Time management is a skill that takes time to development and perfect. It also is a skill that is different for everyone. Your best bet is to try a variety of different approaches until something clicks in your brain and sticks in your routine.
Here are a handful of tips to consider:
1. Make Lists: Write as much down as you can. If you don’t carry a planner or notebook already, start. Personally, I’ve always preferred a small, simple, white-lined notebook because you aren’t restricted by the various boxes and lines of the average planner.
A simple To Do List is often a huge help to anyone, but I can attest gleefully to the 3 Lists of 3 Method more than any other. You’re goal is to avoid a list that reaches outrageous length and is overwhelming to even look at.
2. Make Use of Down Time: Using walking, driving, showering, or otherwise “dead” times to plan. Think about what your goals are for that day or the next. Which goals are most important? Prioritization is the key.
3. Reward Yourself: Whenever you accomplish something, especially the important things, make sure to take the time to reward yourself. A Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess’ used the “Martini Method” to get things done. Burgess set a goal of 1,000 words per day. When he finished his word count, he’d relax with a martini and take the day off. Maybe a martini isn’t the idealreward for some of us, but the method stands useful.
4. Concentrate on One Thing: The human mind works more efficiently when it is focused. As we’ve seen before multitasking is actually a disadvantage to productivity. Focus on one thing and get it done. Take care not to bleed tasks into each other. At times, multitasking may seem like a more efficient route, but it is probably not. continue reading »
physicist born in Germany who formulated the special theory of relativity and the general theory of relativity; Einstein also proposed that light consists of discrete quantized bundles of energy (later called photons) (1879-1955)
* Since that deluge of newspaper articles I have been so flooded with questions, invitations, suggestions, that I keep dreaming I am roasting in Hell, and the mailman is the devil eternally yelling at me, showering me with more bundles of letters at my head because I have not answered the old ones. »
* As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. »
* A theory can be proved by experiment but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory. »
* Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. »
* In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep. »
* Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools. »
* If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign »
* Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us closer to the secret of the ‘Old One.’ I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice. »
* The important thing is not to stop questioning. »
* Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. »
Are Microsoft and Google hoping to get into Twitter’s treasure trove of real-time information? Yes, says Kara Swisher of AllThingsD, citing sources who indicate that the two companies are separately in talks with Twitter about data licensing deals.This would involve the exchange of several million dollars plus a revenue-share to “compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets of its 54 million monthly users,” Swisher wrote.
What’s unclear is whether either deal will actually come to fruition. More concrete is the likelihood that Twitter won’t strike any exclusive deals, considering the company is (according to Swisher) “seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers.”Twitter, which just raised about $100 million at a valuation somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion, doesn’t have a significant revenue stream in place yet. It’s slated to launch a premium-services package later this year, but big search-data deals with the likes of Microsoft and Google could be a significant additional source of cash. continue reading »
The International Monetary Fund is honing in on problems posed by huge currency stockpiles in exporting nations as it takes up the baton of a global governor charged with bringing about a better-balanced world economy.The Group of 20 economic powers last month and other nations at meetings here in recent days have pushed the global lender to make sure the world never again faces a crisis like no other since the Great Depression.
While the global recession has its roots in both a debt-fueled housing boom in the United States and the free-lending ways of an export-rich China, the IMF is beginning its task by focusing on the latter half of the equation.”People are worried about the accumulation of reserves and the implications it will have down the road,” said a senior IMF official, who requested anonymity. “It is a prevention issue right now, rather than proactively changing the way people are investing their reserves.” continue reading »