The Power of Saying Yes and No

Have any of you heard about the power of saying yes or no? It's suppose to be a life changing concept to apply. Saying yes or no to people. Its power includes opening up new doors, unlimited opportunities and new experiences.

Some say that saying yes is very powerful, while some argue that saying no is more powerful. Unfortunately life doesn't come with a manual to teach you when you should say no and when you should say yes. And knowing the difference of when to apply which, is what changes your life positively.

I think the best way to approach this is what I read from James Altucher. He wrote:

"I started saying “No” to people who weren’t right for me. I started saying “No” to everything I didn’t want to do.I started saying “No” to mindless meetings, mindless events, mindless people who were bad for me, mindless food or alcohol, mindless anger and regret. Mindless TV and news.I started saying “No” to colonoscopies and other things related to painful medical experiments. I listed all the things I could say “No” to and I still do.When you have a tiny tiny piece of shit in the soup it doesn’t matter how much more water you pour in and how many more spices you put on top. There’s shit in the soup.I had been saying YES to the wrong things for 20 years.Within six months my life was completely different. I met Claudia. I moved out of hotels. I was working on ideas that actually made money. And I needed fewer and fewer things to make me happy. That’s the Power of No. That’s true minimalism."

I've been thinking about the concept lately because recently I have had difficulty finding the strength to say "no" to people. I've been saying yes, yes and more yes. Instead, I am bending over backwards trying to help people from all walks of life. It feels draining. Instead of being uplifting and generating the happiness buzz, it feels draining. 

Questions like, "Can you help me get a job? Can you ask so and so if they have work? Can you call so and so for me? Can I borrow blah? Do you know how to do this or that? Can you help me do blah? Can you etc etc etc." These are people who work for people I know, or people who I come into contact with weekly, but aren't immediate colleagues or friends. Just friendly people that I come into contact with. I could help them, that's a certainty (and I have) but I find that more and more people are leaning for help and it's starting to burn up serious time.

So, it's time to work up the courage to say no. To admit that I am time poor and I'm sorry but I can't help. Is that selfish? I don't know. Is it selfish to try to protect ones free time? I don't know. What Altucher wrote is what I was able to practice for many years and it made me happy to be able to do that. I said no to crap TV, no to watching miserable news. No to really bad food. No to those who simply wanted to use me emotionally or materially. Somehow, over the recent years, I simply stopped saying no and just started saying yes again to everyone. And saying yes to everything is NOT powerful. 

What is powerful, is the ability to say no to the crap, bad things or people that drain you and to say yes to the opportunities or the people who lift you and the people that make you happy. 

What Do You Wish You Had More Time For?

Time is that valuable commodity that you will never, ever get back. You could buy anything you want with money but the only thing we will never be able to buy is time that has already passed. Maybe someday in the future someone will design a time travelling machine, but unless that machine can bring your youth back, you'll only be that old person going back in time with that fancy time travelling gizmo.

When I told someone a long time ago that I had no spare time and that I was too busy, he said to me that it will always be too busy for everyone, but if it's important enough or you want it enough, you'll always make time for it.

Today, I found myself thinking and wishing that I had more time. Thinking and wishing about something is absolutely useless so I realised that I have to actively and consciously make time for what I want. Life gets more complex every single year and so those days of drinking and reading everything under the sky, lazy breakfasts and sun baking are all gone.

When I was younger back in 2009 I thought I had all the answer to time management which you can read because it is timeless and ever so helpful ;)  I even wrote posts such as, 'How to master time and not be a slave to it.' Five years later, I am so inundated with work, opportunities and investments in addition to more family members and more friends that the 'free' time that I had suddenly seemed as if it had never existed.

What do you wish you had more time for? Compile that list and then allocate the time to your list.

Here's mine to start things off:

I wish I had more time for:

1. Family and friends: The most important thing to me in this world is my family and friends. They are who keeps me sane, entertained and feeling loved. I will try to spend at least one day each week and some weeknights catching up with family and friends. Allocate time: Daily.

2. Work: I'm a self confessed workaholic. If I didn't have any family or friends, I would be working every single minute and hour of the day to the point where I wouldn't even sleep much. I work up to six and sometimes seven days a week. I am always trying to work smarter though. There are always ways to improve work and so that I can achieve more within the time framework. Allocate time: Daily (can't help myself there :p)

3. Learning new things such as programming and skilling up: I must make time to learn something new every single day. If we all learnt something new daily as early as we can, we have a whole lifetime to benefit from that new knowledge and time to apply the knowledge and skill to our benefit. I am reading technical books on IT, finance, accounting and agriculture daily and will commit time to acquiring new certifications and qualifications every single day. Allocate time: Daily

4. Keeping on top of social media: This one kills me. I find it so hard to find the time to reply to every single text message, watsapp messages, emails on five different accounts, Facebook posts/messages and friends' updates. Sometimes at the end of the week, I check what I haven't replied to and it's like 100 messages and it makes me happy that I have family and friends who care about what I'm up to, but it stresses me out somewhat that I can't reply to all of them promptly. I will try to find time daily to respond and stay on top of social media. Allocate time: Daily

5. Gardening: I love gardening and growing things. I try to commit at least 30 minutes three to four times a week for gardening. Allocate time: Every second day.

6. Blogging: Writing is a passion. People have asked me how and where do I find the inspiration to write about topics and things and I tell them that if I read, watch, hear or see something, my mind is always coming up with an idea, an opinion and wanting to give feedback, which is what inspires the writing. These last few years have been so busy that I haven't written as much as I would like to, so I am going to try to dedicate at least three hours each week for writing, whether it be on this blog or in replying to emails and correspondences. Allocate time: Every second day.

7. Cooking and trying new recipes: Trying new recipes takes effort in buying and locating ingredients. Long gone are the days where I would spend entire weekends trying all sorts of recipes and baking something. I have lots of cook books on the bookshelves gathering dust. I am going to try to cook at least two new recipes every week. Allocate time: Weekly

8. Craft work and designing: This is the more creative side that is always crying out for time. I always tend to relegate this to the back burner because it never seemed like such an essential thing but it is always relaxing when I spend time on more creative things.

9. Working on and executing ideas: My mind is always bursting with ideas on websites, writing, applications, business areas to try out and investing opportunities. These are the hardest areas to focus on because I always feel that I need quiet time to focus and brainstorm on the design and application of these ideas. I have no quiet time and not a single moment of downtime. I am always on the up and go. So I must make time at least once a week for a few hours to work on these designs. I am always making time for investing but not enough. Allocate time: 3 hours weekly

10. Watching TV series and movies: I just love TV shows and movies. Allocate time: Weekly

This feels almost like goal setting but it's not. Setting goals is different because it involves an end target, a specific end game and it's measurable. I do have plenty of goals which I haven't blogged about, but this post is more about finding time and time management rather than goal setting.

For each of the items above, if I were to write about goal setting, it would be something like, design and finalise two clients blogs by six months:

1. Design two new blogs for clients in the next three months
2. Test the blogs with the clients over four weeks for design and application
3. Take the blog live by the fifth month and review feedback from clients
4. Finalise blog design for clients by the sixth month

Well, hope you all compile your own list and commit time to executing the items on your list =)

Just One of Dem Days

I just love it when I have days that are super productive. It means tasks that may usually take weeks to complete are done in one day. Even the ones that I procrastinate on. I even steam rolled through those tasks that have been on my 'to list' for yonks. You know you've had a productive day when there's a feeling of self satisfaction!
Time to clean up inboxes, back up laptop files and delete duplicates

Had two of those days earlier this week. It meant that I finally cleaned up my email inboxes, filed away emails, replied to almost every email that had sat there unread, backed up my laptop files, tidied up my previous backups and deleted duplicates. I cleared up over 100GB on my laptop. The CPU keeps overheating resulting in the laptop shutting down so maybe that poor laptop is going to laptop heaven soon - wouldn't want to lose my data when and if that day should ever come.

Time to muck around with social apps

I even managaged to do post up over 50 photos to Facebook (which I haven't done for a very long time). It's always blog vs FB vs social mobile apps. In the rush to clean up my FB profile/pages, I accidentally deleted the group I had created 5 years ago and neglected, 'Wealth through investing in property and shares' which had about 30-35 members ...oops!

Time to exercise

And for the first time last night, I went for a 30 minute walk/exercise. Exercise has been highly absent from my recent routine. Occasionally we go cycling but apart from that, not much else. I use to ice skate weekly but that hasn't happened these last 3 years and my skates have started to rust. Walking along the HUGE underground carpark where we live is pretty cool, it's very well lit and aside from the occasional speed hump, it's flat and I can read while exercising - two birds with one stone - just the way I like it!

Time to blog

Oh yes, you are now seeing the results from my productive days - a few blog posts have been written ready to post! SMG is on a roll!

Feeling tired all the time

A friend of mine keeps telling me that she is very close to burning out and having a breakdown of some sort. I absolutely commiserate with her because I know how it feels to be overwhelmed, stressed or tired. But then I know how great it feels to be bouncing off the walls with energy. Have you ever felt so tired that all you want to do is sleep all day? We've all been there and done that.

The easy way out is to just sleep all day but that doesn't really solve the tiredness and isn't the solution. It really makes you more tired. The solution is to get more active.

I've been feeling brilliant lately because of a few simple changes in my life. Switched the TV and laptop off. Spent more time exercising (sure it's mild exercise and not exactly getting the heart pumping but it's something), doing a lot more gardening now that the weather is warmer. Hauling 210 kilos worth of potting soil from the shop to home for some gardening. Getting up earlier and staying up late doing household chores. Ticking off lines and lines of my 'to do' list. Spending too much on plants and gardening products but that's a different story :p

Instead of feeling overwhelmed from having too much to do or feeling guilty because of procrastinating - it really helps just simply leaping into the tasks that needs doing and organising them into your calendar. You can feel a sense of purpose, achievement and satisfaction. And oddly enough, enthusiasm and more energised. I stretch my days a lot more now and maybe because we're going into longer summery days but it feels great and I'm getting so much more done in terms of every aspect of my life.

On the weekend, I could have slept in and gotten up late or around midday. I could have enjoyed a lazy lunch out with friends and coffee in the afternoon. But instead I helped my parents with painting and cleaning. I planted raspberry canes and dahlia bulbs. Cleaned all hard surfaces and also caught up with some friends for dinner. It was action packed and it felt great.

Have you got lots of things to do on your to-do list but haven't done them because you're tired or procrastinating? Try turning off the TV and instead of delaying what you know you need to do, set time to do it today or tomorrow. You'll feel great :) It may not save you from having a breakdown or burning out, but you'll find yourself with more energy and that will help you accomplish more.

Stuck on a hamster wheel running round and round?

Life is bit like that. We are always so busy working and running around. But if you stop to take a look, did the world change and you haven’t changed with it?

You may find yourself thinking after a few years of working…have you really achieved anything? You’ve found your partner, had your kids, did the obligatory thing and sold your apartment to buy a house so that you could have children. Then when the house got crowded, you sold that one and upgraded to a bigger one with a bigger mortgage.

Now you find yourself working harder than ever and wondering what happened and how did you find yourself working like a dog 9-5 or even longer hours than that. And yet, your mortgage is bigger than ever, time is passing furiously and you’ve got stacks of bills to pay, a family to look after and the thought of retirement is scaring you because you know you need to start saving for retirement but how can you when there’s just nothing left at the end of the month?

This is probably one of the most common situation people find themselves in, because they’ve taken the common route in life. Go to school, go to university/college, study hard, get a job, get married, buy a place to stay, have some kids, sell the small place and upgrade to a bigger house, pay the mortgage for 25-30 years, retire and then die.

Sometimes it’s not perfect. That is, you can’t find a partner, you don’t have kids, you married but then you divorced, you divorced and remarried with stepchildren, you can’t afford to buy any property at all, you didn’t study etc

The problem with life is that it demands us to know what we want to do when we’re 18 years old and by the time we’re in our twenties or thirties, we have a ghastly suspicion that we may be working in the wrong job or not doing something that we really want to do such as philanthropic work, starting your own business or contributing more to society.

If you have not had kids yet, you should be saving as much as possible while you still can. When you have kids, you will find yourself with many more expenses than ever before and find saving anything a very difficult thing to do.

We’re all on the hamster wheel to some extent. When we were students, we earned very little, but our expenses were also low. As you get older, you typically (hopefully) earn more, but as the income increases, you will find your expenses grow to match the income. How? You end up spending more, buying more, eating out more, living more lavishly, renting a bigger apartment, buying a bigger house.

With expenses increasing as your income increases, there’s not really much left over to save and invest. So you can find yourself on a hamster wheel, running harder than ever, but going around in circles.

Once of the biggest problem I’ve noticed happening with a lot of couples, is that they have kids and then they buy a bigger house. Their mortgage is so big (we’re talking $400,000 to $800,000) that all they do is just barely scrape through with the monthly mortgage repayments. The problem with just barely making the mortgage payments means there is not much left over to make extra repayments. If you read my articles under the “All about mortgage loans” label, then you will see how devastating the effect is when you can’t make extra repayments.

If your mortgage loan is $300k, interest is 8%, the term is 30 years and you make the required monthly repayments of $2201…. You are slaving at work to pay the bank about $2000/month and only knock about $201 off the loan principle…you are in effect, building up your equity and net wealth by only a measly $201/ month. Of course, the ratio changes as you progress through the months and your property may rise in value(capital appreciation) but the amount that borrowers pay in mortgage interest is one of the secret destroyers of wealth. Particularly when it’s a loan on a home they live in and the interest is not tax deductible.

The best time for any of this self realization to occur is in our twenties, and if you’re past your twenties, then the best time is today. By starting today, we’ve got time to take note of how far we’ve come, where we would like to go, and then make plans on how we achieve that. You can be happier.

Whenever you feel that you’re on a hamster wheel going round and round, all you have to do is get off it. Take a step back, do a bit of meditation or contemplation, take a day off or find some ‘alone’ time with yourself to evaluate your life and the directions you would like to head towards. Write it all down so that you can take the weight off your mind.

It’s all about reconciling our inner dreams and desires with our practical reality. The reality of life is that things aren’t handed to us on a platter. If we want any dreams to come true, we have to figure out a way to achieve it. It’s just like when you were younger, you believed in the tooth fairy (which is the dream) and your parents made it come true (which is the reality). When you grow up though, you are now the adult or the parent and you will have to create your own reality.

How to master time and not be a slave to it.

Time Management in five simple steps - are you super organised? Meet all deadlines on time? Or do you feel as if you're suffering from information overload, a 'to do' list that keeps growing and never shrinks, tasks that are pending for what feels like an eternity and you just can't say 'no' to people properly when they want a slice of your time and you don't really have time for them?

Without proper time management, it'll always feel like information overload, pressure, stress, tiredness and that never ending feel of lack of accomplishment. Life is complex. It involves work, family, friends, studying, keeping up with qualifications, social functions, exercise, commitments and a million more things. Often it's difficult to juggle everything because we work longer and longer hours. There's less time in the day to finish our work, to perform our house chores, to manage our private life and also ensure we keep in touch with family and friends, keep healthy and look after ourselves.

Especially if you have children - it may be easy to feel overwhelmed, tired and stressed.

There's a few things that you can do to try and change your life for the better, to feel under control and to start achieving your goals and your objectives.

1. Dreams and Goals.
"If you don't have a vision for the future, then your future is threatened to be a repeat of the past." A.R. Bernard, clergyman.
Write down all your dreams and goals for the short (1 year), medium (1-3years) and long term (3-5, beyond). Next, determine what you will need to do to achieve these targeted goals. Writing this down will consolidate the big picture for you so that you will start having a good idea of where you want to head towards, what you want to be, and where you would like to see yourself. The younger you are when you do this, the clearer the journey will be. Now is a good time to start!

2. Prioritise your daily life.
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one" Mark Twain, author (1835-1910)

Once you have the big picture outlined above, you will need to sort out your day to day life. What are you doing now? Write down how you spend your entire day, week, month and year. Are you taking time to invest in yourself? By that I mean, are you learning anything new everyday? Are you looking after your health/wellbeing, your relationships and your finances? A good way to do this is to keep a diary with professional and work obligations and duties and keep a separate calendar of social activities and obligations.

Once you have a planner/diary/calendar of important events then you won't need to worry about forgetting anything. You will also beable to diagnose where your time is spent. Can you combine certain tasks together so you can streamline those duties? Can you identify where you're not effectively spending your time?

If you haven't already formed one, write down a 'to do' list for today and one for tomorrow. Anything that isn't completed today needs to be carried over to tomorrow's list and so forth.

If you find yourself constantly carrying over that same task again and again, force yourself to do that task...it will be such a relief to finally complete it! Yes, I know... I know the reason why you haven't done it for so long is because you're not looking forward to it or it's messy, time consuming or complex or just plain difficult. Procrastination is the worst tyrant and makes us our own worst enemy. Simply pick a time of the day where you are feeling your brightest, best and perky...and drop everything else you're doing and just pick up that task that you've procrastinated on and do it!

If your to do list is too messy with stuff you've accomplished crossed out and it's hard to decipher, create a new one. These days, people manage themselves with Outlook calendars, I-Phone calender and note pads. If you can't manage yourself very well in electronic format, switch back to the old fashioned method of pen and diary.

Clump silimilar tasks together. If you can't find time to have separate lunches or dinners with a few friends, if they're from the same group, meet up with them as a group and free up that time for other things.

Don't sleep too much. By saying this I refer this to those who sleep beyond 8-12 hours a day. Lounging around in bed isn't going to achieve anything other than tiredness, feeling drained and lacklustre.

If you can delegate - then delegate! If you have staff, teach them and then use them. You're not a one person working machine.

Pay your bills on time. There's nothing that makes a person feel more helpless than late fees and penalties. Reducing your stress and anxiety will relieve your mind. So organise all bills to be paid in one file/folder/pile and write them into your planner/diary/calendar to pay so that you can see that it's due before it becomes overdue!

3. Review what you've done and what you've got to do next.
"Determine never to be idle. No person wll have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing." Thomas Jefferson, Third US Presiden (1743-1826)

Flick through your diary/calendar for the next few days, weeks and months to see what's planned and what is coming up so that you will always feel in control (mainly because you're not being ignorant and drifting along helplessly!).

4. The ability to focus.
Be focused on everything you do - if you're at work then you work! If you're socialising with friends, family or partners - have fun and enjoy yourself! Don't bring your personal problems into your work hours because it achieves nothing, only worry and stress on top of your workload. Similarly, if you're out socialising, mentally worrying about work issues is not going to solve anything either. If you're also studying, don't bring work or personal issues into your study sessions or else you are not studying effectively and you waste your time.

5. A messy desk, a messy mind.
Tidy up those papers, dirty coffee cups, used plates, dusty surfaces and general rubbish on your desk. Searching through piles of paper does not look professional. Having a huge pile of documents on your desk does not look like you're in control and just have a lot to do. You don't want to be handling the same paper twice or sorting through the same senseless pile again and again. File it away. Bin it if it's uselss (or recycle!).

Have a meaningful file so that you know where to look things up. Filing really is underrated. File your bills, file your work, create folders in your email program and file those emails away.

Anyway, those 5 steps has a lot of little steps in them ;) Before you know it, if you put those steps into practice you will find time to relax, breathe and feel happy. It's too easy to find ourselves caught on a little hampster wheel, running around and around yet going nowhere. When this happens we feel stressed or unhappy. So take control and life becomes much more enjoyable.