3 Secrets to Becoming and Remaining Productive

There are three things that work against your productivity and personal development are procrastination, interruptions, and distractions. 

Here they are described and what you can do about them: 

1. Procrastinations

Procrastinations often arise because psychologically you don't want to do the task and consequently you keep putting it off and wreck your productivity. You either perceive the task as being too difficult, too aggravating, too provoking or all three and try to avoid doing it. 

However, avoidance is not the solution and the longer you put it off, the more anxious you will become. 

The solution is psychological in nature. 

You need to relax, visualize the most positive and constructive outcome you can, and then focus on the steps necessary to make the outcome a reality. Take the steps and then be pleasantly surprised at what happens.

2. Interruptions

Interruptions can be phone calls, someone wanting a face-to-face meeting with you, or any unanticipated event. Interruptions, however, can be prevented. If you're working at home consider structuring your day and vow to stick to your structure. 

Break your day down into time/task segments. For example, if according to your body clock, you are typically alert and do your best mentally challenging work early in the morning, schedule the first hour of the morning to do your research and writing if you work requires that. 

Then, schedule your organizing and filing at the end of the day. The hours in the late mornings and mid afternoons can be allocated for meetings, phone calls, appointments and lunch breaks.

3. Distractions

Distractions are the result of an undisciplined mind. Distractions principally happen as a matter of choice. 

You can choose to be distracted by playing useless computer games, dwelling on the argument you had with your friend or spouse, or engaging in some idle chatting instead of focusing on your tasks.

While procrastinations are also a matter of choice, distractions are even more so. 

Procrastinations might indeed be associated with having to deal with an unsavory experience such as revealing some bad news to someone, or just not doing something you just don't want to do but has to be done. 

Distractions on the other hand tend to result from an idle mind - a mind without a focus. Choosing to focus and act on constructive tasks with a strong desire to do so until you complete them eliminates distractions.

Your personal development as well as your productivity depends upon you clearly identifying these three culprits and taking the steps to eliminate them.

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10 More Time Management Tips for the Busy Single Parent

When you manage something, you direct or control the use of it. Although you cannot direct time,
you can certainly control your use of it. All of us have the same amount of time, but how we use it, has a significant effect on the success we experience in life.

Time management does not involve any secret principles. Rather it involves setting priorities, organizing your life according to those priorities, making a commitment to keeping them, and enjoying the journey along the way with less stress and more accomplishments.

Here are the 10  more simple and easy time management tips.

1. Do it immediately. If a task can be completed in less than a minute, do it on the spot. So instead of putting the glasses and dishes in the sink and walking away, Wash them right away. Get it over with.

2. Organize your documents. Learn how to organize your documents and photos on your home or work computer. Consider the many free photo organizing applications and the organizing features in your word processing applications and use one or more of them.

3. Purge your email of all unnecessary messages. Get serious about it.

4. Organize your bookmarks. Determine the categories that are important to you and set them up.

5. Count to ten when you feel snowed under by clutter and general disorder, Just putting things back in their rightful place including the trash can. And always have a bag ready for thrift store donations.

6. Organize and file your junk email. Establish at least two new email accounts. Use one for all the retail and internet, promotions you want to receive, and for your shopping. The other email account should be for your relatives, friends, and urgent emails. Visited these accounts three times a week and dispatch everything you don’t want to save into the recycle bin.

7. Cook more rice than you need for your today’s meal. Use leftovers for spanish rice, fried rice, red beans and rice, or other good rice recipes.

8. Organize your bookshelves. You may find a favorite book that you just totally forgot to read or that you can benefit from rereading. Others you may just decide to donate.

9. Recycle instantly. Keep waste baskets in strategic spots around your home, and deposit junk mail, and unwanted catalogs in them. Buy a shredder and remember to shred anything with sensitive information.

10. And, finally, start your day smart. Begin your day with a healthy and delicious breakfast. Consider oatmeal, fruit, and raisin toast, an omelet, grits, and wheat toast, a raisin toast sandwich of your choice of jam and cream cheese and a piece of fruit. Or if you prefer something even lighter, how about raising toast, and cottage cheese with fruit. Reduce or eliminate the amount of meat you eat for breakfast. You’ll be more alert and have more energy.


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10 More Time Management Tips for Busy Single Parents

Do What You Love

When you manage something, you direct or control the use of it. Although you cannot direct time, you can certainly control your use of it. All of us have the same amount of time, but how we use it, has a significant effect on the success we experience in life.

Time management does not involve any secret principles. Rather it involves setting priorities, organizing your life according to those priorities, making a commitment to keeping them, and enjoying the journey along the way with less stress and more accomplishments. 

Here are the 10 simple and easy time management strategies. 

1. Do it immediately. If a task can be completed in less than a minute, do it on the spot. So instead of putting the glasses and dishes in the sink and walking away, Wash them right away. Get it over with. 

2. Organize your documents. Learn how to organize your documents and photos on your home or work computer. Consider the many free photo organizing applications and the organizing features in your word processing applications and use one or more of them.

3. Purge your email of all unnecessary messages. Get serious about it. 

4. Organize your bookmarks. Determine the categories that are important to you and set them up. 

5. Count to ten when you feel snowed under by clutter and general disorder, Just putting things back in their rightful place including the trash can. And always have a bag ready for thrift store donations. 

6. Organize and file your junk email. Establish at least two new email accounts. Use one for all the retail and internet, promotions you want to receive, and for your shopping. The other email account should be for your relatives, friends, and urgent emails. Visited these accounts once a week and dispatch everything you don’t want to save into the recycle bin. 

7. Cook more rice than you need for your today’s meal. Use leftovers for spanish rice, fried rice, red beans and rice, or other good rice recipes. 

8. Organize your bookshelves. You may find a favorite book that you just totally forgot to read or that you can benefit from rereading. Others you may just decide to donate. 

9. Recycle instantly. Keep waste baskets in strategic spots around your home, and deposit junk mail, and unwanted catalogs in them. Buy a shredder and remember to shred anything with sensitive information. 

10. And, finally, start your day smart. Begin your day with a healthy and delicious breakfast. Consider oatmeal, fruit, and raisin toast, an omelet, grits, and wheat toast, a raisin toast sandwich of your choice of jam and cream cheese and a piece of fruit. Or if you prefer something even lighter, how about raising toast, and cottage cheese with fruit. Reduce or eliminate the amount of meat you eat for breakfast. You’ll be more alert and have more energy.

11 Time Management Tips for the Busy Single Parent

A wise man once said that counting time is not so important as making time count. Good time management and making time count is a must for busy single parents. While there are many books and articles on time management, here are 11 time management tips, boiled down, that I believe you will find useful:

1. If you feel that you don't have time to complete things, break the job into smaller units. No time to read a book, set aside 15 minutes a day to read a few pages or a chapter, or better yet, try a short story.

2. Once you determine exactly what is most important to accomplish any given day, do not allow yourself to be interrupted until it is done. Don't take calls, don't take a coffee break, and don't put in that load of wash. Do what you have to do, and then get on to other things.

3. Making lists is a crucial way to organize your life and keep things simple. But always make a list you know you can accomplish. At the end of the day you will feel good about what you've done rather than overwhelmed by which you haven't done. Failure can be exhausting.

4. Keep a list of short calls you need to make (such as calls to arrange appointments) and make them early in the day. You can cross off several "to do" items from the list - and start your day off right.

5. Every now and then you will think of someone you haven't spoken to in a long time and have an impulse to call. However, if it's too late, write those names down and you'll be more likely to get to them.

6. Don't over schedule your children. Children (and adults for that matter), need downtime to do absolutely nothing. This kind of downtime is every bit as important as piano lessons, Little League, and gymnastics. Maybe even more so.

7. Telephone calls are something we all could do a lot less of - - so set certain times of the day when you simply don't answer the phone. Use that time to cook dinner in a peaceful, mindful way, or just hang out with your family.

8. Think about the people you spent time with on the phone or in person. How many of those relationships seem fulfilling? How many feel like habits? Think about time as a valuable commodity, and don't waste it in company that isn't pleasing.

9. Consider not making social plans for more than two weekends in a row. It's important to give yourself time every now and then on the weekend to have no plans. If you feel like pulling something together at the last minute, you can always do it

10. Whenever possible, take your children along on errands instead of arranging childcare. It is educational for them, and it can make a dull task interesting. Of course some errands are fun with children in tow, but others are nearly impossible.

11. Set your alarm clock for a half hour early every morning, and think of that time as all yours. Lie in the bed, listen to the radio, meditate, exercise, soak in the tub, or do whatever you need to do to prepare yourself for the day ahead.


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10 Ways to Read for Personal Growth

If you are like most people you have to read a lot of material, at home or at work, just to keep from getting buried in paper. 

Considering all the reading materials you get and the demands on your time during the  course of a day, if you read all this information word for word, you'll wind up spending all your time reading and not have time for anything else.

These 10 Ways to Read for Personal Growth will help you to experience reading, not as a chore to be put off as long as you can, but as an enjoyable and satisfying skill.

1. Take at least one minute to review the material before reading it. First, skim to get a feel of what the piece contains, then the introductory material, section and chapter titles, index, and any other signposts. Next, treat the body of the text as a series of paragraphs, each paragraph being a self-contained unit with his own message to convey.

2. Read by paragraph. As soon as you have grasped the message, move immediately onto the next paragraph and repeat the process.

3. Become an active, rather than a passive reader. Instead of reading individual words, actively search out the important, descriptive, and meaningful ideas. Don't get bogged down in details. Move rapidly over the material.

4. Develop the knack of concatenation (linking two things together). Stop reading one word at a time and develop the habit of joining several words and repeating them as one unit. Learn to read by thought units rather than by individual words. You should take in between four and six words in a single glance.

5. Don't linger or reread words, phrases, or sentences. As difficult as it may be to break this non-productive habit, doing so will pay tremendous dividends. One way you can do this is to place a small slip of paper over the lines you have just read.

6. If your time permits, read at least one hour every day. Break it up into 20 minute segments, if necessary, and both select your reading materials carefully and read at optimum speed. Get rid of distractions and concentrate on what you are reading.

7. Eliminate poor physical habits such as sounding out the words in silent reading.

8. Watch for the signpost in reading. Signposts are words or phrases which tell you in a split second whether there's going to be an abrupt change in the author's trend of thought or whether, on the contrary, the writer is really going to add more details to what is already been said. 

Some of the common turn about signals are: but, despite, on the contrary, however, nonetheless, yet, and rather. When you see these words you know instantaneously that the author is about to introduce a thought that is in opposition to the one he has just stated.

9. While you shouldn't sacrifice comprehension for speed, make a conscious effort to increase your reading speed. Still, make sure you understand what you are reading.

10.Reinforce what you read. At the earliest opportunity, think back on what you learned in your last reading session. Review the important points and any related information relayed by the author.

To make it easy, here are five questions you can ask yourself about what you read, 
What was the piece about? 
What important information was presented? 
What, if any, opinions did the writer present? 
What is your opinion of the piece? 
Name one element of the piece that makes it stand apart. 

This procedure helps to firmly implant the information in your memory.


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