Many of the time management principles that are “out there” simply tell you how to do more things in less time, or more things in the same amount of time. This approach can pose a HUGE problem if the “things” you work on are not the right things to begin with! You need a TIME MASTERY APPROACH, where the tasks you spend your effort and energy on or even complete are totally in line with your values and especially your most meaningful business and personal goals.
In a nutshell, you need to:
Establishing meaningful business (and personal) goals
Prioritizing these goals
Creating a list of tasks to accomplish each goal
Prioritizing these tasks based on which are the MOST IMPORTANT
Concentrate the majority of your daily efforts on those important tasks
Begin with a Goal Planning Session
Mastering your time begins with finding the right direction for your business and for your life in general. You have to know where you are going but more important than that, you have to choose where you want to go! This will require an initial small amount of planning on your part. Let’s call this your “”goals planning session” (this can be a “business goals planning session” or a “life goals planning session” or both wrapped up into one). Either way, you should do one of these goals planning sessions about every 6 months since business goals and life priorities do change, and short term goals get accomplished quickly.
Your time mastery session will involve establishing and prioritizing meaningful business and personal goals, and prioritizing projects and specifically tasks in terms of how they fit into your long-term goals, your mid-term goals, and your short-term goals.
Once your goals are set, each day you will take a few minutes out to plan and you will decide DAILY which activities and tasks are most valuable for you to work on to help get you closer to accomplishing your targeted goals and dreams.
“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You hear it all the time, “Life is short, so you should live it fully”. For some people that means keeping the keg going, or grabbing as much money and fame as they can squeeze into every one of life’s transactions. Regardless of whether or not life is really “short”, the fact that we are here, that we are alive, and that we are cognitively aware, is a huge signal that at the very least, we should be living lives of purpose and meaning, not just running after the green stuff, the skirts, youth, and all of the other misleading bells, whistles, and detours this earthly existence can offer.
Since you have the opportunity—and somewhere deep down, the desire—why not spend your life doing the things you are really passionate about, the things you dreamed about doing, and doing them in the way you dreamed about being? It’s a good idea, but first you have to get still for a bit, and allow your personal desires to resurface. You may even have to conjure up a few from scratch, and that’s o.k. No matter what you are doing now, you can and should re-ignite with the passionate desires that once motivated you to see life as an exciting and rich experience. No matter where you are currently, you CAN live your life based on your deepest desires, and you CAN find, develop, and then live, your dreams.
That’s what I want to talk to you about—your dreams. There are two kinds of dreams: those you encounter while you are fast asleep, and those you bring into play while you are wide awake. For the rest of this message, I’d like to visit with you about the second kind, those you activate when you are awake—the ones you have total control over authoring and bringing to some type of fruition.
Dreams can be fantastic, fabulous, or even a little freaky! Dreams are more thanhopes, because you play a crucial role in fulfilling them. They are not left to chance. Dreams have the element of creation and animation built right into them. Dreaming is something you do, something you engage in, and something you are involved with. When you dream, you are first daring to believe that you can have more, then you are suggesting to yourself ways to create that. On top of that, the very act of dreaming fuels you to take the actions necessary to actualize what you know you want.
Dreaming is exciting because it stirs up your passions, and convinces you that what you desire is worth going after.
Dreams are dynamic, not static. They are moving, developing, unwinding, unfolding, and even changing as you go towards them with the determination to see them take shape. Dreams become realities through a structured process of applying yourself and your resources towards them in a “take action” manner.
That’s what it is all about, taking action. Here is a DREAM RECIPE that you can follow to create a delicious dish of your very own dreams, those that will feed you with more excitement, more meaning, and more personal passion going forward. Living your dreams actually forces all of the energy fields surrounding them to make more room for more dreams. It is a contagious and exhilarating process. It touches the lives of others, too. To live your deepest desires—your dreams—is to live divine.
As you create, plan, and actualize your dreams, remember this:
It is not so much the exact and perfectly literal expression of a dream that is important— although with proper planning you will see many of your dreams almost perfectly come to pass. It is the act of being present with your dreams that is the powerful part, because going towards your dreams leads you to your true destiny. Your true destiny is where the magic begins.
DREAM RECIPE
1. Pretend for a moment that you have no constraints, that YOU (not a false you) can have anything that you want, and that you can be anyone that you desire.
2. Think about what you would do in life (with your minutes, days, weeks, months, and years) if no matter what you did, you received the exact same financial reward and the exact same praise from others for doing it (so the motive is not money, recognition, or fame).
3. Get clear about your personal dreams. Jot down eight dreams you would like to see come to pass in your life over the next one to five years (or even a few years longer if need be). Include ONLY things you are passionate about—that excite you, thrill you, or invigorate you in some meaningful way (leave the other, less exciting ideas for another day).
4. Prioritize your dreams. Go back and circle from the above list, the four dreams that are the absolute most important to you AT THIS TIME IN YOUR LIFE (they may all be equally important, but which one are MOST important now. For example, you could want to have a child and also want to get a masters degree so you can teach, but the degree may be most important AT THIS TIME IN YOUR LIFE, leaving the plans for building a family for a later time).
5. Plan for fueling your way to your dreams. Dreams take resources, which may include money, time, collaboration with specific people, trading favors, or a combination. Get out four pieces of paper, and on each piece write out one of the four dreams you circled above. Then in the space below each dream, give a rough estimate of how much time you need to accomplish the dream, what some of the needed resources will be, and what some of the potential challenges you might face will be. Also include—and this is very important—what personal value each dream will help you to live out. Do this for all four. Next, get a little more specific about the action steps you will have to take to realize each dream. The more specific you are, the more likely your dreams will actually take form in “real life”.
6. Pick one of the four dreams to focus on NOW. You probably won’t be able to focus well on more than one dream at a time, so pick one of the four—the one that seems the most feasible at this time based on the resources needed, the obstacles you may face, and the value the dream will help you to live out. You can still make steps towards the other dreams as you focus mainly on one (for example, if one of the dreams is to write a book and another is to go back to college, you can begin writing the rough outline for your book during the same time you save money for your coming education).
7. Take at least one action step toward your focus dream within the next 36 hours. Anyone can write down a dream, but only those who take action bit-by-bit to accomplish them will get to live them out, and share the fruits of those dreams with others (the best part). Let’s say that your dream is to own a retail shop in Aspen, Colorado and you currently live in another state. An easy and first step could be to get online and start checking rental property rates and real estate prices for commercial properties in Aspen or you could find out what types of licenses or permits are need to do business in the state of Colorado.
8. Each week, purpose to take another step toward actualizing your current focus dream. Make the commitment to yourself to make realizing your dreams, one at a time, a lifestyle. Always be working on a dream you are passionate about and one you know is good and healthy for you and others. In the same way you decide to be a healthy eater by making many smart choices each day, allow every day to move you closer to living out your destiny. Make experiencing your dreams a lifestyle.
Dreams are not hard to attain, but doing so does take consistent effort over acertain period of time. Most people do not believe they are worth the investment and the steady, regular, continual effort. Believe me, you absolutely, positively ARE!
“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”~Anthony Robbins
“The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.” ~ Denis Watle
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he had imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” ~ Henry David Thoreau – Walden, or Life in the Woods
“By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands — your own.” ~ Mark Victor Hansen
I hope you enjoyed the audio I sent you last week.
This week I promised you a very powerful goal-setting exercise, and here it is.
It WILL take a little bit of time, but the PAYOFF will be TREMENDOUS! If you take it seriously and look at it as a potentially life-changing session, it will put you light years ahead in your life and business. It will guide you step-by-step through a process where you will create MEANINGFUL life and business goals, prioritize them with incredible clarity, and determine with ease the action steps you should take to accomplish what you desire in a realistic amount of time!
This strategic plan puts YOU in control and allows you to continually move toward your most important personal and professional goals, accomplish them quickly, and bring what you say you want into reality.
Following is the EXACT TEXT and PLAN that I share each year with my coaching clients and my network of professionals. I have also personally guided individuals through this process, to see them realize amazing professional growth and success (at the very end of this message is a testimonial from a client).
PLEASE, invest the time in yourself to do it. You will save YEARS of wasted effort for the hour or so you take to do this exercise!
GOAL PLANNING that ACTUALLY WORKS!
Prioritizing your goals and the specific tasks you invest your time in can make a tremendous difference in the way you experience your life and in the success of your business. Skillful goal setting can free you up to spend more time doing the things you personally want to do—the things that are the most meaningful to you.
I encourage you to start this year off with a strategic plan to focus on what is most important to you and to make room and time for the business goals and activities that will catapult you into financial freedom, leaving you a lot of valuable time for family, friends, new business ventures, and many fun adventures.
You are going to learn how to leave behind all of the unprofitable “busywork” that gets you nowhere, and you will in turn become a Master of your own life and destiny.
You may have just left behind a year of dissatisfaction and frustration. You may have often felt overwhelmed which probably kept you from taking the actions you MOST needed to take. You may have thought about time management. The truth is though, that many of the time management principles that are “out there” would simply tell you how to do more things in less time, or more things in the same amount of time. This approach can pose a HUGE problem if the “things” you work on are not the right things to begin with! You need a TIME MASTERY APPROACH, where the tasks you spend your effort and energy on or even complete are totally in line with your values and especially your most meaningful business and personal goals.
In a nutshell, you need to:
• Establish meaningful business (and personal) goals
• Prioritize these goals
• Create a list of tasks to accomplish each goal
• Prioritize these tasks based on which are the MOST IMPORTANT
• Concentrate the majority of your daily efforts on those important tasks
Begin with a Goal Planning Session
Mastering your time begins with finding the right direction for your business and for your life in general. You have to know where you are going but more important than that, you have to choose where you want to go! This will require an initial small amount of planning on your part. Let’s call this your “goals planning session” (this can be a “business goals planning session” or a “life goals planning session” or both wrapped up into one). Either way, you should do one of these goals planning sessions about every 6 months since business goals and life priorities do change, and short term goals get accomplished quickly.
Your time mastery session will involve establishing and prioritizing meaningful business and personal goals, and prioritizing projects and specifically tasks in terms of how they fit into your long-term goals, your mid-term goals, and your short-term goals.
Once your goals are set, each day you will take a few minutes out to plan and you will decide DAILY which activities and tasks are most valuable for you to work on to help get you closer to accomplishing your targeted goals and dreams.
With this approach, every day you will inch a little closer to realizing your goals and dreams, even when part of your day is spent on menial tasks and routine items that most of us must do. A time mastery approach will help you to best use some of the prime hours of each day.
Following is THE exercise in goal planning that will change the direction of your life and business for the better. Please don’t make the mistake of believing you do not have the time to do the following exercises. You simply cannot afford not to.
TIME MASTERY Business Goal Planning Session exercise:
• Get out three sheets of paper, one each for your list of your long-term business (where you want to be in 4-5 years), your mid-term goals (where you want to be in 1-3 years), and your short-term goals (things you want to accomplish in the next 6 months). You can adjust the time frames to best suit yourself and your life, but make your short term goals within a few months. Put the labels at the top of each page.
• Take about 3 minutes for each sheet, and write your goals very quickly. Do not stop and think about it. If something comes to your mind, do not judge the thought, just write it down. When you are through with each page of goals, spend an additional minute or two adding to the page or fine-tuning it. Do this exercise for each page.
• It may help to know that a goal is not “something you do”. A task is something you do. A goal describes where you want to be or what you want to accomplish, for example, “I want to my yearly sales revenues to be $300,000.00 within 2 years, or, “I want to write a book on interior lighting”.
• Next, take the sheet of your long-term goals, and circle the 3 most important. Now label them A, B, and C, with A representing the long-term goal you want to focus on first or that you find to be most important to you at this time in your life, and B and C representing the long-term goals you will work on after long-term goal A is accomplished. Do this same activity for the other two pages (mid-term goals and short-term goals).
• You will now have 9 goals circled; 3 long-term, 3 mid-term, and 3 short-term goals. Each of these goals has an A, B, or C next to it. Now, Take out a clean piece of paper, and transfer the A goal from each sheet onto the new sheet.
• The new sheet will now have 3 top priority goals—-one from each category (a top priority long-term goal, a top priority mid-term goal, and a top priority short-term goal). This is your Focused Goals Target.
• The final step in this goal planning session is to make a list of all of the possible tasks and activities you could do that would help you towards accomplishing each of the three goals on your Focused Goals Target sheet.
• Create a page for each of these three goals (your top priority long-term goal, mid-term goal, and short-term goal) and list everything you can think of that would help you to attain this goal. This is another brainstorming session so you should just write and not make judgments. Take several minutes to do this for each goal. Then revise this list, adding more activities and crossing out others that will not work.
• Now it is time to prioritize tasks to ensure that you will make the best use of your time each day. Go through the list of tasks (do this for each page) and circle the ones you feel will give you the most result for your effort. You may end up circling 6 or 8 of them. Then draw a star next to the ones that you would like to work on first.
• Schedule these tasks into your daily to do’s, focusing on the ones with the stars first. Daily, when you plan your business activities, try to schedule in at least one or two tasks from e ach list to accomplish that day. Before you know it, you will be checking goals off of your Focused Goals Target because you will be accomplishing your business dreams and life goals in record time!
(Testimonial follows)
Congratulations! Have a Wildly Successful Week,
Margo
TESTIMONIAL:
I have spent my life in pursuit of a clearer understanding of the life I was searching for. Having many interests and many responsibilities, I often stayed overwhelmed with too many choices and not enough progress to suit my desires. Then, I met Margarett (Margo).
In just a few short meetings Margarett was able to assist me in the organizing of the clutter in my mind as she helped me define the basic personality aspects of my individual self. We skipped labeling and belief-driven needs to get, quickly, to the core of the 3 most important things I needed to achieve in my life in order to have personal, soulful fulfillment. The process was fast, clear and powerful.
I am happy to say that when I got very clear about what mattered and could articulate it and focus on it with action and intent, EVERY desire came into my life greater than I could have imagined. Far, far greater. And fast, too.
Within 30 short, committed days I had created situations that allowed me to call into my life, the clear goals I’d determined were the most important. I am overjoyed at the results. Pinching myself, actually. Smiling, lifting my face to the sun and pinching myself. This life is real and I am enchanted, clear and on track.
Carol Conlee,
Business Owner and Playwright
Central Texas
“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.” ~Confucius
Links to special recordings follow this message.
Today I am sick in bed. I have been down since New Year’s day, and I feel just terrible (tomorrow I’ll see the doctor). I am also in between bootcamps right now (the fitness program I told you about).
I had a plan to walk/run 4 miles a day for the 3 or 4 weeks in between bootcamp sessions. This was a reasonable goal to me since I had worked up to it. Then, on about the third day of this plan, I re-injured (slightly) my calf muscle that I had injured more seriously about 6 weeks ago. Then a week or so later, I got really sick (and here I am in bed).
We set goals, and sometimes things happen that prevent us from reaching them in the time frame we alloted. If we are serious about accomplishing what is important to us, we will make the needed adjustments and then get back on track, after all, this is REAL LIFE! The steps toward our goals can be adjusted, and on occasion, they should be. We are in charge of the goals, not the other way around.
I am big on having a few meaningful, well-thought-out goals, and taking specific actions to reach them. I have spoken on this topic to many different types of career professionals. I believe that how we use our time can either help us create a great life, or lead us to frustration and lives of mediocrity and, as Emerson puts it, “quiet desperation”.
Although I am goal oriented, I am NOT one of these people who thinks good time management is making important calls while waiting in line at the grocery store, or cramming in some work on the laptop during a short taxi-cab ride. That is NOT effective or efficient time management. Cramming lots of things into a day is not necessarily a surefire way to reach your goals. (I have worked with people like this, and it’s annoying in my opinion. I personally love my “mini-vacations”, be it in a line at the store or in a taxi cab just “chillin’ ”. It makes me a more effective executive when I AM working.)
Last week I promised you some audio on goal planning and goal setting and on working on the RIGHT kinds of activities in order to make a huge impact in your life and business over time. Since I am sick in bed right now, and I can barely talk, I will not record a new audio, instead, I have two previously recorded audios that I created last year for a group of Interior Decorating Professionals, and I would like you to hear them. They are spot on! No matter which occupation you are in, these recordings will shed light on three different types of ACTIONS—the types you should be taking, and the types to avoid each day, week, and month so that you can reach your goals.
Then, next week, I will share with you (NOT on audio) a very specific, precise, POWERFUL, life-changing goal setting plan that will enable you to create and then set new and MEANINGFUL goals for yourself and for your business. The plan will then help you to prioritize these goals, decide which action steps to take, and find the motivation and tenacity to take those steps one by one, to actually accomplish what you desire!
The entire time you work the plan, you will be moving with definitive force toward your most important personal and professional goals. Next week’s plan is something you should look forward to getting. You may even want to carve some time in advance—make an appointment with yourself for next week to read the Monday Message and work the plan it contains, which is GOAL PLANNING that ACTUALLY WORKS!
In the meantime, today, just take some time to listen to these two audio messages about action. Give them a moment to load. Ignore the greeting at the beginning to “decorators” and apply the entire session personally to you and your business. Then next week we will be on our way to planning and creating new and better lives.
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” ~Hans Hofmann
Here’s your New Year’s KISS: Keep It Simple, Sweetie!
It is nearing the new year, and as anyone who knows me knows, this is when I get on my soapbox about going forward in a positive way. At the end of this message I have a 5 minute audio for you to listen to that will help you keep it simple and successful as you venture into a new year and decade. In the week’s to come, I have a wonderful goal setting plan for you so you can be in a fabulous place by this time next year!
We all embrace the new year like a brand new beginning. We love starting fresh, with a clean canvas. Perhaps we won’t mess up this time (not likely by the way, because this is REAL life).
What we should be focusing on though, are ways to create step-by-step, incremental measures of improvement and balance, rather than the overnight success sensations we wish we could be.
Success is something we all say we want, but many of us are mistaken about what success really is. I know success is something each of us has to define for ourselves, but any definition that includes just one part of our lives (fitness, business, relationships, personal development) is not a healthy or true definition.
Success is holistic. Real success involves the concepts of unity and completeness (and not perfection by the way). It means that there is attention, improvement, satisfaction, and even excellence in many, if not all, areas of our lives.
You may only find MASTERY in one or two of your many life facets, but you will at the very least seek to be a balanced person within the other facets, and a person who walks towards excellence in all ways, bringing harmony and clarity to your life as a whole.
This is NOT something you do at a weekend retreat, or even in the course of one short year. It is a WAY OF LIFE, a LIFESTYLE. New things crop up all the time to throw you off center and pull you off course, and sabotage a portion of your success, but you keep going.
In each moment of your life, you do what you know to do that is best. You treat yourself and those around you with respect and goodness, you stop to be aware and NOTICE life, you try not to be rigid or too hard on yourself or others, and you require YOUR personal best from YOU. It’s really that simple.
So go ahead and forge on to great success in the coming year, and hey, in the NEW DECADE! I have very high hopes for you, and for myself as well.
Here is the Link I promised you (Simplify for Success ). In this audio I share (for around 5 minutes) 3 easy ways to simplify your life in the new year and beyond. Capturing our own success requires that you simplify life where you can so you are not too confused, busy, or overwhelmed to plan, take action, and enjoy life.
Oh, and by the way, I want 2010 to be a turning point year for you, I really do. In the weeks to come (starting next week), I will be sharing with you in both text and on audio (through the Monday Messages) some POWERFUL ways to set new and MEANINGFUL goals, prioritize them, decipher which action steps to take, and find the strength and vigor to take those steps. The entire time you work the plan, you will be moving with definitive force toward your most important and life changing goals, and if you stick with the plan you will reach them. So, we have a LOT to look forward to in January 2010!
Have a Wildly Blessed New Year,
Your Friend,
Margo
P.S. (what is it with me and the P.S’s lately?)
Do you want a better business? Treat your customers better.
Do you want a better marriage? Treat your spouse better.
Do you want a better physique? Treat your body better.
Do you want better relationships? Treat your friends and loved ones better.
Do you want a better bank account? Treat your money better.
“Never mistake activity for achievement.”~John Wooden
I thought I’d ask you, what are you doing this week…this month, and… Where are you going this week…this month?
That is certainly something worth thinking about.
If you are like most business people, you think you are doing business activities and you think you are going towards your goals. If you are like most business people, you are probably dead wrong! Have you ever heard the saying that goes something like, “I was tenaciously climbing the ladder of success and when I got to the top, I was disturbed to realize that the ladder was leaning on the wrong wall”? How disappointing, especially when the business owner was working, working, working, but working on the wrong things.
The average business person gets distracted with tasks that OTHERS think are important. Tasks that OTHER PEOPLE demand. Theses tasks usually redirect the business owner away from what he or she really desires to accomplish. These can be demands from clients, from office workers, from people in the community, or from just about anywhere. They feel like work, but they are traps.
Now, I know that you are NOT like most business people, because through this network we surround each other and coach each other to follow a better blueprint. But, just as a quick reminder of the better way, I’ll give you a suggestion of how you can do what you need to do in order to go where you need to and be where you want to be!
Start each activity with the end in mind.
You MUST have a PICTURE of where you want to go, and you have to keep that picture always in your mind as you work.
Let’s say you have a certain vision. It may be something small, like revamping your website, or it may be something a little larger, like creating a local annual home show which you sponsor (and make a profit from). In order to ensure that your activity each day, and during each part of the work day, is productive activity, you must start each of those activities with your goal in mind, with a picture in your head of the end result. In other words, everything you do should be attached to the right goal. If it is not, you should not do that activity, or if you must do it, either delegate it, or do it quickly so that you can get back to your goal-accomplishing activities.
Starting each activity with the end result in mind helps you in several ways. For one, it allows you to be clearly aware of the steps you need to take to get there, but it also allows you to avoid tasks and interruptions that are true distractions and that will provide you only with added activity and NOT with a beneficial result when you are through with all of the activity.
Begin to design your business by deciding what your most important goals are. Then get a vision–a picture–of each goal. Structure your week’s activities so that you have a good amount of activity directly tied to that picture— activities that actually move you closer to your DESIRED goal.
Start this way of thinking today, and see if you don’t have a wildly successful week.
September 11, 2010 1885 D.H Lawrence 1862 O. Henry 1885 D.H. Lawrence 1938 Sir Edward George 1940 Bernie Dwyer 1947 Julie Covington 1949 Roger Uttley 1950 Barry Sheene 1967 Harry Connick Jnr
Designers' Camp
Twice-a-year online event for interior decorators and designers. Learn and network from your home or office. Save on travel. Improve your business.
Let's Talk About Decorating
Pre-made decorating seminars. Give customer presentations with ease. Gain clients fast. Script included.
Margo DeGange
Embrace your opportunities and live your dream. Resources and products to improve life and business.
Pre-Written Decorating Articles
Hate to write? We’ve done the work for you. Pre-written decorating articles. Use on websites, blogs, as handouts, and for flyers.
Pre-Written Decorating Newsletters
Need an E-newsletter, but hate to write? We do it all for you, and send them too, from YOUR email address! Exciting content, pictures, and tips. Gain MORE clients FAST.
The Deccorators Alliance of North America
Professional affiliation, industry certification, continuing education, and business support for the interior decorating and design trade.
Trunk Show Success System
Learn to do fabulous decorating trunk shows—put a trunk show system into place. Gain followers and see profits soar!
If you are like most business people, you think you are doing business activities and you think you are going towards your goals. If you are like most business people, you are probably dead wrong! Have you ever heard the saying that goes something like, “I was tenaciously climbing the ladder of success and when I got to the top, I was disturbed to realize that the ladder was leaning on the wrong wall”? How disappointing, especially when the business owner was working, working, working, but working on the wrong things.