Time management and the best tip we’ve ever found. One we love – our second favourite tip is described by Earl Nightingale the late iconic self-development guru. It features a story set almost 100 years ago and just one tip which took 20 minutes work netted it’s creator a small fortune. Perhaps we’ll write about it in a future article.

Time management - read up on Stephen Covey's 7 habits of highly effective people

The work of American psychologist Dr Stephen Covey is worth reading. His book the 7 habits of highly effective people is one of the leading self-development books of its time.

It features an exercise on time management where you put tasks and jobs into 4 quadrants based on the 2 key variables importance and urgency. Q1 is urgent and important, Q2 is important and not urgent, Q3 is urgent and not important and guess what? Q4 is not urgent and not important.

He shows how the secret to good time management is Q2. The things in your life which are important but not urgent deserve your greatest attention. Once they’ve become urgent and moved into Q1, they become stressful and pressurised. And the way to generate more time to spend in Q2 is to steal it from Q3 and Q4.

This is one of the key time management principles covered in our time management training CD. It is available here for just £34.99 and we recommend it – but then we would wouldn’t we?!

Time management - audio learning CD

If you want to find more information about Dr Stephen Covey’s work on time management, we suggest you buy his book, or listen to his audio programme. In the meantime you can read more by following this link to a British website http://www.businessballs.com/timemanagement.htm#urgent_important_grid_time_management. This site is a useful reference site for many kinds of business and self-development ideas.

One of the questions we are frequently asked is who do we look to – to give us new ideas, and to inspire us. So as a result we’ll include some material in the blog that gives you some of the top people and their work that we have come across.

There will be a book review on the first of each month for the next few months. These are easy to access – just dip your hand in your pocket and for less than £15 generally you can pick up a wealth of information.

Today’s guru tip is the Birmingham based sales trainer and motivational speaker Peter Thomson. http://www.peterthomson.com/ is a link that will take you directly to his site. You can even sign up for his little weekly tips TGI Mondays at www.tgimondays.com.

I have seen him ‘perform’ at a number of different events, and particularly if you’re a business owner or senior manager, you will find his material inspiring ! Our advice check it out !

We are interested in how and when people use their time to learn. Time management is a key challenge facing us all on a daily basis. Ever wondered why some people in business seem to get more out of a day than others ? Take Sir Richard Branson for example or Stelios of Easyjet. They have the same amount of hours in every day as anybody else. However they achieve more because they spend more time on the big things, than on the little things. Our audio CD “So you wanna go places” covers this in detail http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=23. Our customers for our range of audio CDs typically tell us they listen to the CDs in the car (often driving to or from work or to meetings.) Alternatively some transfer them from their PC onto MP3 player.

Whatever works best for you, it is important to try and take on board any new information when your mind is most receptive. Early morning before the day is underway is good, as can be the middle of the evening (depending on what else is going on in your life of course !)

I often think targets have a negative image. It is easy to think of them as things other people set you to do, things that they impose on you to control your actions.

But they are much more powerful than that. There are many studies that show people who have targets and goals are more successful at achieving the things in life that are important to them. There is a saying “those people who are going nowhere, usually get there !” This is about the goals that YOU SET FOR YOURSELF. In other words, set your own path, don’t wait for others to do it for you.

There are many great sources of information on personal goal setting. We currently have 2 different titles covering goal setting by 2 different authors.  You can find them by clicking the following link http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_list.asp?Section=SELF%20DEVELOPMENT One is the excellent title “little steps lead to big dreams” which is a radio interview with Alastair Campbell of the Ideal Marketing Company. It gives some great tips and a good format to setting out your goals.

The second product is training material used in training courses by the training company To Market. It also has some top tips and talks about overcoming personal barriers – all those things that get in the way of achieving your goals.

So give them a listen and see what you think.