Cairn - December 2007 - If only I had more time ...
Published: Thu, 12/06/07
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Cairn One Step At A Time |
December 2007
Issue 44
clare evans |
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personal & business coach | ||
Welcome to all new subscribers since last month
I can't believe that we're into December already and another year is nearly over.
I'm not great at getting up in the mornings at the best of times but when it's cold and dark it's even harder. I find it difficult to get into the routine of early morning runs as I tend to need an hour or so for my body to warm up into the day. However, I'm not entirely a fair weather runner and managed to get out for a run this lunchtime before sitting down to write this newsletter.
I held another time management seminar for this year in Brighton last month. I enjoy these, as it's a way of helping more than one person at a time and dealing with more specific questions and challenges. Many of which are the same as the ones I deal with one to one. Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective to open up an issue to new solutions and getting input from other people makes for some interesting discussions.
The general feedback was that they're not long enough! So, I'm planning to run longer sessions next year and creating more focused workshops and teleclasses to tackle some of the specific problems which come up time and again - procrastination being one, dealing with email and paperwork are always favourites and a couple of other topics that help you create more time in your day.
On a slightly different tack, having attended the local commons committee, which had their second meeting last week, I found myself voted in as the Chair of a local wildlife group who do some work on the common, close to where I live and where I usually go out and run. I've been out volunteering with them a couple of times and their current chair had just retired so they had a vacancy and I was asked if I'd be interested. Local wildlife is something I'm passionate about so I hope to be able to make a difference to at least a small piece of local countryside.
You can catch up on the rest of what I've been up to in my blogs.
Enjoy the rest of this newsletter.
- If Only I Had More Time
- What On, What's New
- Recommended Reading
- This Month's Quote
If Only I Had More Time ...
Now is the time of year to take a look back on what you've achieved this year and put together your plan for 2008. Set aside some time in the next couple of weeks to take a look back at the past year and make a note of your successes and challenges. I'm sure there have been a few of both.
What worked, what didn't? What have you learnt about yourself or your business this year? Did you manage to get out of your comfort zone or were you treading the same path? Setting little challenges can be a good way to expand your comfort zone. What goals did you set yourself at the beginning of the year and how close did you come or did you manage to exceed them? I'm sure things didn't go exactly to plan - they rarely do but if you had some idea of where you were headed you probably found you were at least going in the right direction.
Ask yourself this question - if I had more time, what would I do?
Often when I ask people this- they say exercise. It seems to be the one thing that takes second, third or even forth priority when we're leading busy lives, when in actual fact it should be one of your top priorities. After all, if you don't have your health, what do you have? Read my article on sensible exercise if you'd like some ideas to get more activity into your day. If you're fit and healthy you're better able to tackle what life throws at you and likely to be less stressed.
Take a look at the Life Balance Wheel and see if there's an area of your life that needs particular attention in the coming year. Write down three things you want to achieve next year. Pick a couple of areas on the Life Balance Wheel to work on. I'm not just talking about new year resolutions unless you're good at setting and keeping to these but something which is going to be a major achievement for you and/or your business.
Once you've identified what you want to work on
- give yourself a timeframe - set a deadline for when you want to achieve your goal.
- be specific about what it is that you're going to achieve. Wanting to grow your business, have more clients or lose weight isn't specific enough.
- put a number as well as a date against each goal e.g. grow my business by x amount, have x additional clients, lose x pounds.
What challenges are you likely to face next year? Perhaps there are new skills you need to learn in order to achieve your goals. Do you need to have other people to help you achieve your goal or will people around you have an impact on whether you'll be able to achieve your goal or not?
What habits or behaviours would you'd like to change? Often we have great ideas about what we'd like to do but people, situations and even our own way of working, stops us from doing what we want or know we're capable of.
Don't try to do everything on your own - get a buddy, mentor or coach to help you in this process. It can make a big difference to have someone you can bounce ideas off, talk things through, stimulate your creativity and help you to work out solutions to problems. Getting a different perspective can help you to see the wood from trees so that you can actually get on and do more. If you find you're getting bogged down in the day to day routine, then escaping for a few minutes and taking a bigger picture view or having someone point out something obvious that you may have overlooked can be invaluable.
If you're dealing with a particular challenge, you're probably not the first person to experience what you're going through so talk it through and get some support and advice. While we're all perfectly capable of sorting things out, sometimes we need a bit of additional motivation and support. Being held accountable for achieving what you've said you're doing to do can be a very powerful way of keeping you on track and focused on where you going.
It's interesting to see how many clients work through a problem during one of our sessions, just because they're able to speak it through and get it out of their heads. Talking to someone who's not involved in the process can be a good way to get a clearer picture.
If you want more time or if you want to get a new perspective on your goals for next year, give me a call or send an email to info@clareevans.co.uk
What's On, What's New
Up-coming teleclasses, workshops:
Intro Teleclass: Get Control of Your Money - Would you like to be organised in managing your money? Discover a few simple ways to save your pennies and start making your money work for you. Register for the Money Management Teleclass on Tuesday 27th November.
Intro Teleclass: Get Control of Your Time - Goal Setting A specific teleclass to focus on creating your goals for the year. What do you want to achieve in the next six months? Get motivated and create some accountability. Register for the Time Management Teleclass on Tuesday 29th January.
Kick Start/Get Into Action Packages - if you'd like a great start to the new year - why not try one of my Kick Start packages. Created to give you a short burst of motivation and support to get you started with a particular project - whether you want to get fit, lose weight (all those good new years resolutions) or just grow your business.
Monthly/Quarterly Reviews - These have proved a popular way of keeping yourself on track. A regular session once a month or every quarter to review your business or personal goals. Talk through any particular challenges or issues, brainstorm ideas, create an action plan and accountability. Contact me for further details.
Recommended Reading: Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Why making a snap judgement and trusting your instinct can be a better way of making a decision. One for my Christmas List.
More Book Recommendations - click here.
Website Of The Month: Map My Run ... walk, cycle
If you want to keep track of your activity - this website uses Google Maps to help you keep track of your activity - walk, run, cycle, hike. See other routes in your area and share your routes with friends or just keep track of your progress.
This Month's Motivational quote:
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." Carlos Casteneda
If you were forwarded this issue of the newsletter you can register to receive your own copy each month by sending a blank email to claresnews@aweber.com.
If you're a one-man (person) band - enjoy your Christmas party - at least the boss won't mind if you take the following day off.
Have a wonderful holiday break.
Until next year!
Clare
Clare Evans - Personal and Business Time Management Coach
Phone: +44 (0)1273 588297
Email: info@clareevans.co.uk
Website: www.clareevans.co.uk
Get organised! Get a new perspective!
I can't believe that we're into December already and another year is nearly over.
I'm not great at getting up in the mornings at the best of times but when it's cold and dark it's even harder. I find it difficult to get into the routine of early morning runs as I tend to need an hour or so for my body to warm up into the day. However, I'm not entirely a fair weather runner and managed to get out for a run this lunchtime before sitting down to write this newsletter.
I held another time management seminar for this year in Brighton last month. I enjoy these, as it's a way of helping more than one person at a time and dealing with more specific questions and challenges. Many of which are the same as the ones I deal with one to one. Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective to open up an issue to new solutions and getting input from other people makes for some interesting discussions.
The general feedback was that they're not long enough! So, I'm planning to run longer sessions next year and creating more focused workshops and teleclasses to tackle some of the specific problems which come up time and again - procrastination being one, dealing with email and paperwork are always favourites and a couple of other topics that help you create more time in your day.
On a slightly different tack, having attended the local commons committee, which had their second meeting last week, I found myself voted in as the Chair of a local wildlife group who do some work on the common, close to where I live and where I usually go out and run. I've been out volunteering with them a couple of times and their current chair had just retired so they had a vacancy and I was asked if I'd be interested. Local wildlife is something I'm passionate about so I hope to be able to make a difference to at least a small piece of local countryside.
You can catch up on the rest of what I've been up to in my blogs.
Enjoy the rest of this newsletter.
- If Only I Had More Time
- What On, What's New
- Recommended Reading
- This Month's Quote
If Only I Had More Time ...
Now is the time of year to take a look back on what you've achieved this year and put together your plan for 2008. Set aside some time in the next couple of weeks to take a look back at the past year and make a note of your successes and challenges. I'm sure there have been a few of both.
What worked, what didn't? What have you learnt about yourself or your business this year? Did you manage to get out of your comfort zone or were you treading the same path? Setting little challenges can be a good way to expand your comfort zone. What goals did you set yourself at the beginning of the year and how close did you come or did you manage to exceed them? I'm sure things didn't go exactly to plan - they rarely do but if you had some idea of where you were headed you probably found you were at least going in the right direction.
Ask yourself this question - if I had more time, what would I do?
Often when I ask people this- they say exercise. It seems to be the one thing that takes second, third or even forth priority when we're leading busy lives, when in actual fact it should be one of your top priorities. After all, if you don't have your health, what do you have? Read my article on sensible exercise if you'd like some ideas to get more activity into your day. If you're fit and healthy you're better able to tackle what life throws at you and likely to be less stressed.
Take a look at the Life Balance Wheel and see if there's an area of your life that needs particular attention in the coming year. Write down three things you want to achieve next year. Pick a couple of areas on the Life Balance Wheel to work on. I'm not just talking about new year resolutions unless you're good at setting and keeping to these but something which is going to be a major achievement for you and/or your business.
Once you've identified what you want to work on
- give yourself a timeframe - set a deadline for when you want to achieve your goal.
- be specific about what it is that you're going to achieve. Wanting to grow your business, have more clients or lose weight isn't specific enough.
- put a number as well as a date against each goal e.g. grow my business by x amount, have x additional clients, lose x pounds.
What challenges are you likely to face next year? Perhaps there are new skills you need to learn in order to achieve your goals. Do you need to have other people to help you achieve your goal or will people around you have an impact on whether you'll be able to achieve your goal or not?
What habits or behaviours would you'd like to change? Often we have great ideas about what we'd like to do but people, situations and even our own way of working, stops us from doing what we want or know we're capable of.
Don't try to do everything on your own - get a buddy, mentor or coach to help you in this process. It can make a big difference to have someone you can bounce ideas off, talk things through, stimulate your creativity and help you to work out solutions to problems. Getting a different perspective can help you to see the wood from trees so that you can actually get on and do more. If you find you're getting bogged down in the day to day routine, then escaping for a few minutes and taking a bigger picture view or having someone point out something obvious that you may have overlooked can be invaluable.
If you're dealing with a particular challenge, you're probably not the first person to experience what you're going through so talk it through and get some support and advice. While we're all perfectly capable of sorting things out, sometimes we need a bit of additional motivation and support. Being held accountable for achieving what you've said you're doing to do can be a very powerful way of keeping you on track and focused on where you going.
It's interesting to see how many clients work through a problem during one of our sessions, just because they're able to speak it through and get it out of their heads. Talking to someone who's not involved in the process can be a good way to get a clearer picture.
If you want more time or if you want to get a new perspective on your goals for next year, give me a call or send an email to info@clareevans.co.uk
What's On, What's New
Up-coming teleclasses, workshops:
Intro Teleclass: Get Control of Your Money - Would you like to be organised in managing your money? Discover a few simple ways to save your pennies and start making your money work for you. Register for the Money Management Teleclass on Tuesday 27th November.
Intro Teleclass: Get Control of Your Time - Goal Setting A specific teleclass to focus on creating your goals for the year. What do you want to achieve in the next six months? Get motivated and create some accountability. Register for the Time Management Teleclass on Tuesday 29th January.
Kick Start/Get Into Action Packages - if you'd like a great start to the new year - why not try one of my Kick Start packages. Created to give you a short burst of motivation and support to get you started with a particular project - whether you want to get fit, lose weight (all those good new years resolutions) or just grow your business.
Monthly/Quarterly Reviews - These have proved a popular way of keeping yourself on track. A regular session once a month or every quarter to review your business or personal goals. Talk through any particular challenges or issues, brainstorm ideas, create an action plan and accountability. Contact me for further details.
Recommended Reading: Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
Why making a snap judgement and trusting your instinct can be a better way of making a decision. One for my Christmas List.
More Book Recommendations - click here.
Website Of The Month: Map My Run ... walk, cycle
If you want to keep track of your activity - this website uses Google Maps to help you keep track of your activity - walk, run, cycle, hike. See other routes in your area and share your routes with friends or just keep track of your progress.
This Month's Motivational quote:
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." Carlos Casteneda
If you were forwarded this issue of the newsletter you can register to receive your own copy each month by sending a blank email to claresnews@aweber.com.
If you're a one-man (person) band - enjoy your Christmas party - at least the boss won't mind if you take the following day off.
Have a wonderful holiday break.
Until next year!
Clare
Clare Evans - Personal and Business Time Management Coach
Phone: +44 (0)1273 588297
Email: info@clareevans.co.uk
Website: www.clareevans.co.uk
Get organised! Get a new perspective!
Copyright: Clare Evans Personal & Business Coaching © 2007
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