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Welcome To the May 2008 eTalk Newsletter! One of your most valuable assets is your time. It can be a struggle to balance your time as a professional, family member, friend, and member of your community. Staying organised in the home helps you minimise worrying about the day-to-day details of your life and gives you more opportunities to maximise your enjoyment of every day. This issue of the eTalk Newsletter features articles and tips as well as best-selling books and new organising tools to help you make the most of your valuable time.
Five Easy Ways to Simplify Your Life... Starting Today! 1) ORGANISE EVERYTHING! Your work, home, life! Stop spending time, money, and effort looking for people and things. Stop wondering what to do next. Update your address book. Throw out old contacts. Get cracking with your To-Do list. Before going to bed at night, you should know the top 6 most important things you need to do the following day... and have them written in your Day-Timer® planner! 2) QUESTION EVERYTHING! Stop doing "busy work!" Start asking yourself, "Does what I'm doing forward my life? Bring me closer to my goals?" If not, consider cutting it out! Also ask, "Is there an easier way to do this?" Don't settle into inefficient routines. Strive for constant improvement in all areas of your life. Streamline tasks and you'll save time for more important (and more fun) things. 3) 10-MINUTE CHORE BLOW-OUT! You know all those little nagging chores you keep putting off? The shirt with the missing button... the long-overdue oil change... the thing you've been meaning to return... the doctor's appointment you've been putting off. Take 10 minutes, make a list of all these things, and schedule one day that you'll get as many done as possible. Get them off your plate and off your mind! 4) SHRUG IT OFF! Keep things in perspective. Don't get aggravated by trivial matters. Milk spilled? Wipe it up and move on. Flat tire? Call for roadside assistance or change it yourself... and drive away. Didn't get approved for the loan? Call another bank. Adopt the Zen mindset: notice the situation... say, "Well, that's what is"... handle it... and go on with your life. 5) TELL IT TO YOUR DAY-TIMER PLANNER! Stop trying to remember everything. Write it down! Your brain is too valuable to be used primarily as a storage device.
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Ways to Save Time with Children By Lucy H. Hedrick
Lucy H. Hedrick is an author and expert on saving time and money. The tips below are from her book 365 Ways to Save Time with Kids (Hearst Books).
1. A woman I know gives each member of her family a supply of large safety pins. When anyone takes off a dirty pair of socks, they pin them together. The socks remain pinned through laundry, drying, and putting away until they're worn again. No need to sort and match! 2. Mount an outdoor thermometer outside your child's bedroom window and encourage them to read it every morning. This will help them decide, and take responsibility for, what outerwear they'll need that day. 3. Give your child their own wall calendar, mount it near where homework is done, and help your child write in not only important events and family birthdays but also schoolwork deadlines. Giving children the opportunity to look at a whole month and take the long view will help them plan ahead and avoid doing assignments at the last minute. 4. If you take time to plan, you can do almost all the preparation work for dinner ahead of time. Maryanne works full-time and has three school-aged children. She can give her kids more attention when she comes home in the evening by getting a jump start on dinner in the morning. She routinely cuts up salad, marinates meat, and cleans vegetables in the morning. Furthermore, she assigns her kids simple cooking chores to do after school, like peeling potatoes, setting the table, or emptying the dishwasher. 5. When you move to a new area, you have more to transfer than just your furnishings. Don't forget your children's medical, dental, and school records. You can aid in their forwarding by providing the school or medical office with a pre-addressed, stamped envelope. 6. Before kids are old enough to understand the importance of regular teeth brushing, they tend to rush through the job. Buy them a three-minute egg timer and encourage them to keep brushing until all the sand has run out. 7. Tell your kids that if they spend 10 minutes a day looking for things they've misplaced, they waste more than 60 hours a year. Some parents confiscate what's left lying around and demand small fines to get it back. Others label buckets, baskets and boxes to make it easier to put things away. Whichever stand you take set a good example: Put your possessions back where they belong!
KEEP TRACK OF THOSE IMPORTANT DATES!
Sign up for our FREE Reminder Service at daytimer.co.nz and enter deadlines, birthdays, anniversaries, meetings and social events. We'll email you 7 days before your chosen date so you'll never forget important dates again!
Wanted: Your Words of Wisdom Please share with us how you use Day-Timer® products! E-mail us a quick tip (100 words or less, please) about how you use a specific product to make your life easier to manage. E-mail your tip to sales@daytimer.co.nz. Please include your name and address. Your information will be forwarded to our marketing department for possible future use.
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