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Do you pride yourself on being a magnificent multitasker?
Do you feel as though you can accomplish everything on your list only if you multitask?

There are more and more studies being done about how the brain operates when we are doing more than one thing at a time. Concern over the safety of using cell phones while driving has spurred some of the research. People are talking on their phone, eating or smoking, and driving all at the same time. There is no wonder that errors of judgement are occurring, causing traffic collisions.

Rene Marois and Paul Dux, scientists at Vanderbilt University, have found in their research that even though it seems as though we are able to do two things at once, our brain actually shuts down one of the functions briefly as we’re performing the other task. They described it as having all the information in our brain suddenly hitting a bottleneck. This delay is know as dual-task interference.

They have located the bottleneck by using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technology that shows what areas of the brain are active in mental tasks by mapping changes in the blood’s oxygen levels. The scientists studied the brain activity of their subjects who were performing two demanding tasks.

They could see that the neural response to the second task was postponed until the response to the first was completed. Still to be determined is what is actually happening in this “bottleneck” of the brain that is slowing performance.

What does this mean to you as you’re working to increase your productivity?

You may overlook obvious solutions.
Your creativity will not be accessed completely.
Most likely work will need to be redone due to errors.
Your anxiety level may increase.
It will be difficult to have the satisfaction of a job well done.
You’ll probably miss what others are saying to you.
You may not notice physical discomfort or tension until it is serious.

What is the solution?
Mindfulness.

Being mindful means focusing attention on what you’re experiencing from moment to moment. It’s quite a challenge to be mindful in our hectic world. Studies are showing us that mindfulness is a worthwhile habit to develop.

At the Mind/Body Medical Institute and the University of Wisconsin, they found that after mindfulness training, brain wave recordings showed a pattern of activity greater in the left prefrontal cortex that is associated with happiness and optimism. Mindfulness also influenced the immune system of those in the study. The mindfulness students produced more antibodies than the controls.

All of these studies are showing us that multitasking is not the panacea that so many of us think it is to getting everything done.

Instead, we’re hearing that mindfulness is a worthwhile habit to develop.
Our safety, happiness, and productivity depend on it!

Exuberant Productivity Coach, Suzanne Holman, MAEd, works with professionals determined to make their work productive with quality time and abundant energy for fun and family! For a FREE Exuberance Assessment and tips for increasing your productivity, visit http://www.exuberantproductivity.com

I think back on my time working for someone else and almost have to laugh now. It seems so distant and far away that it isn’t even real to me anymore!

But I have to remind myself how I felt at the time…back when I had zero work life balance.

The mornings were the worst. I had to leave earlier and earlier to get to work on time with all the traffic. Each morning an epic battle was waged just to get out of bed. On one side was my sense of obligation; on the other was the snooze button on my alarm clock.

I remember absolutely HATING my alarm clock with a passion. I felt guilty every time I pushed that snooze button, like I was had just gone to a crack dealer. I could get one more hit, just 10 more minutes, and it would feel so great. But at the same time I knew I shouldn’t!

I’d run out of the house bleary eyed and half awake. Some days I’d even have enough time to grab a piece of burnt toast on my way out.

All morning I’d sip on bad coffee to try and stay alert, but it would only make me jittery and remind me of how hungry I was (having missed breakfast!).

Finally, when lunch would role around, I’d be famished and would run to the nearest food court to gorge myself. I certainly didn’t eat the best food in those days. I’d eat junk food to feel better. It was like self-medication to make the day less stressful!

After a big lunch of course, an afternoon nap would have been perfect. My eyelids felt like they weighed 100 lbs a piece some days!

But I didn’t dare rest my eyes for a moment, under constant fear that my boss would walk by and catch me!

Finally the end of the day would arrive and I’d make my way toward home (even though I’d been at work far longer than 8 hours). I didn’t have the energy to cook anything at home, so it was fast food again for dinner. I would collapse on the couch, and try to quiet my mind staring at the TV.

Going to the gym was out of the question by that time, and the day would come to a close, doomed to repeat itself again!

Luckily, this horror story is a thing of the past, because I made one change in my life which lead to a work life balance that I’d never dreamed of.

Whenever people ask me about how to improve their work life balance, I tell them what worked for me: I started a business and became my own boss. That is the best way I know of to improve your work life balance.

Let’s fast forward to today: I don’t have an alarm clock.

I get plenty of sleep and wake up most days around 9:30 or 10 AM (while most employees have already been working for 2 hours!). I don’t have any commute and I never sit in rush hour traffic. I run errands around town while everyone is at work which means I hardly ever wait in long lines.

I exercise almost every day and have tons of energy (by the way, the gym is always empty when I go too and I get plenty of one-on-one time with trainers going at odd times).

I take vacations and travel whenever I want. I take days off whenever I want. I can literally decide to pack up and go for a trip in an hour and I don’t have to tell anyone. I literally have total freedom. It is such a liberating feeling that it’s really hard to imagine what it feels like if you’ve worked a corporate job your whole life.

If I’m out late having dinner with friends or watching a late night movie I never feel guilty staying up because I know I can adjust my schedule. As long as I get eight hours of sleep, it doesn’t matter when I actually get those hours.

I have plenty of things I need to get done for my businesses, but I get them done when I want to. And because I took the time to really start companies that I love working on, I am actually a work-a-holic. It just ended up that way because I literally love what I do!

I even work weekends fairly often. Not because I have to, but because I want to (I know it sounds crazy). Sometimes I can’t sleep at night because I am so excited about the next day.

The best part is that I now earn more than I did at my old job and have total financial freedom. I’m not dependent on anyone and have zero debt.

Bottom line: Deciding to become self employed has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, especially when it comes to work life balance. My life has become so much better because of it. If this sounds like a lifestyle you’d like to have, then take the time to learn more about starting a business. Today it is easier than ever, and work life balance is a topic you can’t afford to ignore. Your health, wealth, and relationships will all be on the fast track of improvement when you start your own business, and get the work life balance you’ve always dreamed of.

Brian Armstrong makes it easy to learn the secrets of todays top business owners. To discover the “7 Essential Steps to Starting a Business” in his Free Online Course, visit this site now: http://www.startbreakingfree.com/

There are many people in this world who are in jobs that they hate. They do not like to get up every day and go to jobs that they do not enjoy and they simply are not happy doing jobs that they do not have any interest in. These people are not happy at work, which means that they struggle to be happy when they are not at work, as it is often hard to separate work from life and most people find it very difficult to make sure they are not bringing their attitudes about work into their out of work lives.

This means that if you are in a job you dislike, you are probably not happy most of the time. This can be very hard, because not being happy can impact every part of your life. However, people need money and you simply cannot do without a job. So, how do you get the most out of life and still enjoy work? One of the things that you can do is work for yourself. Working for yourself, by working at home or owning a business is a great way to really live your life to your fullest.

The thing is that there are plenty of opportunities for people who want to work from home. There is simply so much that should be done and it is just a matter of finding the right work for you. You have to focus on your strong qualities and you have to market yourself in whatever area you have expertise. Once you have done this, you have to search for and find a job. This might sound like a lot of work and it can be difficult and time consuming. However, once you have done this, you can live your life to the utmost by being at home.

There are so many advantages to working for yourself. First of all, you can find your own hours that fit you the best. If you are a night person, you can do all of your work at night and sleep longer in the morning. If you are a morning person you can have all of your work done before noon and enjoy your day. The time that you can spend at your home or with your children cannot be equaled.

The best parts of working from home are that you can get more done that you can in an office simply because you are the boss and you are the employee. This means that you know exactly what needs to be done and you can get it done. You can make the decisions about when work can be skipped and when it needs to be done and you can keep track of everything all at once.

Obinna Heche:

Delivering the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home successfully..

http://www.homeincomeportal.com/obhmy365/

Like any business, a home business needs to be nurtured in order for it to be successful. You can’t just sit back and hope that it is going to take care of itself, and that the single action of having a website and submitting it to search engines to allow potential customers to find it is going to do the trick.

No matter what you may have been told, there is no business that is going to make money for you without you having to do some work to make it happen.

Yes, they teach you about residual income in network marketing, but even that residual income in based upon hours, months, and possibly years of very hard work promoting, training, advertising, and learning in a continuous cycle until you have attained the level within the organization where you can sit back and let the business work for you. Rental property is another area where many people mistakenly believe they can sit back and let someone else do the work, but again, this is something that only happens after years of doing things yourself in order to reach the point where you can afford to pay someone to take care of everything for you.

How does all of that tie in to the keys of success for a home business? It means that you have to work hard in order to be successful. One of the mistakes that many people make with a home-based business is they fail to see it as a business and put it second in line after doing all of the other things they want to do.

Even though you are not working in an office, you still have a business that needs your attention, so you have to devote time to doing just that. That means if your best friend calls and wants you to go shopping, you have to make sure she understands that you still have a job, even though you are working at home. Does that mean you neglect family and friends? No, of course not, but you have to set aside certain hours to work on your business just as you would if you were going to work each day. That doesn’t mean that you have to work 8-5 each day, but you do need to put in the amount of hours necessary in order to do the things that are required.

It’s also important to set aside a certain amount of time to do nothing but network and business promotion. You can do this by email, website promotion, passing out business cards in your local area, making up fliers to send out, or any number of other ways.

The important thing is that you must have an organized method of networking if your business is going to be successful. In summary, the key points are (1) Treat your business as if you were going to work each day; (2) Have an organized criteria for what you need to do daily; and (3) Build your business with the knowledge that you will always have to be involved in order to maintain success.

Scott Young Is A Plug In Profit Site member As Well As An Authority On Developing Online Affiliate Marketing Internet Businesses. Get more Information On How To Build Your Own Online Affiliate Marketing Business. For Business Ideas To Make Money Online, Visit:
http://www.ArmOurMoney.com/pips.html.

Anyone who runs a home business wants it to be successful. It’s a way to reach your dreams, whether they be to simply earn enough to pay your bills or to change your entire lifestyle. It can be a lot of pressure.

But that pressure can be both a good thing and a bad thing. You can read plenty of stories about people who succeeded beyond their wildest dreams because they had to succeed. And it’s certainly true that needing to succeed can provide that drive that will eventually make you succeed.

But pushing yourself too hard can ruin your progress toward success. There’s a balance between drive and excessive pressure.

The trouble is that if you’re too pressured, you start to miss things. You can become too focused on one aspect of your business and miss out on the things you ought to be paying attention to. You end up working on projects but can’t seem to get anywhere because you’re too stressed about success.

When you find yourself stressing too much about succeeding, or even on one aspect of success, it’s time to take a step back. Take a break. Think about if you’re going the right way or if you’ve driven yourself down the wrong path.

Stress can lead you to just spinning your wheels, not making any progress because you’re too involved in being stressed. You’ve forgotten the part of running a home business that is most important - hope.

If you’ve forgotten the hope your home business can bring you, you’re losing the drive that will bring you to success.

Don’t get me wrong. A little stress is a very good thing. But too much is very bad. You need that balance of hope and stress to keep yourself motivated.

When stress takes over, get away from it. Take time from your family. They’re probably one of the biggest reasons people want to succeed in a home business. Stressing often takes you away from success and from the things that matter to you. So take the time to recover your perspective.

This can be done a variety of ways. Sometimes a vacation is needed. Other times, just sitting down and writing out where you are and where you want to be will help. Take a look at your progress. The steps you have taken to get where you are and the ones it will take to get to where you want to be.

Stress happens in business. Things can go well, turn bad, turn again and again, but if you keep going you improve your chances of achieving your dreams.

Stephanie Foster blogs at http://www.aspectsofhomebusiness.com/blog/ about running a home business. She offers a number of tips on running an affiliate website at http://www.aspectsofhomebusiness.com/affiliatebusiness/

Many people have often thought that in order to run a home business you need to have gone to college or have a college degree. Well, this is something that can not easily be solved with a simple yes or no answer, because like everything it depends on the circumstances.
First of all, going to college can do wonders for getting a regular job. Many employers look at what you did in college as a way to judge whether you are right for the job or not and many employers will pick someone who has gone to college over someone who has not.

But remember, with a home business you are not trying to get someone to hire you, you are actually taking control of your life and getting to the point where you make your own decision. So, technically, since you are in charge, you do not have to have a college degree to hire yourself. However, like everything else, this relies on different circumstances. It all has to do with the type of business that you are running. If you are running something that you understand well it does not matter if you have gone to college to learn that or not. As long as you understand what you are doing. That is all that matters.

However, part of having a home business is actually running a business. In this case, many people go to college to learn how to do this because there is really a lot to it. You have to understand how to do advertising, how to make customers happy and how a home business actually works for you. All of these things can be taught in college home businesses classes, so remember that this might be something you should consider. But, you do not have to get a college degree to learn these things. There are many places where you can learn about owning a home business.

Maybe you know someone who already has a home business that would be willing to mentor you or maybe you want to read some books about home businesses in order to figure out what you need to do. No matter what, it is important that you are able to compete in the job world and that your home business is able to compete with others. Make sure that you are running it at a level that is able to compete and if there are things that you do not know how to do, you might want to consider taking a course or two or reading a book about running a home business, in order to get some pointers about what you can do better. All of these things can act like a college degree, when it comes down to it.

Obinna Heche:

Delivering the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home successfully..

http://www.homeincomeportal.com/obhmy365/

The first time I heard about the term work-life balance I was surprised that anybody even thought of balancing the two. Wasn’t that like counting apples and oranges? Still, the idea was quite exciting and I thought I’d explore it a bit more:

I thought long and hard about what kind of working hours I wanted to have, what kind of office, how many people. By means of visualization all of that became a clear image that I was drawn to. Interestingly enough my enjoyment of the visions lasted only until the moment I realized that all my dreams and visions had come true! There is a Chinese curse: May you reach all your goals. That is exactly how I felt: empty and cursed - dreamless. So I pondered what I could do differently.

First of all I learned that constant striving for new actions creates a mess of outcomes that are not necessarily beneficial. It is like attempting to weave a rug using thread that is in a tangled mass. Imagine yourself inspired by the idea of the colors you want to use, the thread choice and the size of the rug. Your vision is clear and you slowly start working on it until you meet the first obstacle: knots that start taking you away from the initial goal. As you are solving the unpredicted problem, emotions arise, impatience, confusion, you end up working on untying the knot rather than weaving the rug.

My personal experience was that I dealt with both with determination and focus, so I kept balancing the acts, weaving and untying the knots, keeping myself busy, thinking that was just how life was.

There are times when it is right just to sit back and relax, allow thoughts to clear and become a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper ready to be filled with fresh ideas. When I first was taught this, I was initially confused and even upset by the lack of taking action and I rebelled against the process. I questioned if it was right for me, but each time I would face the same old fact: action was the thing that brought me where I was in the first place, and I wasn’t fulfilled.

Thinking about what triggered this awareness, I realized it was a simple exercise that seemed at first to be non-action:

Exercise for clearing the mind.

Find a comfortable chair and while sitting (or lying) observe your thoughts while not acting upon them. Free your mind of all ‘I shoulds’, of all ‘I musts’. Once a thought comes that brings a ‘WOW!’ state, a real desire to act, (sometimes there are other versions of it: ‘Wouldn’t that be nice!’, ‘I wish!’, ‘That would be great!’), proceed with one action that takes you closer to the realization of that thought. For those doing the exercise for the first time: when moving from thought to an action, choose small steps that are easy to achieve and give you a sense of completion.

Do this exercise daily for 20 to 60 minutes a day.

Copyright 2007 Dalida Turkovic

Dalida Turkovic - Master Coach and Master NLP Practitioner has lived and worked in China since 1990. Please visit her business coaching website http://www.small-steps-coaching.com and her blog at http://life-coaching-china.blogspot.com/.

We all know how important it is to work hard to get your home business up and running and off the ground. We also know that when your home business is located right in your home, it is all too easy to get a few extra hours of work in after you eat dinner, or to get up early to work a little bit more in the morning.

However, the fact remains that most of the people who are working at home businesses have decided to do this so that they can control what hours they work, and so that they can have more time to themselves to do the things that they have always wanted to do. If you find yourself working too much, and you know that you are in danger of working longer hours than you did at your old job, here are some ways to avoid becoming a 24-hour a day worker again.

Working hours

First and foremost, no matter what your business is, you need to have working hours. This is for your benefit. If you have an online site or an online store, you are going to be open 24 hours a day, but this doesn’t mean that you have to be at your computer for the entire day. You need to set hours for yourself, and these hours will have to include time to process whatever has come in while you aren’t working. There is a danger in sitting at your computer all day to take orders in the hopes of keeping up with them, because you will find that you never leave.

If you find that you have too much work, and not enough time, this means that you are taking on too much. You have to be sure that you are only working as much as you can handle to work, or that you are delegating tasks to make sure you aren’t having to work all day and all night. This is something that a lot of people fail to do, and it can be something that is very dangerous, because giving out tasks is the best way to make sure all of your work gets done.

If you find yourself with too much, you’ll end up working more than you want to be working, so be sure to find help, or hire some if you need it. Something else that you can be sure to do is to give yourself a break now and then. Remember that you don’t have to take every project that comes your way, and remember that you can be allowed a sick day when you are sick. These things are important, and are also vital to keeping your sanity as well as your business.

Scott Young Is A Plug In Profit Site member As Well As An Authority On Developing Online Affiliate Marketing Internet Businesses. Get more Information On How To Build Your Own Online Affiliate Marketing Business. For Business Ideas To Make Money Online, Visit:
http://www.ArmOurMoney.com/pips.html.

There are two key words that lead to success in life. These words control the successful outcome of your business, marriage, and many other areas of life. Although you may have incredible talent and skill in life, you will fail if you do not master these two words- and vice versa. Even if you have only limited talent and skill, you will win if you live by them. These two words determine your future. They are attitude and expectation.

If you have a positive, forward-looking attitude, you will accomplish great things. How is your attitude? Does it need an improvement? Are you positive and upbeat? If you have the attitude that every challenge or obstacle leads to new opportunity, success is all but guaranteed. Thomas Edison was said to have worked on creating the electric light bulb because darkness interfered with his ability to conduct further experiments. He wanted to be able to work long into the night. Edison could have moaned about the darkness, though that would not have done any good. He used his attitude and solved a problem of darkness. There are thousands of examples in life of how some people took lemons and, with a great attitude, made lemonade.

Start building your attitude today. Convince yourself that you are the best at what you do. You have to be convinced yourself before anyone else will be convinced. The attitude you bring when faced with objections in your business will help you handle them. The attitude that you take when you have a problem will make the difference as to its outcome.

One technique to improve your attitude is using affirmations. Affirmations drive positive mental pictures into your subconscious mind. Create affirmations like:

* I am a great _____ (you fill the blank).
* I am skilled at handling objections in my business.
* People do business with me because I am positive, knowledgeable, and professional.
* I earn__________(you fill the blank).
* I am a great spouse.

Use these affirmatives, or create your own, to improve your mental attitude daily.

The second power word is expectation. If you don’t expect to win, you will not win. Henry Ford said, “If you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.” Make sure to set the positive expectation of success before your appointment with a prospect or client. You also need to set a positive expectation before every call you make. Expectation is the gateway to confidence. The first step to having unshakeable confidence is to believe that you are the person for your job. If your expectation is strong enough, people will come around to your way of thinking. You just need to be stronger in will and mental focus than your clients, prospects, and others in your field. A perfect example is Henry Ford.

Many years ago, Ford went to his engineers and told them to build a V-8 engine. They said it could not be done. Ford plainly told them to go do it and report back in 90 days. When the 90 days were done, they reported back to Ford. They had spent the whole 90 days figuring out why a V-8 engine was impossible. In the meeting with Ford, they spent their time trying to convince him it could not be done; a V-8 engine was impossible and could never be created. Ford’s attitude and expectation of a V-8 engine was stronger than the engineers’ attitude and expectation that it could not be done. We all know who won in the end.

Your expectation will create your reality. You have to expect before you can receive. You need to expect the people and situations that will enable you to create the future you desire. Expectation does not mean you don’t have to work. You will work harder than before to develop the outcome you desire. The expectation takes away the fear of failure. Don’t be paralyzed by the fear of failure. Failure is a natural part of success. You cannot have success without failure. It’s truly a masterful design. You cannot have good without evil. The exhilaration of success would be lost without the frustration of failure. Most people forget their failures over time and only remember their victories. Take Babe Ruth as an example; he hit the most home runs of his time. He also had the most strikeouts. No one remembers that. . .only the home runs. . . the successes.

Set your attitude to positive. Look for the opportunities in every situation. Expect to win, every time.

Vince Lombardi had a famous saying:

“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t have to win once in awhile; you don’t do things right once in awhile; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit; unfortunately, so is losing.”

Lombardi had the right attitude and the right expectations. He believed they would win, every time.

Dirk Zeller is the President & CEO of Real Estate Champions. His company trains more than 250,000 Agents worldwide each year.

For more information on buying or selling a home in Albuquerque visit:http://www.albuquerquerealestateexpert.com/AlbuquerqueRealEstateSiteMap.asp

If you want to initiate change in your life, start small. This has long been been my personal philosophy, but one I found I had to defend when applying it to business. In business, people tend to want to think big, project big, a big logo - they present themselves big to imply that great results will follow. I took comfort in the Chinesse philosopher, Lao Tze’s wisdom: “If you want to be fast, go slow” and it all fell into place, as his solid explanation justified my approach.

It is understandable that people perceive their own problems as huge obstacles that can’t be overcome easily, otherwise they wouldn’t contact a coach for assistance. Clients often come to me and ask for some great miracle that will take away the great burden that they have. And it is only natural that a coach may sway with the clients’ perspective and indeed suggest great changes when listening and asking questions. However, a sudden big change can induce an avalanche of stress and confusion, emotional reactions start exploding like a newly awakened volcano, while the person is trying to pick up on the new challenges that these changes bring. To put it simply I’ll quote the famous proverb: “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it!”

Recently I worked with a client interested in changing their career, which would be a big change that they had been striving towards for a long time. Understandably, there was a dose of fear preventing them from moving forward. I generally believe that people can follow their dreams and money will come effortlessly, but suggesting such a jump to this client would mean working with a large fear factor and crossing many boundaries heading straight for the risk zone. Instead, the client created a financial plan and visualized their desired future in which they were ready to leave their current work and start with a new profession. The client is ready for the change when their confidence increases, in the meantime you ask yourself (and them) what is the smallest step that they could make to demonstrate that they are moving toward the desired future. Keep adding steps like polishing a sculpture before you are ready to show it to the world.

With changes taken in small steps we create a ripple effect: one after the other more changes follow and initiate the creation of lasting positive change. These changes may include changes of attitude, adjustment of beliefs, even something as simple as clearing your working space to create more clarity in how to manage your time and work efficiently.

As Insoo Kim Berg and Peter Szabo in “Brief Coaching for Lasting Solutions” say:

“Just having a map of where we want to go is the first step of a thousand-mile journey. Since the next step of carrying out the plan depends on the client, and not on the coach, the next phase of discussion must center on what the client needs to do to carry out which step first and what comes second, third, and so on.”

Enjoy the art of taking the small steps to inspiring change!
Copyright 2006 Dalida Turkovic

Dalida Turkovic, Master Coach and Master NLP Practitioner has lived and worked in China since 1990. Please visit her business coaching website http://www.small-steps-coaching.com and her blog at http://life-coaching-china.blogspot.com/.