lesson there), but somehow, I believe the timing was just too uncanny for this to have been an accident.

Meanwhile, I have learned about the Law of Attraction, and if this wasn’t the law of attraction in action, I don’t know what is.

So what should we do? Give ourselves a break! But what about the marketing?

Well, there’s this teleseminar coming up that will give you a great answer. It will give you strategies you can put in place right away that will help you grow your business even if you’re spending some time at the beach or in the park with your loved ones, or playing golf!

Sound too good to be true? It’s not.

Success coach Sue Clement is doing what she preaches — she’s taking multi-week vacations while her business keeps on going, and growing. And she’ll show you how you can do the same.

Where? When?

Wednesday at noon Pacific or 2 p.m. Central time, or 3 p.m. EST

Go to http://www.sueclement.com/teleseminar.html to sign up. And yes, even if you can’t make that time. Or even if you get this information after the teleseminar is already over. Because if you sign up, you’ll get access to all the information afterwards, including the downloadable mp3!

You just can’t get your questions answered… so IF you CAN make it live, it’ll be worth your while to make the effort.

Anyway, in the interest of maintaining your health and sanity — and keeping your business humming along, I highly recommend that you check out Sue’s teleseminar. I bet you’ll enjoy it and will get some VERY useful information from it.

Take Time off Teleseminar

Not all stress comes from lack of time.  There are plenty of other things we stress about all the time, from money to relationships to having to give a presentation at work.

But not having enough time is just about guaranteed to cause stress.  So stress management and time management are definitely closely related.

So what do you do when you have too much on your plate?  There’s only so much you really CAN do. And wearing yourself out by overworking leaves you with no place to go when a “real” crisis comes up.

There are two sides to this: the stress, and the time.  What you want is tools for both of them.  You need a way to ratchet down the stress so you can think more clearly, and then address the time issues.

For stress, you have many options.  You could get my free stress tips report and use some of the tips, or you could get the real thing: My Instant Stress Relief Strategies Resource Guide to stress busting strategies.

That guide hands you a series of strategies from which you can pick and choose.  Experiment, try some out, and see what works especially well for you.

And once you have gotten some stress management tools at your disposal, you can tackle the real issue: Not enough time.

Or rather, trying to cram too much into the time you have. And that often comes from trying to please too many people all at once.

So how to get around that? Well, you may have heard about the 80/20 rule.  And that’s a good start.  But what is part of the 20% that you ought to be doing?

This is where my favorite time management course comes in.  It helps you figure out what to do, how to do it quickly and efficiently, and how make the most of your time.

One of the biggest problems in time management is procrastination. That’s where this program really shines.

And most procrastination has to do with insecurity or indecision. It will show you how to make decisions quickly.  It also teaches you how to quickly make yourself feel more confident (there’s some NLP involved).

And, with the tools that are in this course, it will help you get a tremendous amount done in record time as you cut through procrastination like it was butter on a warm summer day.

So check it out.  It may be just what the time doctor ordered

http://www.IMTimeMastery.com

And here’s another blog post on time management.

Do you know the Abraham-Hicks Placemat Process?

It’s the most amazing tool you could possibly have in your tool box when you often feel overwhelmed by to-do lists. It works wonders for giving you stress relief.

The fact is, we lead linear lives.  No matter how skilled we may think we are at multi-tasking, we can only be in one place at the same time.  And we really can only do one task properly at each moment.

We may be able to alternate our attention back and forth, and sometimes this may be necessary, but for most of us it increases stress and for some of us it gets us nowhere fast.

So what’s the placemat process? It’s based on the idea that we can only do so much and still be effective, and that we don’t really have to do all of it. There’s a force out there greater than us that helps us out.

Have you ever noticed that some things you just didn’t get to seemed to take care of themselves in miraculous ways? Or they didn’t seem all that important anymore? Or you got a chance to do them much later and it was okay?

Those are all signs that something greater than us is helping us and guiding our subconscious.  The main thing is that we must stop stressing. And the placemat process helps with that.

Here are the instructions:

Get a big piece of paper (placemat size works well):

Draw a line down the middle.

Write a reasonable number of items that you MUST get done today on the left side. Title that section: Things I will do today.

Write everything else that you think you ought to get done etc. on the other side. Title that section: Things I’m turning over to the universe.

And then just do the things on your list.

Also keep track of how many of the Universe’s list will get done. You may be surprised.

You can read about the Abraham Hicks placemat process in “Ask and it is given” by Jerry and Esther Hicks, and in many other of their publications.

If you’re in internet marketing or another fast-paced line of work where you feel like you have to get a tremendous amount done, you may also want to check out

http://www.IMTimeMastery.com

It’s written by a former Buddhist monk, it’s quite amazing, and I’m very excited to be able to offer it to you:

http://www.IMTimeMastery.com

If you want more traditional advice, you can also sign up for my FREE time management tips series:

http://www.IMTimeManagement.info

But don’t forget — there’s only one you and you need to take care of yourself, which includes pacing yourself and allowing yourself rest when you need it, to be able to do what you need to do and to fulfill your destiny.

Have a wonderful and relaxed day, and do give the placemat process a go if you haven’t already.
You may find it’s the greatest stress management tool you’ll have ever found.  Because much stress comes from time “running away from us” and us trying to keep up.

Elisabeth, aka Dr. K

And here’s a related blog post on time management.

Looks like at the moment my self help blog is focusing in on the time management theme.  And the interesting thing is that once you think about something, you come across a lot of related things.

And so I came across Jonathan Mead’s blog, which you should check out:

http://zenhabits.net/2009/04/seven-productivity-tips-for-people-that-hate-gtd/comment-page-2/#comment-65802

I’m not going to repeat all his seven tips here, but just a few notes to whet your appetite:

Create a list of things you should stop!  And related to this point, stop caring about things that don’t matter.

Go through your daily to do list and think about which of these things you either hate doing or simply don’t have to do.  Find a way to get them out of your life.

And he also has a very interesting answer to perfectionism! 

Isn’t perfectionism responsible for so much procrastination? If I find myself with writer’s block, that’s what’s usually at its core.

In fact, Anne Lamott came up with a great term that probably helped generations of students overcome the fear of the blank sheet of paper:

“Shitty first drafts”  — yep, that’s exactly how she called it.

The whole idea is to get stuff on the paper and not worry about whether it’s any good.  Once it’s there, you can make it better.  But before it’s there, what are you gonna do?  Stare at your blank sheet of paper?  Or, these days, your blank screen?

And that applies to just about everything.  Sure, we won’t always be really good when we do something for the first time, but once we start doing it, we may be surprised.  And if not, and if it turns out we hate it, there’s always that list about things you should stop!

Of course, his article isn’t all about stopping things.  He also has a few points about how to turbo-charge the way you do the things you actually do — the things that matter!

Anyway, I’ve got some stuff to do

Comments?  I’d love to know what you think.

Elisabeth

P.S.:  guess where I found out about this article?  Twitter!

Wanna follow me?  http://twitter.com/ElisabethKuhn

And here’s a related blog post on abraham-hicks and time management.

Yes, here’s a FREE Time Management E-Course.  It’s a self help blog gift for you. I just dug that up and am happy to be able to offer it to you.  Is it as amazing as the one I’m selling below?  It’s different. It’s quite a bit more traditional. But then, it’s also free, so why not check it out…

FREE Time Management E-Course

I love the little video (my favorite scene comes within just a few seconds into the video).  Let’s see if you can guess what it is…

Leave a comment if you can

But if you want the real thing, the amazing Jason’s course AND if you want to get some of my personal surprise specials to go along with it, go here instead:

Deluxe Time Management Course

It’s not THAT expensive either.  I mean, imagine how much you’d pay for a personal assistant to help free up some time for you.  For just an hour or two of that, you can get that course, which will free up hundreds and thousands of hours over the course of a year.

And lower your stress to boot.  Which is what I as a self help blogger am very much in favor of.

Next time, a(nother) post about my favorite contrarian time management and stress reduction (and Law of Attraction) technique…

Have a fantastic day!

Elisabeth

And here’s a related blog post on time management.