Monday 31 March 2008

Where does the time go?

I have far too much to do and not enough time. Where has the day gone? I’ve not stopped all day but I don’t know what I’ve achieved. I feel guilty because I haven’t spent much time with my family. The long bank holiday weekend was great, but now I’ve got to do twice at much this week!

Do these sayings ring true with you? I've been looking at how we can manage our time to work efficiently and keep stress levels down.

Time Management is not about how we manage time, but how we manage and organise ourselves. Like any other skill it takes practice and repetition, until it becomes a habit.

Your own priorities, whatever they are (even the boring ones!), need focused attention. This way you are in control of your work not the other way around. The key to working efficiently, and keeping stress levels down, is to be focused. It’s that simple. What we focus our attention on is what we’ll achieve.

You can determine what you need to do each day, instead of drifting along and going with the flow. You will learn to do what you decide to do, not what you seem to end up doing.

Here’s a challenge - just before you go to bed, write down two things that you have decided to do the next day. And do them! No procrastination, no excuses, no new priorities.

It’s best to make sure these tasks are achievable, but a little stretching. They must also be relevant to your business or current goals. This does not mean that these are the only tasks you do tomorrow. But you definitely do these, as well as whatever else you are doing.

Over time you build up the difficulty and the number of tasks. When you have mastered two tasks, then two more challenging tasks, then two yet more challenging tasks, you set three tasks, then three more challenging tasks and so on. Be patient though, as doing this effectively is like building muscle. You should build gradually at a pace that is right for you.

The end goal is to get to the point where you can list all of the tasks you will do next day, knowing for sure that you will achieve them all - no matter what!

P.S. A great book for anyone who has a tendency to put things off is ‘Eat That Frog’ by Brian Tracy.

Tuesday 25 March 2008

Back to work

It’s been a fabulous Easter weekend with all the family here. We got out early on Sunday morning and started building our snowmen - in fact we ended up with a whole snow family! A couple of long walks around the village gave us all a huge appetite and we managed to do some justice to all the chocolate eggs.

But today it’s back to reality and putting the finishing touches to the Coaching Workshop which takes place next week (3 April) in Rutland. The venue we chose is Whitwell, which is a really inspiring learning and development venue, right on the banks of Rutland Water. I love running these workshops as I enjoy seeing people understand the power of coaching and how it can impact them, their businesses and their lives.

Monday 17 March 2008

Spring is here

Here I am in Keble College, Oxford (for the BIFM conference), surrounded by daffodils. The view from my room reminds me of my favourite poem:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Have a wonderful Easter, spring is here and summer isn't far away!

Friday 14 March 2008

The soundtrack to our lives

I was listening to the radio yesterday as an ageing rocker shared his favourite tracks. This got me thinking about the soundtrack to my life, those songs that capture a moment in time. ‘Vienna’, the song I had my first slow dance to, aged 14, with Roger, who wore a brown leather jacket! ‘Jerusalem’, one of the hymns we chose for Dad’s funeral, a tune which used to make me cry, but now just brings back lovely memories. ‘Truly’, by Lionel Ritchie; that was our first dance as a married couple.

So, last night I dug out some old vinyls, wired up the PC and put them all onto my Ipod. I laughed, cried, and cringed at some of the tracks, and realised just how strong they are as ‘anchors’ – they take us right back to that moment in time, and also enable us to reconnect instantly with the emotions we experienced, good or bad.

So this morning I deleted all the ‘bad stuff’ and just left those tracks that bring joyous feelings. I was even dancing to ‘Disco Inferno’ at breakfast time – what will the neighbours think?!

Why not spend an evening going through your music collection – put together the soundtrack to your life, focus on the great memories and emotions; put them on your Ipod and then you can access those great feelings anytime you need.

And what am I listening to right now? I hold my head up with pride as I tell you, ‘Shang a Lang’ by the Bay City Rollers – I can picture those dreadful trousers right now!

If music be the food of love, play on…