Time melting away on you?

Find yourself running out of time daily and staying up late?  You'd benefit by embracing new organizational tactics!

Here's how...

By working smarter and not harder, you'll line up your days to work with your brain rather than against it. 

You and I can benefit from Lolly Daskal's amazing  teleseminar: THE MASTERS OF TIME on April 7th - 8th designed to assist busy leaders like us to find even more balance, control and choice. We can become an even more productive, master of our time. Best part is teleseminar's FREE!

Here're highlights:

We'll gain from expertise of nine leaders in different fields

Dr. Ellen Weber - Learn, Live and Lead with the Brain in Mind

Ellen is founder and Director of the International MITA Center, a brain based leadership renewal center, located in Rochester, NY. She published several books and dozens of articles about using more brain for innovative workplace solutions. Her well respected brain based approaches appear in top national and international journals, periodicals and newspapers, as far away as Dubai. Ellen provides tactics to work with your brain to improve time management.

Mike Song - Manage Your Email Before It Manages You

Mike is co-author of "The Hamster Revolution: How to Manage Your Email Before It Manages You" and is one of America's leading experts on email efficiency and etiquette.

Maria Gracia - Let's Get Organized Now!

Specializes in helping people get better organized to live the kind of stress-free life they've always dreamed of.  Over a million visitors visit Maria's Get Organized Now web site yearly!

David Peter Stroh - Managing Your Time as a Leader

David co-evolved an innovative approach to Executive Time Management to help leaders and organizations improve performance in sustainable ways despite increased workload and declining resources. His clients include: Shell, Johnson & Johnson, Partners Healthcare, Hewlett-Packard, World Bank, NASA, and the Kellogg and Soros Foundations.

Marilyn Paul, Ph.D. - Manage Your Workload. Don’t Let It Manage You

Marilyn is the author of the best-selling book, It’s Hard to Make a Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys: The Seven-Step Path to Becoming Organized (Penguin Compass, 2004), which has sold 150,000 copies worldwide. An executive coach, Marilyn's special expertise focuses in time management, recovering from disorganization, and managing workload systemically.

Maruxa Murphy - Take Back Your Life

Maruxa knows the power “SOS – Shiny Object Syndrome” holds for a business person and provides steps she’s taken to live outside the prison of these Shiny Objects.

Dr. Eric Wolterstorff - Move Roadblocks - Reach Your Goals!

Eric will help you change all three of your memory systems to get you where you want to go. With over 25 years experience in the field of trauma, interpersonal dynamics and organizational performance, he is an internationally recognized speaker and trainer for professionals, organizations and religious and cultural groups.

Charrise McCrorey - Regain Your Valuable Time

Charrise is a Certified Business and Personal Coach, who specializes in helping people get clarity on what they want in life. She'll show you how to uncover fear and activate courage to manage your life.

Megan McDonough - Holistic Approach to Work/Life Balance

An award-winning author of Infinity in a Box, Using Yoga to Live with Ease, and the soon-to-released book titled A Minute for Me; Megan helps people get clear so they can get the results they want. Megan is a marketing consultant to wellness organizations, a corporate trainer for work/life balance workshops, and a yoga instructor.

Lolly Daskal - Time Management From The Inside Out

Lolly Daskal teaches us that TIME MANAGEMENT is all about working from the inside out. With her practical approach she will not only help us manage our time using new insights, but it will also help each of us manage life.

Don't worry if you can't make it to hear all the speakers during the free LIVE  Time Masters Summit on 4/7/10 - 4/8/10.   There will be a chance to get access to the replays as well.

Here's how:  Start with TIME MASTER recorded teleseminar. 
TIME STRATEGIST 
TIME SENSEI

Box up troubles to move on

When trouble strikes we have a tendency to dwell on all facets of the event.  Maybe it's a lost chance for a job or the purchase of a new home we desired.

Interestingly, you can change your outlook on trouble by sticking something related to the disappointment in a box or envelope according to a Rotman School of Management study.  The physical act of putting materials related to an unpleasant experience, even a written recollection of it, improved people's negative views and created closure.

Just telling people to "move on," doesn't work.  "What works is when people enclose materials that are relevant to the negative memories they have," Dilip Soman finds. "It works because people aren't trying to explicitly control their emotions."

People who move on benefit with an optimistic view of the future.  To let go and move on boosts individual's immune systems.  

As individuals shift from a negative to more optimistic view, it enhances activation in the brain's anterior cingulate and amygdala, which often malfunctions in depression.

Physically putting something in a box or envelope goes a step further than merely thinking about it.  I find this a powerful strategy to move past distressing events that might otherwise overwhelm me and stop me in my tracks. 

What works for you to shift gears to move on when trouble comes?

Your Brain on Trust

People take more action when you take more interest. #notrust Chris Brogan

Hmmm...  as I read Chris's statement, the following thoughts bulldozed through my head about "no trust":

• more money spent on software to keep hackers away
• car insurer notice to cancel policy because hubby had two minor accidents in snow, though they sell policy in snow belt
• high pressure telephone marketers wanting to move money from my pocket to theirs through manipulative talk
• e-mail pfishing
• social media account theft - viral crooks
• identity theft
• politicians who sit in Albany and Washington with more of their interests in mind than the people's they represent

Jim, a friend with a business start-up, encountered a slick businessman who kept his fee to himself until after a session explaining how he could market and double profitability.  Immediately after the session, the businessman promptly sent Jim a bill for $2,000, payable in 30 days.  Business friend advised Jim not to pay, when he took his problem to them.  He held tight.  Unbelievably, he was sent a notice to appear in court for non-payment.  Jim was advised this time to go to court and take what evidence he had.  Jim held firm, went to court, and the judge dismissed the case, and ordered the businessman to pay the court fees.  I wonder how many in Jim's shoes pay up because of fear.

A lot of folks take interest in our ability to get ahead and make money, but who's interest do they have in mind?  As you can see, I've developed a level of skepticism...  and I'd like to tackle that.

Are you curious as to how how trust is formed in people's brains.  Are people rewired for less trust because there appears to be more "snake oil" salesmen out there than there used to be? 

Two regions of the brain affect trust: the amygdala, which processes fear, danger and possibly risk of social betrayal; and an area of the striatum, part of the circuity that guides and adjusts future behavior based on reward feedback.  Swiss scientists found that oxytocin affects people's responses positively specifically related to trust.  Since our brains have great plasticity and can be rewired, I hope to rewire mine to be more open, yet careful, too. 

Our brains wire more easily for negative connections and these are harder to overcome, while positive connections are harder to create and tend to leave faster.  Why is this true?  Ellen Weber shows that

Fear tactics or stress over-stimulate the amygdala and excite the brain’s circuitry. Threats, for instance, increase dangerous cortisol chemicals and lower levels of serotonin, the adrenalin for well-being.

Not too surprisingly, first impressions count when you want to build a lasting trust, according to researcher Robert Lount.  He suggests a person forms a first impression and sticks to it, looking for future cues that are consistent with this first impression. 

In a recent study of people from 29 Asian countries shows that individuals with high levels of trust in the mass media tend to be healthier.  

These findings align with Steve Rubel's assessment that "trust in experts rises - social media and PR still win."  At the same time, however, trust in peers surprisingly dropped from 47% to 27%.

Rubel adds:

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, you name it are by far the fastest and most effective ways for an any individual or a company to build a thought leadership footprint... All it means that we'll have to work harder to build credibility through online thought leadership. If you're doing this with scale, you will win.

The punchline:  All this means is less fluff and more substance.  And that's a good thing.

You can rewire your brain for more trust, though in these times it takes conscious focus and effort. Global companies see trust as a major focus today.   Are you working to establish trust as you take interest in others? 

I will listen to hear what others say and contemplate it...   You? 

Gratitude: 5 Tips to Generate More

Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty. - Doris Day 

Birthdays lead me to reflect and realize amazing wealth in money can't buy.  If I measured my wealth in money - it's infinite and abundant.

Had you ever thought gratitude makes a difference in your happiness?  Gratitude is listed first in a list of five things that make you happy.  Being optimistic, counting your blessings, using your strengths and committing acts of kindness follow gratitude.

Expressing gratefulness:  gratefulness needs expression to make a difference.  What are some of the ways you express thanks to others?  Here are 5 for you to consider:

1. Expressive writing is one way to practice gratitude.  Dr. Steve Toepfer tried an experiment with students in his class.  He asked student volunteers to write letters of gratitude to people positively impacting their lives. Students wrote a letter every two weeks with ground rules that it had to be "positively expressive, required some insight and reflection, was nontrivial and contained a high level of appreciation or gratitude."

"I saw their happiness increase after each letter, meaning the more they wrote, the better they felt," says Toepfer, who also witnessed improvement in participants' life satisfaction and gratitude throughout the study.

2. Pay gratitude forward: A kind act often is what makes us grateful to others.  For instance, when I first started blogging, Ellen Weber, Brad Shorr and Servant of Chaos were three people who took time to comment on articles.  That encouraged me.  As a result, I began to pay it forward by commenting on many other blogs.

3. Reconsider lack of gratitude to family and people close to us:  At times family members get the brunt of our emotions because we take them for granted without realizing it.  But, what if we were to think of ways we are grateful for them?  "See if it's possible to notice and get in touch with helpful, supportive ways in which your family has loved you," Jonathan Kaplan urges.

4. Gratitude fills your glass half way:  It's up to us to make it full.  Good news is that gratitude increases levels of serotonin, a brain hormone, which flows through your brain, and increasing your well-being.  "Grateful thinking—and especially expression of it to others—is associated with increased levels of energy, optimism, and empathy."  Pouring serotonin into your glass at daybreak makes sense.

5. Embrace your job through gratitude:  Begin by reviewing the "sweet spot" of your day.  For example a physician, "eased his professional struggles with a positive trick of the brain. 'Every morning when I start my internal rant against the ridiculous requirements of my new practice group, I force myself to STOP and picture one patient I feel I helped the day before. That soothing image brings my stress level down enough to get through another day.'"

Next time I waken, "cranky," I'll work on shifting gears by thinking of something meaningful from the day before.  Hmmm...  I'll even write a note.  You?