As a Life Coach, and after coaching many different clients, I have come to realize that to effectively manage time, we need to first realize that time itself cannot be managed! We all get seven days a week and 168 hours within those seven days. This cannot be increased or changed in any way. However, what we can change, improve and manage is ourselves. In essence then, true time management now becomes management of ourselves – “self management!” So being aware of this, we now know that it’s not the amount of time we have that’s important; it’s how effectively we use that time that makes the difference. Successful people have exactly the same amount of time in the day as each of us. The only difference is they use their time differently – more effectively. You might say “I don’t have the time to commit to learning some time management skills”. I hear this a lot during life coaching sessions, but the fact is if this were true, do you really think you have the time not to? Time management principles and techniques are usually quite simple to learn. They do not require deep thinking, a high I.Q or lots of preparation. In fact if you were to put the search term “Time Management Resources” into a search engine you will get dozens of websites offering help, advice, tips and suggestions on how to manage and prioritize your time. To sum time management up I would say you need to ask yourself two questions: 1. Do I physically have enough time to do the tasks that are required of me? We only have so much time. Sometimes it’s not always physically possible to fit everything in. If this is the case then you need to prioritize and drop some of the low priority task/activities to claim some time back. 2. Do I fully optimize and use my time effectively? If the answer is NO then you might want to learn and implement some time management principles and techniques. Below is a list of some time management (self management) techniques and tips that I use during life coaching. You may find a couple of them helpful yourself. They are in no particular order. • Figure out when (what time of the day?) you work most efficiently. • Establish your priorities for what you want to get done. Identify the tasks and activities that are the highest priority and eliminate those of low priority. • Allow more time than you think you will need. This makes your schedule flexible and allows for the unexpected. • Get into the habit of using your odd five minutes here and there more productively. Don’t just dismiss it as only five minutes – they add up throughout the week! • Accomplish one or two important tasks rather than lots unimportant ones. • Keep a calendar/diary. Mark all your important dates/tasks. • Keep a list of “Things to Do” and mark them off as completed. • Every day make a list of what you have to do tomorrow. • When possible do the unpleasant tasks first. • Tidiness makes your life easier and reduces stress. • Allow time to relax, recharge and do nothing. • Leave time in your schedule for un-planned activities. • Know your strengths, skills and weakness. • Ask yourself, “What am I doing that someone else could do for me?” Delegate! • Don’t be scared to ask for help • Bin things straight away to reduce the clutter (junk mail, newspapers and spam email etc). • Divide large overwhelming tasks into smaller chunks, and attack them one at a time. • Complete at least one task each day that you don’t like to do, but know you should. • Realize that all your email checking, surfing the internet and other procrastinations add up to hours of lost time each week (sometime even each day!) • Watch less T.V. If you watch T.V for three hours a day from the age of five years old, by the time you are fifty five the amount of T.V you will have watched will be the equivalent to watching non-stop 24 hours a day for six years and three months. If you cut this down by just one hour a day, so then only watch two hours of T.V, you will have gained back over two years worth of time. “Living is the constant process of deciding what we are going to do” (Jose Ortega y Gasset)

“A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.” – Seneca A brief observation about man and his ability to think opens a door of empowerment worthy of exploring. It’s easy to be happy when things are going well, isn’t it? But what about those times when things are going badly? What do we do? Some of us brave on with a stiff upper lip and breeze right over the trouble as if there wasn’t any at all. Some of us cave in under pressure and behave pretty miserably. What makes us different? Seneca reveals a secret power of the mind when he observed that some of us convince ourselves to be in a certain state of mind. Why would anyone do such a foolish thing as to convince themselves to be unhappy? There are plenty of reasons; but let’s leave that to the psycho-analysts and therapists to work out. I am interested in the fact the man can change his state of mind. Can people change their state of mind by sheer will power? Yes you can! You know you can! Haven’t you as a child put on a mask of pretense and played the role when you had an incentive. I once stayed home from school, so I played sick. Later my mom can in my bedroom and said she was going to the store and wanted to know if I wanted anything. Well that was all I needed. I through off the covers and stood up fast as lightening and said, can I go with you? Ice cream was my incentive. Of course I blew my cover and that was the end of that. So how do we do it? How do we convince ourselves to be happy? Here are the 5 simple steps: 1) You must have an incentive. You need a burning desire. Think about the goal. What will “acting” happy do for you? Well it will make people around you nicer for one thing. Having happy people around you will make you happy because a positive state of mind is catchy. You can turn a situation around. 2) Remember it’s an act. You are playing a role. Fake it till you make it! Even if you are not happy, act as if you are. Keep talking to yourself. Keep telling yourself the reasons why you need to be happy. Sell yourself on the outcome. Make it real. Details make stories real. Think of details. 3) Ignore the negative self-chatter. Your mind will continually try to interrupt your play by reminding you about the reality of things. Don’t listen to the negative tapes that tell you that you won’t succeed and you are a failure. Just act happy. 4) Use positive triggers. Everyone has a trigger that makes them happy. Maybe its whistling, maybe it’s singing a song in your head. 5)Remember that time heals all wounds. In time your trouble will pass. Let’s face it; we sometimes have to convince ourselves to be happy when we are not in the mood. Just knowing we have the power to do that is empowering enough for me. Taking the action to convince yourself to be happy is even more empowering. Try it on the next time your day goes bad. You may just be surprised about the outcome!

What is the purpose of your life? Have you ever wondered? Have you ever attended a funeral, touched the lifeless body, listened to the eulogies, and asked yourself, “Why am I alive?” or “What am I doing with myself?” Maybe the questions arrest you when you encounter the limitless expanse of an ocean or the lumbering enormity of a mountain. Nature has that mystical power to lift our inner gaze and cause us to ask big and important questions. Just a brief walk in the woods under a canopy of trees, surrounded by a million unseen organisms has the power to re-focus our attention away from the distractions of daily life ! and back to those haunting, often perplexing, questions of purpose. Best-selling author Dr. Wayne W. Dyer has suggested that the purpose of life is to know God. Similarly, another best-selling author and pastor, Rick Warren, notes in The Purpose Driven Life that the search for life’s purpose begins with God. Both Dyer and Warren are correct, we think, but by pointing us to God they place a bigger – maybe the biggest – question squarely before us: What do we mean by “God”? Multiple religious traditions across millennia have reflected on the divine. Taking just one notion, albeit a persistently popular one, let’s turn to Michelangelo’s sixteenth century depiction at the Sistine Chapel. Here one encounters the classic white beard and muscles image. Does the purpose of life really begin with this attractive, sixty-something grandfather with a piercing gaze and bulging biceps? Is this the guy who we are supposed to get to know in order to fully understand ourselves? Does he—the Man Upstairs—hold the key to discovering our life’s purpose? We do not think so. While some might find inner inspiration with this notion of God, it does not work for us. As we struggle with questions of purpose and meaning, we are only frustrated by the literal and mental images and energy conjured by this classic portrait of the divine. While a host of religious traditions point to a God who is “out-there” somewhere, waiting for our prayers and perhaps willing to help us (at least to the extent we are aligning our lives with “His purposes”), we wonder whether our search for the divine, meaning, and purpose in our lives ought to start “in-here” somewhere. Perhaps the first step to discovering God and ultimate meaning in our lives is through discovering and exploring the divinity that inhabits each one of us. We are suggesting that traditional notions of a God who has wisdom, power, and goodness wholly external to us is possibly a distraction that keeps us from recognizing the divine potential for flourishing that each person already contains within his or her Authentic Self. What would happen if we broke-free of ancient ideas regarding humanity’s limitations, sinfulness, and powerlessness? What if we consciously rejected the language of divine parent residing outside and apart from us – this Father God “upstairs” or “out there” – to whom we as subservient children must look to and rely upon? What if we instead embraced a more universal concept of the divine as the animating and empowering Source of everything that has been, is, and might be created? What if our life’s purpose was understood as harmonizing with the Uni-Verse, the One Song that sustains and connects all of us? What if we viewed our ultimate life’s purpose and destiny as knowing our Authentic Self, learnin! g to sing our own song in harmony with others, and playing our own music in concert with this Animating Energy that connects everything? Perhaps it is in discovering our own divine attributes and then living a life with the intent of collaborating with God that we might fully realize our life’s greatest purpose and meaning. These insights are ancient and their inspiration rooted in our earliest texts. Consider the exchange between Eve and the Serpent in the mythical Garden of Eden. God had commanded Adam not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because doing so, God warned, would result in death. But we are told that the Serpent was crafty, and the snake suggested to Eve that far from death, taking and eating the tree’s fruit would open Eve’s eyes, animate her awareness, and make her like God. And the Serpent was right. Eve took a bite of the luscious fruit, and she did not die. She then shared the fruit with Adam, and he did not die either. Rather, the eyes of both Eve and Adam were opened, and, as the Serpent had predicted, the holy scripture tells us that they became like Gods. In this story, which circulated as an oral tradition throughout the wandering tribes of the ancient Near East, we are confronted with two important concepts. First, the concept of a God up in Heaven answering prayers and demanding our allegiance – the parental God that many of us were raised to believe in – provides an inadequate conceptual framework for realizing our divine potential. If you continue reading beyond these opening verses of Genesis’s third chapter, you will find these first two human beings making clothes and making offspring. Neither of them died on the day they touched and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Rather, and this brings us to the second point, Eve and Adam demonstrated an admirable boldness as they challenged the received wisdom. Rather then accepting the limits imposed by the social forces of her environment, Eve challenged the constraints of both Adam and God, and she modeled an unbridled courage that refused to settle for less than life’s best fruit. And in the process of recklessly and passionately pursuing where her instincts guided her, Eve had her eyes opened. She was enlightened and empowered. She discovered something about herself that living a safe, uninspired life would have always kept hidden. And in this act of challenging the status quo and rejecting the conventional wisdom – the commands from those in authority – Eve models the type of behavior that always enlightens and empowers us to discover the Authentic Self – our unique voice in the song of the Uni-Verse. Eve gives us an example to follow. Eve points us down the path to discovery of our Authentic Self. The danger lies not in eating of life’s fruits, rather it lies in the limitation we place on our ability to be open and aware. As quantum theory demonstrates, every thing emanates from Source energy and every thing is, ultimately, connected. We should not be surprised, therefore, when our departure from the collective whole leaves us feeling inadequate and incomplete. What we must do to reclaim our Authentic Self is to reclaim that we are entirely Source, wholly god- vibrations. And when we are operating like Eve with our eyes wide open and our spiritual frequency tuned to the unity vibrations of! the divine One Song, such a state resonates with our soul. When we live a life of divine resonance we are living a life of authenticity. Thus, the first step in our exploration of the Authentic Self is the realization that a divine Spirit vibrates within each one of us. And what do we mean by “divine”? Originally from the Latin, divinus literally translates as “of a god.” So, the first step in recognizing and realizing your Authentic Self is the acknowledgment that you are “of a god.” You are divine. You are eternal. Embrace the possibilities. Feel the resonance. Take the first step.

These days everyone seems to have a hectic schedule and that can make it hard to keep up with the various commitments. One way to get yourself organized and to prevent overextending yourself is to get a new calendar. Keep it with you so you can write down important information in it as you fill up your work and social time. You will never forget an event again if you organize your time this way. Having a new calendar to fill in your activities can also show you where all of your time goes. If you find really need to cut back on some activities you can look back on your calendar and make some decisions based on that information. Sometimes it is important to pinpoint a particular event and you will have a record of it on your calendar as well. There are calendars that you write the information down on and those that are electronic known as a PDA. There is no right or wrong way to develop a system for your calendar. Since most of us have our own method of staying organized you can implement the type of system that will work well for you. Many people only want to get a new calendar when the new year begins because they include all of the months. However, there are plenty of calendars that are blank so you fill in the months and the days of it. These calendars can be started any month of the year. Even if you do purchase a calendar in mid year it will still be worth the money you invested in it. Chances are you will find it on sale and you can immediately start using it to better organize your time. It is definitely going to take some time to get used to writing information down on your calendar but stick with it. You will find it becomes a habit in a short span of time. Even if you initially only remember to place half of your commitments on the calendar this will help you get more organized. You can set a good example for your children as well with the use of a calendar. Many older children have to balance their time between school, home, and other activities. Having a calendar can help them plan study time for a big test and make sure they remember to take their band instrument to school on the right days of the week. You will find a very large selection of calendars to choose from. You can select the one that is going to fit your personal style so you will be more likely to use it. Some have time slots for your day while others just have blank space on that date. If you have to schedule a large number of meetings then you will find those with the time slots help you to stay on task and on schedule. Most calendars aren’t very expensive so you don’t have to worry about it costing you a fortune to get organized. However, the amount of time and money using such a calendar system will save you in the long run will be much more than you pay for any particular calendar on the market.

“Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud, and one sees the stars.”- Frederick Langbridge, A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts If you’ve placed second in a writing contest, will you jump for joy and push for better results the next time or will you be discouraged and find an excuse not to join again? In life, you are always filled with choices. You may opt to have a pessimist’s view and live a self-defeated life or you may decide to take the optimist’s route and take a challenging and fulfilling life. So why nurture an optimist’s point of view? And why now? Well, optimism has been linked to positive mood and good morale; to academic, athletic, military, occupational and political success; to popularity; to good health and even to long life and freedom from trauma. On the other hand, the rates of depression and pessimism have never been higher. It affects middle-aged adults the same way it hits younger people. The mean age of onset has gone from 30 to 15. It is no longer a middle-aged housewife’s disorder but also a teenager’s disorder’ as well. Here’s how optimists are in action and researches that back up why it really pays to be an optimist: Optimists expect the best The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe bad events, which will last a long time and undermine everything they do, are their own fault. The truth is optimists are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world. What differs is the way they explain their misfortune—it’s the opposite way. They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback, that its causes are confined to this one case. Optimists tend to focus on and plan for the ‘problem’ at hand. They use ‘positive reinterpretation.’ In other words, they most likely reinterpret a negative experience in a way that helps them learn and grow. Such people are unfazed by bad situation, they perceive it is a challenge and try harder. They won’t say “things will never get better,” “If I failed once, it will happen again” and “If I experience misfortune in one part of my life, then it will happen in my whole life.” Positive expectancies of optimists also predict better reactions during transitions to new environments, sudden tragedies and unlikely turn of events. If they fall, they will stand up. They see opportunities instead of obstacles. People respond positively to optimists Optimists are proactive and less dependent on others for their happiness. They find no need to control or manipulate people. They usually draw people towards them. Their optimistic view of the world can be contagious and influence those they are with. Optimism seems a socially desirable trait in all communities. Those who share optimism are generally accepted while those who spread gloom, panic and hysteria are treated unfavorably. In life, these people often win elections; get voted most congenial and sought for advice. When the going gets tough, optimists get tougher Optimists typically maintain higher levels of subjective well-being during times of stress than do people who are less optimistic. In contrast, pessimists are likely to react to stressful events by denying that they exist or by avoiding dealing with problems. Pessimists are more likely to quit trying when difficulties arise. They persevere. They just don’t give up easily, they are also known for their patience. Inching their way a step closer to that goal or elusive dream. Optimists are healthier and live longer Medical research has justified that simple pleasures and a positive outlook can cause a measurable increase in the body’s ability to fight disease. Optimists’ health is unusually good. They age well, much freer than most people from the usual physical ills of middle age. And they get to outlive those prone to negative thoughts. So why not be an optimist today? And think positively towards a more fulfilled life. Why not look forward to success in all your endeavors? Why not be resilient? Like everybody else you are bound to hit lows sometimes but don’t just stay there. Carry yourself out of the mud and improve your chances of getting back on the right track. And why not inspire others to remove their dark-colored glasses and see life in the bright side? Yours sincerely Daryl Yew