Six Sigma Blogs

Andy Dufresne, a character from the movie, The Shawshank Redemption, says, “Either get busy living or get busy dying.”

Today, let’s dissect this one little quote so that you can get an understanding of its magnitude and see how it can change the course of your future! We’re sure you can think of a dozen quotes that communicate the viewpoint of this concept as well, but we like this one.

“I can’t. I’m busy.” Are these familiar to you? Do you use them as an excuse not to get started on a new opportunity? The first question that you should ask yourself is, “What am I busy doing?” Do you know the difference between being active and being productive? A-HA! Had you thought of that before? It’s absolutely clear that this question is the single most critical one in our journey. Sure, you’ve been “busy” in your life or career but now you can look back and decide if you’ve been busy or productive. If you’ve been “busy,” you have a chance now to become productive instead.

Most people give these terms, “busy” and “productive,” a similar meaning - to them, it translates as, “getting things done.” However, there is a difference and it’s found in what we are getting done. Being “productive” means getting things done that NEED to be done in order to move forward. Being “busy” is simply getting things done with no regard to priority or importance.

Life contains polar opposites. Without them, we wouldn’t know what anything was. Things expand or shrink, moves forwards or backwards, in or out. If you aren’t moving your life forward; expanding, growing, progressing, then you’re dying.

The difference between “busy” and “productive” lays the groundwork of understanding the quote above. Either you are moving your life forward or you’re not … either you are busy living or busy dying!

Have you kept yourself busy with relatively unimportant work so as not to have to get dirty with the seemingly enormous tasks that would have the most impact on your life? Learn to differentiate between actions that keep you “busy” and those that make you “productive.” Don’t justify your decision by saying, “These things have to be done too”, or “I will just get this stuff out of the way first.”

Often it is the things we don’t do that ultimately have the largest impact on our businesses, careers or families. You will delay the achievements of the things you claim to be important to you by not getting your productive tasks completed first. If you took an honest look, would you say this has been true for you?

There came a point when we chose to make a different decision. We decided that each action required the question, “Does doing this keep us busy or productive?” We learned through this process that we were making conscious decisions. We were thoughtful about what we were putting our time into, and let us tell you, it’s had a HUGE impact on our lives. Who knew it could be so simple?

What do you want to do? Write a book? Submit an invention? Pursue a new career? You know what it is that would have an impact on your life and move it forward. If you don’t know, take a moment to consider the answer.

Have you thought about it over and over? What held you back? Why did you choose inaction over action? Were you too busy? Too scared of the unknown? Today is a new day. What is your decision today? Take a look at what you want; what are you going to do now? It’s just that simple. Make a decision.

When you decide to do, then everything becomes focused on the outcome. There is no busy work or excuses that you’ll allow to stand in your way. There’s no time to waste. When it’s a commitment to your life, nothing stands in the way of following through. Be empowered. You are productive and best of all, you are moving forward with your LIFE! You are busy living!

YOU NEVER GET TODAY AGAIN! Anything short of spending productive time on your life is time being wasted. You will never get it back. “Busy work” is “busy dying.” You have a choice and you can’t do both.

The only time to LIVE is right NOW! There is only one time that exists and that is NOW! This very instant you have a choice to “be productive” and live or to “be busy” and lose this time in your life forever.

Were you aware that it’s a choice? It is! It is yours and yours alone to make, but rest assured you can choose whatever it is you want. As our friend Mary Morrissey always says, “It is your life, make it a great one.”

Get your free tools to create abundance in your life and begin to live an abundant life today!

Time management is basically about currently being focused. The Pareto Principle also known as the ‘80:20 Rule’ states that 80% of efforts that aren’t time managed or unfocused generates only 20% of the preferred output. However, 80% of the preferred output could be generated making use of only 20% of a properly time managed effort. Even though the ratio ‘80:20′ is only arbitrary, it really is used to put emphasis on how a lot is lost or how significantly may be gained with time control.

Some folks view time control as a checklist of guidelines that includes scheduling of appointments, goal settings, thorough planning, producing things to do lists and prioritizing. These would be the core basics of time management that really should be understood to create an effective private time management skill. These basic skills can be fine tuned further to include the finer points of every skill that can give you that additional reserve to make the outcomes you desire.

But there’s much more abilities involved in time administration than the core basics. Expertise this kind of as decision generating, inherent abilities such as emotional intelligence and vital thinking are also essential to your private growth.

Private time control includes every thing you do. Regardless of how big and regardless of how small, every thing counts. Every new information you acquire, each new guidance you think about, every single new ability you create ought to be taken into consideration.

Having a balanced life-style should be the important thing end result in having personal time control. This really is the main aspect that several practitioners of individual time control fail to grasp.

Time control is about acquiring final results, not about being busy.

The six areas that individual time administration seeks to enhance in anyone’s life are physical, intellectual, social, career, emotional and spiritual.

The physical aspect includes possessing a healthy body, less anxiety and fatigue.

The intellectual aspect includes studying and other psychological progress routines.

The social aspect entails developing personal or intimate relations and becoming an active contributor to society.

The career aspect includes school and work.

The psychological aspect includes proper feelings and desires and manifesting them.

The spiritual aspect involves a personal quest for meaning.

Thoroughly preparing and having a set of things to do list for each of the key areas may possibly not be extremely practical, but determining which area in your life is not currently being giving sufficient attention is component of time management. Every location creates the whole you, if you are ignoring one location then you are ignoring an crucial component of yourself.

Private time control should not be so daunting a task. It can be a extremely sensible and reasonable strategy in solving difficulties big or little.

A great way of studying time management and enhancing your personal life is to follow several basic routines.

One of them is to review your targets whether it be instant or long-term objectives often.

A way to do this really is to keep a checklist that is always accessible to you.

Usually determine which task is needed or not essential in attaining your objectives and which routines are helping you preserve a balanced life type.

Every and everyone of us has a peek time along with a time when we slow down, they’re our natural cycles. We should be able to tell when to do the difficult tasks once we are the sharpest.

Understanding to say “No”. You actually see this advice often. Heed it even if it includes saying the word to family or friends.

Pat yourself at the back or just reward yourself in any manner for an effective time control result.

Try and get the cooperation from people around you who are truly benefiting from your efforts of time management.

Don’t procrastinate. Attend to needed issues instantly.

Possess a positive attitude and set yourself up for success. But be realistic in your strategy in achieving your targets.

Possess a record or journal of all your activities. This will assist you get issues in their appropriate perspective.

These are the few steps you initially take in becoming a nicely rounded individual.

As the say personal time administration may be the art and science of constructing a much better life.

From the moment you integrate into your life time control skills, you have opened a number of options that can supply a broad spectrum of solutions to your individual development. It also generates more doors for opportunities to knock on.

So you want to discover more on how to manage your time and become more efficient, then take into account reading these time management articles.

The continuing development of computing and software package know-how has witnessed a great spurt of growth in the applications found on our PCs or MACs. Developments in graphic handling capabilities, increasing processor chip data transfer speeds, bigger memory storage space capacity and also significantly greater efficiencies in software package coding mean we’re now experiencing achievements on personal computers which only a handful of years ago were just the dream of sci-fi writers.

However what we have witnessed inside the Mind Map software world is better software package functionality that is light years away from the cumbersome designs from only a few short years ago.

Now obviously we are committed to the iMindMap Mind Map computer software since we feel it may be the finest around for a variety of really excellent reasons but for this article we’ll try and stay a tiny bit impartial and just focus on the advantages of personal computer mind mapping typically. We want you to appreciate the rewards of making use of your personal computer for Mind Mapping and whilst we’d rather you did that making use of iMindMap, on the grander scale of things, if you begin benefitting from this fantastic method with other computer software then we know that is a good for you.

So what are the advantages of a good Mind Map Application?

Well we could go into the specifics of the unique methods you can apply Mind Mapping in all areas of life, but we’ll stick with some of the generic benefits. But it may possibly have a seriously beneficial impact in your private life, your life at work and if you are enterprising enough to have your own company.

1. Mind Mapping is quite effortless to perform on a laptop or computer

There’s no doubt about it, one of the most significant barriers to people today getting started out with traditional hand drawn Mind Maps is they consider because they’re drawn plus they feel they’re not able to draw themselves, then they don’t even want to take the time. Working with a good Mind Map application an incredibly colorful and artistic Mind Map, together with lots of stimulating imagery, could be designed with just a several clicks of the mouse button.

2. Personal computer generated Mind Maps are usually straightforward to change

Yet another wonderful advantage may be the ease with which you may adjust and alter your new map. Whenever you do this manually if you would like to adjust it, generally you may have to re-draw the map which often can take some time. On a Computer or Macintosh, all you have to do is an incredibly uncomplicated cut and paste procedure and you are finished. When you do not like the color, adjust it. When you really do not like the image you may have used, adjust it. It can be all incredibly uncomplicated to accomplish.

3. Use processing capabilities to analyze and digest your Mind Maps

A map that you’ve got developed electronically with a Mind Map program is a lot more than just a pretty graphic image. It may contain numerical and written data that can be managed and processed making use of personal computer technology.

4. It can be straight forward to share your Mind Maps

Create a Mind Map, compose a message with an attachment, press send and you have distributed your map - it truly is that effortless. Naturally you will discover others way it is possible to do this by way of collaborative tools but you can also use the presentation mode that a very good Mind Map software package will have (the iMindMap example is stunning!)

5. Export your maps into other programs

This is often a big advantage. Office suite applications including Microsoft Office, Open Office or iWork are tools in the trade for just about everyone. Combine the good resources these packages have with the thinking aspects of employing Mind Map software package and you definitely will have a potent blend of processing energy and thought know-how.

6. Keeping track of expertise management

The surge of details and information hitting use very single dayhas been staggering and it will onlyspeed up as far more men and women come on the internet. Employing a Mind Map software package will support you to keep track of all sorts of data due to the tremendous ability of becoming able to link to files, folders and web pages.

So overall you will discover some quite potent rewards of employing Mind Map software package and as we said earlier, we definitely suggest you at least try it out for yourself. Once you come across just how effortless it truly is to use, and just how beneficial it is going to be for you personally, we know you’ll be simply hooked and will probably thank us for it.

To see the benefits of Mind Map software for yourself, try a free 7 day trial download of the iMindMap package. You will also discover the many iMindMap Applications that can also benefit you.

Time management tips are little tidbits that help you to manage your time better. It’s true, we can never control how much time we have. But we organize what we can accomplish as it goes by.

These time management tips are the building blocks to successfully managing your time. If you start using them you are guaranteed to see some improvement in your time management.

1. Make a to-do list. What use is a to-do list? A to-do list will help you to prioritize your tasks into a manageable list, and allows you the satisfaction of crossing them off when completed. Make sure you write the list with the most important things at the top down to tasks that are low priority. The main thing is though, make sure you follow your list! Otherwise you may as well not have it!

2. Having a routine is your secret weapon to successful time management. A strong routine will keep you focused, balanced and on track. And it means your list will stay organized too!

3. Importance vs Urgency. Importance leads to achieving of goals. Whereas urgency is more about another person putting the pressure on to get you to do something they want. This can lead to a person feeling uncomfortable and stressed. Make sure you always prioritize your important tasks over urgent ones (those that someone else is pressuring for but don’t really benefit you). Target tasks that contribute towards your day goal.

4. Identify your time wasters. Doesn’t matter if it is playing online games, chatting on the phone, facebook, worrying, daydreaming, internet time - all these things make you less productive.

5. Track your time. You may want to keep a time management journal to record how you spend you time. This is better than guessing or estimating as often you will be wrong. By doing this you can work out what time of day you are most alert and productive. Schedule your work to be at these times.

I remember my old teacher saying that there is no such thing as “Time Management”, he said that’s because we are given only 24 hours each day. We can’t change that. What’s more realistic or appropriate to say is “Task Management”. I’ve never forgotten about that ever since.

I hope you enjoyed these time management tips. The message I am sharing is - by managing your time better you cannot lose! You will be more productive while getting to do the things that you enjoy!

Learn more about the importance of time management. Rachel got her information together from a assortment of resources including these time management tips.

Sometimes it can feel like overcoming procrastination is impossible! It isn’t. Here are a few methods you can try to avoid procrastinating again.

Do The Hardest and Toughest Jobs First.

By doing this your self-esteem will be boosted, and you will feel like you have achieved something. This will also have the roll on effect that other tasks will seem pretty easy to do.

When making a to-do list, make sure you follow everything you’ve written chronologically by listing the most important things to be done on top and ticking them off as you go along. Not only will this be more organized but it will be easier for you to follow and focus on what’s next rather than choosing what you think you should do on the list.

Don’t Wait for The Right Time and to Be In The Right Mood.

There is no point hanging out to be in the right mood, or the right time to happen. Waiting around for this “special time” or “special mood” is a hindrance to your productivity!

Perfectionism is a Trap.

Self-esteem is closely tied into a job done well. Some people take things to the extreme however and are constantly delaying tasks because they feel that they cannot do the job perfectly. This will not help with overcoming procrastination!

Often a perfectionist will beat themselves up over trying to get a job done perfectly. Pressuring themselves with unrealistic deadlines and viewing the outcome of their work negatively. This puts a mental barrier in peoples minds - stopping them from getting the task done. Perfectionism actually results in poor work because of their obsession with messing up!

Perfectionists are not the peak performers. This is because perfectionists spend all their time worrying about messing up rather than actually getting the job done!

If you suffer from being a perfectionist, reassess you priorities. Take small brave steps. Create an action plan with realistic deadlines. The key to doing your best is to start really early. That way you give yourself plenty of time to review your work and spot errors. By maintaining a fresh and relaxed attitude, you are able to give your best.

Create Momentum.

If you are sitting down unsure how to start your next task, stand up. This alone can make a lot of difference to your procrastination. Doing something physical is recommended to help increase efficiency.

Clean up your desk. Go for a walk around the block. Do some other small task. This will help create momentum and get you going. The great thing about momentum is that once it is going it is hard to stop! Getting up and doing something will help pump you up to get into that task you have been procrastinating about!

A little procrastination is fine. But some people get really pulled into the procrastination cycle. This can lead to chronic depression. If you are trying to overcome procrastination - be realistic. You are unlikely to stop procrastinating overnight. There is no quick fix. To be successful you need to develop a routine that works for you.

Michelle is the editor of a website about time management skills. You can learn more about overcoming procrastination, time management skills, the importance of time management and a lot more!