A
Self-Improvement Guide worth Reading
There are different books and seminars that can help you
gather some self-improvement guides. All these sources
are against the negative factors in your life.
This self-improvement guide intends to offer you the
best solutions to reduce or eliminate these factors for
good.
Work, meetings, deadlines, appointments, telephone calls,
shopping, taking the dogs out etc. – all these are things
most people have to accomplish daily. Most of the times,
on the waiting list there are other things like: family,
friends and even ourselves.
Sometimes we discover too late that the points mentioned
on the waiting lists are, in fact, the most important.
Unfortunately, many of us do not realize this at all,
so we generally find ourselves unhappy with ourselves.
Time is more than money – time means life and, more than
that, it means our lives. We have the obligation not to
surrender in stressful situations and to go fighting for
the joy of living.
Let us not forget that deficient management of time can
also produce tremendous health problems, both at the physical
and mental level.
But there is good news! You can manage time. The first
step is to identify the elements that take up much of
your time. Normally, these are divided into two groups:
The external factors which include unexpected phone calls,
very long phone conversations, unplanned visits, the policy
of open doors, not sufficiently trained personnel, frequent
meetings, interruptions caused by colleagues, friends
and family etc.
The internal factors which relate strictly to our own
persons. They include priorities and objectives that change,
the lack of a daily working plan, lack of self imposed
deadlines, the tendency to take care of too many things
at the same time, disorder, lateness in resolving conflicts,
incapacity of saying no, lack of decisions, tiredness,
etc.
By reading the above enumeration, you probably recalled
personal situations that it applies to. Now, all you have
to do is to find a way to defeat and eliminate them, so
that you can be the master of your own time again.
Here are three possible ways in which you can do that:
1. Write everything down.
Writing is useful, especially if you have a bad memory.
Otherwise, you might fail to remember to go to important
meetings, to make important phone calls, to answer
messages you promised you would answer, etc.
You can also write down great ideas and inspirations
that occur to you in the most unexpected moments.
2. Make a list of priorities.
It takes very little time to draw it and you can even
do it while you are having your morning coffee. Write
down the things you need to do that day in the order
of their importance and urgency.
3. Learn to say no.
One big mistake that a lot of us make is that we put
other people’s problems in front of ours. By always
prioritizing them, we give rise to stress and we find
ourselves unable to respect previous engagements.
All these advices are also present in Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber’s
book “New Art of Time Against Stress”. He invites us to
meditate more and points out the basic fact that time
management is also a philosophy of life.
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