It is said that there is a time for everything. However, we hear people all the time saying they don’t have time for this or that. It would seem that most people are so busy keeping their lives together that they don’t really enjoy themselves.

We all have to do certain things to keep our lives on an even keel. But there is that saying, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” We all know people who are stuck in the rut of work and trying to keep their heads above water.

Perhaps we need to rethink our lives. We are here to have a physical experience and to enjoy it along the way. Why are we not enjoying our lives? Perhaps this is partly because the pressures that society put on us to be what is commonly considered worthwhile citizens are sometimes overwhelming.

I grew up in a single parent household, my father left when I was four years old. I was told that when I grew up I was supposed to get a good job, get married and take care of my family. I felt that there must be more to life than that and it caused allot of confusion in my life.

Many are so busy chasing “The American Dream” that there is no joy in their lives. Without Joy is the dream worth it? The American Dream has become more fantasy than reality.

The only true and lasting dream is contentment and the joy of life. This requires a balanced life. A time for work and a time for play, or at least a time to be able to relax and simply enjoy some time with one’s self and others.

If you do not have time sometimes to spend a useless afternoon in a useless manner you are not living.

TODAY’S TIP: Take time daily to do something that you enjoy and makes you feel good. Spend time with yourself. This is how we get to know ourselves.

What do you enjoy doing?

You can have all the tools, all the knowledge, and all the desire; but if you don’t put in the energy and effort nothing will happen. This is why it is important to organize your days to get the most out of the time you spend.

Time organization and time management are difficult tasks for most of us. There are some things we can do to make it easier.

First, stay focused. You want to develop a one track mind. In doing this there is a line that you do not want to cross. That one track should be on the outcome, not the process. It should also be on the total you and not just one area of your life.

If you develop a one track mind about money you will miss out on other things that are as important or more important, such as your marriage or health. This is true of single minded focus on any one area of life.

You want to stay focused on your plan and the work that will make that plan a reality. Use whatever tools you are aware of to make that a habit. All the tools we have talked about the last few days will help you do that.

Write out your daily work schedule. To give you an idea of what I mean here is mine.

5:30 I get up, take care of my bathroom needs and have a cup of tea – 6:00 half hour meditation – 6:30 QiGong practice (about 45 minutes) – 7:30 exercise about one hour – 8:30 shower – 9:00 breakfast – 10:00 to 12:00 work on computer (blog post and emails) -12:30pm dinner (the heaviest meal of the day) – 1:30 to 3:30work on business – 4:00 eat a light meal – 5:00 to 7:00 read or listen to materials on personal and business development – 7:00 snack – 8:00 half hour meditation – 8:30 to 9:00 relax maybe personal reading. 9:00 start getting ready for bed.

This is my schedule. For me this is 6 days a week. On Sunday I do not schedule anything. I do not exercise or do QiGong This is my day to rest, after all even God rested on the seventh day. If you try to maintain your schedule seven days a week you will burn out. Also notice that their are several times during the day where I can take a break..This is not a rigid schedule, so it will vary.

You do not want to cast your schedule in stone because things will happen so you will have to adjust your schedule. If you do not you may find that you become discouraged and it will be harder to progress.

Keep a journal because it is easier to see your progress. When you accomplish a goal celebrate. Do something that makes you feel good. However when you miss a deadline do not beat up on yourself.

Take a look at the reason you did not meet your deadline and if there is anything you can do to prevent it from happening again do so. If you feel that it was unavoidable except that and move on.

TODAY’S TIP: If you have a family you will want to include some time in your daily schedule to spend time with them. This is a very important part of living in harmony.

How do you spend your day?

One of the great detractors from effective time management is stress. Here are some tips on how to control stress.

The All Time Top 5 Stress Management And Relaxation Techniques By Tim O’Brien

“What do you consider the top or most important Stress Management And Relaxation Techniques?” People have asked me this question in various forms through every type of communication except smoke signals. I would always answer. However, on reflection, I wasn’t always consistent. So, I’ve thought about it seriously. I’ve read and researched. After 13 years of daily involvement with this topic, here are my top 5 techniques, and why they are so critical. The list is in descending order of importance.

1. Diet: in many ways, we are what we eat. Our body needs fuel to function. It needs it in a variety of forms that it can use to feed the process of continual renewal of cells. Dr. Barry Sears, author of the Zone Diet, states that macronutrients are 100 times more important than micronutrients. However, both are critical to our health. Macronutrients are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. When we eat a balanced diet of mildly restricted caloric intake, we increase our chances of having sustained health. Get to and maintain your ideal body weight and you potentially avoid many health problems that obesity causes.
2. Exercise: research shows that an aerobically fit person has less than half the chance of developing cardio heart disease (CHD), as a sedentary person. And, CHD is the #1 killer in the United States. Exercise also relieves tension, improves mental function, speeds up our metabolism and helps us sleep better. All of these benefits help reduce stress.
3. Proper breathing: habituated breathing using the diaphragm rather than the chest has many direct benefits. It can lower blood pressure, reduce our heart rate and calm the mind. It is physiologically impossible to stay excited or angry when you maintain diaphragmatic breathing. This type of breathing is how a baby breathes. In our “stomach in, chest out” society, we’ve forgotten how to breathe correctly. And, now we pay for it in the form of over stimulation.
4. Restful sleep: is nature’s top restorative activity. When we sleep better, we function better. Get enough restful sleep and it clears your mind, revitalizes your nerves, strengthens your immune system and increases your energy levels. Ritualize your routine for going to sleep. Protect your sleep time. This might also be the top overall time management tool there is.
5. Accept full responsibility for your Life and actions. Take control of your attitude and be an optimist. Look for and see the opportunity in every situation. Recognize and accept that you set your diet. The devil didn’t make you eat the twinkies. You let yourself eat them. You decide if, when, and how long you exercise. You can notice how you breathe and choose to do it correctly. You, in general, determine when you sleep. You decide how much you sleep. And, your actions determine how restful it is.

Stress management begins with a decision to take control of your life. It endures and succeeds by sticking to a systematic program that includes time tested principles. And, you are the beneficiary of your efforts. Make a commitment to yourself, and one other person, that you will begin today to lower the stress in your life. Make exercise, diet, proper breathing and restful sleep the corner stones of your program. Couple those with the recognition that you are responsible for the success or failure of your program. Then, you are well on your way to a calmer, lower stress life. Congratulations.

Visit http://www.hyperstress.com for more free articles, reports and workbooks to help you regain control of your life.

The Institute for Stress Management & Performance Improvement

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_O’Brien

TODAY’S TIP: Decide what is important to you and stay focused on things that will help you achieve that.

Can you stay focused?

Many of us struggle with time management, including myself. Here are more tips.

2 Empowering Time Management Techniques For Effective Time Management By Ashton P. Dixon

The following breakdowns are two different time management techniques to help you cope with different activities in your life. These time management techniques are divided into two parts – Scheduling and Time Leverage.

*Scheduling for Better Time Management*
Priorities and goals are the two terms that give essence to time management. These words define a person’s aspiration. And time management scheduling is one way of materializing your aspirations and leading a goal towards reality.

Scheduling is the process of dividing your available time, sharing it equally according to a task’s needed span, and following it according to your planned schedule.

Scheduling brings many benefits.

• One – it helps a person understand what’s realistic from what is not.
• Two – it helps utilize and maximize time the best way possible.
• Three – it brings better time control, leaving sufficient amount of time for things that require prioritization.
• Four – it helps preserve contingency time in handling unexpected events
• Five – and lastly, it can help reduce stress by defining the most valuable task to accomplish from less valuable ones.

Scheduling is best done on a regular basis. The following are steps on how to correctly prepare scheduling:

1. Identify your available time. Remember, the amount of time you can only schedule for each task is dependent on your free resource. To free yourself more time, evaluate your daily task and set unimportant tasks behind. (You can always deal with those later after you finish your priorities first)
2. Identify and prioritize tasks that are absolutely important, and block tasks that are unrelated to your work. These things are often tasks that you are assessed against.
3. Assess carefully your ‘To-do’ list and rearrange them according to their priority. Include tasks that require maintenance or tasks that can’t be avoided.
4. Set a contingency time for unexpected interruptions. This way, while your task is being interrupted your momentum won’t break of so easily.
Remember, time management techniques may vary in their approach, but their goal to manage time is the same.

*Achieve More through Leverage*
Leverage is also an important aspect that should be combined together with scheduling. Time leverage is considered as time management’s fundamental element for success. Leverage in time management means maximizing time, which is not only limited to a person, but to other people as well.

Leveraging your own time and leveraging time through others are two different things. To leverage your own time, you need to:

- You need to practice effective time management first. You can easily do this by doing series of assessments. Eliminate unproductive tasks, and focus your time more on valuable things that really matter.
- You need to learn how to prioritize. Not all tasks carry the same value, especially in working for a particular goal. So try to invest your time more on activities that would give you better returns.
- Lastly, you need to learn how to set goals.

In leveraging other people’s time, you need to:

- You need to learn how to properly delegate different work to different people.
- You need to empower and train other people to make them efficient.
- Close other people’s gaps in skill by bringing in consultants, or by sponsoring seminars.

By simply clicking on the link below, I will give you my best reports totally for free on effective time management tips and secrets.

http://TimeManagementTutor.com

Ashton Dixon

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ashton_P._Dixon

TODAY’S TIP: don’t beat up on yourself if you are disappointed with your accomplishments during the day. Take a deep breathe, relax and start over the next day.

Are you having a hard time managing your time.

Today I present another view on time management with more tips on how to get things done.

Two Time Management Techniques to Use to Get Things Done With Better Balance By Tim S Wilson

Many time management techniques focus on getting things done. But what’s the cost to your other ongoing roles, goals and projects when some things take hours to do? These two time management techniques will help you get want you want to do done — with a better sense of balance.

1. Time Box

Time boxing is effective for anything you find tough to get done. Whether its starting, keep going or getting finished, time boxing works. Here’s how…

Think of any tough, complex or boring project you’ve currently got going on — in this case, ‘project’ refers to anything that needs more than one action to complete it.

The very thought of it can be overwhelming.

Solution? Work on it for a ‘box’ of time. You don’t have to finish it there and then — just make some sort of progress with it. Commit to working on it for whatever length of time you can face it for. Whether it’s for one hour or even just for one minute, break down your box of time until you get to the point of persuading your mind to move your body into action.

This has two benefits:

1. Overcomes inertia – something actually happens; the ball gets rolling, or it rolls again if you started but stalled on something. And once you’ve started, you’ll probably find its…
2. Easier to keep going, For example, when you’re faced with a messy kitchen, try a two minute tidy. ‘Allowing’ yourself to stop after two minutes reduces your resistance to doing it, and you’ll find you end up doing more.

Be careful though! It’s easy to get into whatever you started, but forget the cost of not knowing when to stop. The price to pay depends on whatever else you want to do any given day. That leads us on nicely to the second of these time management techniques…

2. Set and Stick to Limits

One of the most powerful time management techniques to learn is to limit. We all have a number of ongoing roles, goals, projects and tasks. Each of them could, by themselves, consume all the time we have available. The key is to place limits on each one.

The big benefit? Better balance. Most, if not all of what we do is worthwhile. Nobody deliberately sets out to waste time. But what tends to happen is that we spend too long on one thing, to the detriment of others.

Something, or someone, pays when we don’t limit our time. Who, or what, pays if you stay at work another hour? Your family? Your friends? Your health? Limits are one of the essential time management techniques to master. The best way is to do that?

1. Set them. As mentioned earlier, a time box can get you going on a task or project. But it can also be great for helping you stick to a schedule. When you commit to something for set length of time, you can balance it with the other things you want to do during the day.
2. Stick to them. Learn how to say no. Whether it’s to yourself or to other people, say ‘no’ to anything more than your judgement dictates is appropriate. You’ll benefit, and so will those you care about.

One little known benefit of applying limits is that stopping halfway through doing something makes you want to… return to it!

Setting limits takes practice. But practice makes perfect, so keep at it. Improve the accuracy of your ability to estimate how long things take. Time box you tasks and improve your ability to stick to your limits. You’ll get more done at the right time and in the right measures.

Tim Wilson is the creator and editor of http://www.time-management-success.com. Use it to help you make the most of your time and to achieve a better work life balance.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_S_Wilson

TODAY’S TIP: Plan your days and stick with your plan.

What have you planned for tomorrow?

It is always nice to do things the simple way. Here are some simple tools to help manage your days.

The Best Time Management Tools By Tim S Wilson

Time Management is about what you decide and then do. Time itself cannot be changed, but the way you manage it can be. How you do it depends on the quality of your skills and the relevance of your tools.

Anything you do is much easier if you use tools – the right tools at that. So which time management tools will actually help you to manage your time efficiently and effectively?

Different people like different tools, but whatever you use, make sure they’re simple to use, easy to get to and bound to work.

Of the two time management tools that I want to focus on here, one is well known, but often poorly used. The other is far less common, but hugely effective for those who know how to use it. Both have the potential to transform how you live and work:

1. Pen and paper. Keep these with you and you’ve got a ‘capture tool’ handy whenever you want to capture thoughts, ideas, numbers, addresses, reminders, or any other information.

Use the best quality pen and paper that you can. This will encourage you to use them more. To that end, make sure they are small enough to be truly portable, and sturdy enough to cope with the demands of everyday use. By the way, ‘paper’ could be mean a small notebook or memo pad.

In terms of the three criteria mentioned earlier – simplicity, accessibility and reliability – a decent pen and paper pad win hands down.

2. Do-diary. This combines a to-do list with a diary. Instead of scheduling appointments you schedule tasks to do on a particular date. The only ‘rule’ as such is that you schedule tasks for tomorrow or beyond rather than adding to today’s list (which you wrote yesterday!) as you go along.

The great thing about this type of diary is that you can remind yourself to do things on certain days. For example, you may know the date of someone’s birthday. Use your Do-diary to ‘do’ what needs to be done to ensure the card gets there on time; in this case, buy, write and send the card, perhaps a week before. Is the birthday on the 18th? In your Do-diary put it in on the 11th.

Go out and buy yourself a decent pen, sturdy notepad and simple diary, or create your own, as I do. Use these two time management tools and, simply put, you’ll get more good stuff done. That’s what it boils down to!

Tim Wilson is the editor of Time-Management-Success.com, the guide to effective time management. You can find more essential time management tools at his site.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_S_Wilson

TODAY’S TIP: Make a list of the things you want to accomplish the night before and prioritize them starting with the most important. Start at the top of your list and check off each completed.

What are you going to do today?

We often complain that we do not have time to do things we think we should. When we do that we should ask ourselves if that is really so. Take a look at your days and ask if are we doing things that are not necessarily a top priority.

This week we will look at time management. The need to better manage time seems to be a part of many of our lives. How many times have you heard someone say, I don’t have time to exercise; or I don’t know where the time goes.

I like the way Earl Nightingale puts it when asked how he manages time. Bob Proctor say that when he asked Earl that question, his reply was; “I don’t manage time,  no one can manage time. I manage activities.”

That is the place to start trying to manage you days to get more done. Take a look at how you spend your days. What are you doing that is not a priority? What are you doing that you don’t need to do?

Notice things like how much time you spend watching TV or reading the newspaper. How much time do you spend involved in a hobby or other pastime. Remember that some activities are called pastimes for a reason. That reason is that they help to past the time. Do you just want to past the time or get something done?

Write out your top ten priorities for your life. How many are you working on each day? Keep a list of you daily activities. Do your activities support your priorities? If they do not you are either being dishonest with yourself about what you really want or there is some fear that is keeping you from working on what you really want.

Either way it tells you that you have work to do in balancing your daily activities with your desires and dreams.  Decide now if what you want in your life is worth having or not. Ask yourself are you willing to do what is necessary to get what you want.

If you answer no to either of those questions, let go of those dreams. Find dreams that you are willing to put forth the energy to make them a reality.

If you answer yes to those questions then start setting habits and patterns in place that will help you to accomplish your goals. Once you overcome the resistance to start things become easier.

The only question that needs answering is. Is it worth it? If it is then just do it. Remember we all have the some amount of time each day. The only thing that separates success from failure is what we do with that time.

TODAY’S TIP: Keep a journal of how you spend your days. It will help you see the time that is wasted each day.

Do you wish you had more time?

Most of us think of time management as an almost impossible task. Time management is not only useful for work, but for all areas of your life.

The Key to a Better Life

Time management is basically about being focused. The Pareto Principle also known as the ’80:20 Rule’ states that 80% of efforts that are not time managed or unfocused generates only 20% of the desired output. However,  80% of the desired output can be generated using only 20% of a well time managed effort. Although  the ratio ’80:20′ is only arbitrary, it is used to put emphasis on how much is lost or how much can be gained with time management.

Some people view time management as a list of rules that involves scheduling of appointments, goal settings, thorough planning, creating things to do lists and prioritizing. These are the core basics of time management that should be understood to develop an efficient personal time management skill. These basic skills can be fine tuned further to include the finer points of each skill that can give you that extra reserve to make the results you desire.

But there is more skills involved in time management than the core basics. Skills such as decision making, inherent abilities such as emotional intelligence and critical thinking are also essential to your personal growth.

Personal time management involves everything you do. No matter how big and no matter how small, everything counts. Each new knowledge you acquire, each new advice you consider, each new skill you develop should be taken into consideration.

Having a balanced life-style should be the key result in having personal time management. This is the main aspect that many practitioners of personal time management fail to grasp.

Time management is about getting results, not about being busy.

The six areas that personal time management seeks to improve in anyone’s life are physical, intellectual, social, career, emotional and spiritual.

The physical aspect involves having a healthy body, less stress and fatigue.

The intellectual aspect involves learning and other mental growth activities.

The social aspect involves developing personal or intimate relations and being an active contributor to society.

The career aspect involves school and work.

The emotional aspect involves appropriate feelings and desires and manifesting them.

The spiritual aspect involves a personal quest for meaning.

Thoroughly planning and having a set of things to do list for each of the key areas may not be very practical, but determining which area in your life is not being giving enough attention is part of time management. Each area creates the whole you, if you are ignoring one area then you are ignoring an important part of yourself.

Personal time management should not be so daunting a task. It is a very sensible and reasonable approach in solving problems big or small.

A great way of learning time management and improving your personal life is to follow several basic activities.

One of them is to review your goals whether it be immediate or long-term goals often.

A way to do this is to keep a list that is always accessible to you.

Always determine which task is necessary or not necessary in achieving your goals and which activities are helping you maintain a balanced life style.

Each and everyone of us has a peek time and a time when we slow down, these are our natural cycles. We should be able to tell when to do the difficult tasks when we are the sharpest.

Learning to say “No”. You actually see this advice often. Heed it even if it involves saying the word to family or friends.

Pat yourself at the back or just reward yourself in any manner for an effective time management result.

Try and get the cooperation from people around you who are actually benefiting from your efforts of time management.

Don’t procrastinate. Attend to necessary things immediately.

Have a positive attitude and set yourself up for success. But be realistic in your approach in achieving your goals.

Have a record or journal of all your activities. This will help you get things in their proper perspective.

These are the few steps you initially take in becoming a well rounded individual.

As they say personal time management is the art and science of building a better life.

From the moment you integrate into your life time management skills, you have opened several options that can provide a broad spectrum of solutions to your personal growth. It also creates more doors for opportunities to knock on.

TODAY’S TIP: Keep a journal of your days activities for several days. Review the journal to see where you need better use of time.

Did you waste time today?

Without goals and dreams life would indeed be a boring and deppressing thing. Here are some tips on setting goals.

Setting Your Goals – Easier Said, Easily Done

The basics of setting a goal is an open secret known by top-caliber athletes, successful businessmen and businesswomen and all types of achievers in all the different fields. The basics of setting goals give you short-term and long-term motivation and focus. They help you set focus on the acquisition of required knowledge and help you to plan and organize your resources and your time so that you can get the best out of your life.

Setting clearly defined short term and long term goals will enable you to measure your progress and achieve personal satisfaction once you have successfully met your goals. Charting your progress will also enable you to actually see the stages of completion leading to the actual realization of your goals. This eliminates the feeling of a long and pointless grind towards achieving your goal. Your self-confidence and level of competence will also improve as you will be more aware of your capabilities as you complete or achieve your goals.

The basics of goal settings will involve deciding what you really want to do with your personal life and what short term and long term goals you need to achieve it. Then you have to break down goals into the smaller and manageable targets that you must complete in your way to achieving your lifetime targets. Once you have your list waste no time in tackling your goals.

A good way to have a manageable list is to have a daily and weekly set of goals. By doing this you will be always in the position of going towards your life plan goals. Everyday will give you the opportunity to fulfill a certain goal giving you the feeling of accomplishment.

Here are some pointers that should be taken into consideration in setting goals and achieving them.

Attitude plays a very big role in setting and achieving your goals. You must ask yourself  if any part of you or your mind holding you back towards completing your simplest goals? If there are any part of your behavior that is being a hindrance or puts your plans into disarray? If you do have problems in these areas then the immediate thing to do is to address this problem. Solutions may include a visit to a doctor or psychiatrist to control your emotions.

Careers are made by good time management practice. Failing in a career is often attributed to bad time management. Careers require a lot from an individual which often makes the career the life of the individual. Plan how far do you want to go into your career.

Education is key in achieving your goals. If your goals require you to have a certain kind of degree or require a certain specialization or demand a certain skill to be developed, make plans in getting the appropriate education.

Your family should never be left out of your plans. If you are just starting out then you have to decide if you want to be a parent or when you want to be a parent. You also have to know if you really would be a good parent and how well would you relate to extended family members

Personal financial situations also play a major role in achieving your goals. Have a realistic goal on how much you really want to earn. You also must be able to create plans or stages by which you will be able to reach your earning potential.

Physically gifted individuals may be able to achieve sports related goals like being in the National Basketball association or National Football League. Determining your physical capabilities should be one of your priorities. Physical limitations could however be conquered with proper planning.

As the saying goes -’All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’, or something to that effect, is by all means true down to the last the letter. Giving yourself a little pleasure: should be included into your plans.

To start achieving your lifetime goals, set a quarter of a century plan, then break it down to 5 year plans then break it down again to 1 year plans, then 6 month plans then monthly plans, then weekly, then daily.

Then create a things-to-do list for the day.

Always review your plans and prepare for contingencies.

The basics of goal settings should not be so difficult once you get to be familiar with them.

TODAY’S TIP: Always write down you goals and plan of action. Writing them down brings them out of inside you and increase the chances of success.

What are your goals?

People approach problems in different ways. Here is some advice that may help make problem solving easier.

More than One Way to Skin a Cat: Adventures in Creative Thinking

How many times have you caught yourself saying that there could be no other solution to a problem – and that that problem leads to a dead end? How many times have you felt stumped knowing that the problem laying before you is one you cannot solve. No leads.  No options.  No solutions.

Did it feel like you had exhausted all possible options and yet are still before the mountain – large, unconquerable, and impregnable? When encountering such enormous problems, you may feel like you’re hammering against a steel mountain. The pressure of having to solve such a problem may be overwhelming.

But rejoice! There might be some hope yet!

With some creative problem-solving techniques you may be able to look at your problem in a different light. And that light might just be the end of the tunnel that leads to possible solutions.

First of all, in the light of creative problem-solving, you must be open-minded to the fact that there may be more than just one solution to the problem. And, you must be open to the fact that there may be solutions to problems you thought were unsolvable.

Now, with this optimistic mindset, we can try to be a little bit more creative in solving our problems.

Number one; maybe the reason we cannot solve our problems is that we have not really taken a hard look at what the problem is. Here, trying to understanding the problem and having a concrete understanding of its workings is integral solving the problem. If you know how it works, what the problem is, then you have a better foundation towards solving the problem.

Not trying to make the simple statement of what problem is. Try to identify the participating entities and what their relationships with one another are. Take note of the things you stand to gain any stand to lose from the current problem. Now you have a simple statement of what the problem is.

Number two; try to take note of all of the constraints and assumptions you have the words of problem. Sometimes it is these assumptions that obstruct our view of possible solutions. You have to identify which assumptions are valid, in which assumptions need to be addressed.

Number three; try to solve the problem by parts. Solve it going from general view towards the more detailed parts of the problem. This is called the top-down approach. Write down the question, and then come up with a one-sentence solution to that from them. The solution should be a general statement of what will solve the problem. From here you can develop the solution further, and increase its complexity little by little.

Number four; although it helps to have critical thinking aboard as you solve a problem, you must also keep a creative, analytical voice at the back of your head. When someone comes up with a prospective solution, tried to think how you could make that solution work. Try to be creative. At the same time, look for chinks in the armor of that solution.

Number five; it pays to remember that there may be more than just one solution being developed at one time. Try to keep track of all the solutions and their developments. Remember, there may be more than just one solution to the problem.

Number six; remember that old adage,” two heads are better than one.” That one is truer than it sounds. Always be open to new ideas. You can only benefit from listening to all the ideas each person has. This is especially true when the person you’re talking to has had experience solving problems similar to yours.

You don’t have to be a gung-ho, solo hero to solve the problem. If you can organize collective thought on the subject, it would be much better.

Number seven; be patient. As long as you persevere, there is always a chance that a solution will present itself. Remember that no one was able to create an invention the first time around.

Creative thinking exercises can also help you in your quest be a more creative problems solver.

Here is one example.

Take a piece of paper and write any word that comes to mind at the center. Now look at that word then write the first two words that come to your mind. This can go on until you can build a tree of related words. This helps you build analogical skills, and fortify your creative processes.

So, next time you see a problem you think you can not solve, think again. The solution might just be staring you right in the face. All it takes is just a little creative thinking, some planning, and a whole lot of work.

TODAY’S TIP: When dealing with a problem get into the habit of first taking a deep breath and will yourself to relax.

Did you solve your last problem?