Sunday, February 8, 2015

Schedule IT



Schedule IT

When you think about your life, do you think things happen the way they happen or do you plan the way things happen? If you don’t plan your days do they happen the way you hoped? Did you even hope your day would go in any particular way? Do you wake up and say this is my intention for the day? Add a little gratefulness that you have a day to contemplate and make the way you want and then start the day with some intention and momentum!

TimerSAVINGS

Make your plan to be wise in your purchases. Schedule your payments so they are automatically paid timely. Avoiding unnecessary late fees or NSF is a great savings that is nothing more than scheduling your finances. Schedule your expenses and know what you really need to actually survive and what you have as discretionary income. Most of us have some money at the end of the week, however we make decisions during the week that leave us without much to show for it. So each time you spend money, ask yourself, “Will I be happy 3 months from now that I made this purchase or will I even remember it?” Not all purchases need to be memorable, however, too many of them are just made without even thinking.

TimerDIET

Knowing what you are going to eat and when is the best scheduling activity you can do for yourself. Make sure that you eat often, about every 3 hours, but the most important thing is to schedule it. Put a reminder in your phone to ask yourself if you are hungry. Figure out your menu’s and plan for a well-balanced meal each and every time you eat. Of course don’t forget to schedule your exercise daily. Everyday plan to get 30 minutes of exercise. Put a reminder in your calendar and just plan on making it part of your daily routine. You will feel so much better! Do it for stress relief, to make you feel better, whatever you do—don’t do it because you think you need to lose weight!

TimerORGANIZER

You’ve heard it before—if you schedule your time you will get more done, but have you thought about the confidence that you get from being scheduled and sticking to your schedule. It is as if you have a dozen mini goals every day and you achieve them and suddenly your self-confidence improves. Scheduling your time allows you to decide each day—What is important?
 
If you have never been on a schedule try it for a day, then a week, and if you like it and find you get more out of each day keep it up. Break up your day into no more than 2 hour blocks of time and remind yourself to take short 5 minute breaks once an hour. Ironically this will not break your momentum, it will actually give you a boost of making a goal and succeeding!!

Sherri Sue Fisher, author of TimerDIET, TimerORGANIZER, and Coming Soon TimerSAVINGS


Sunday, February 1, 2015

Sidetracked

So it is February 1, 2015 and many of you made resolutions or set goals for the New Year and probably many of you got a little sidetracked on those goals and resolutions…why? Isn’t it easier to deal with the critical, the immediate, the in your face issues than it is to work on those issues that would be “nice” to work on but don’t appear to be so critical. But maybe your goals are more critical than you think—they were important enough to make them, weren’t they? Here are some ideas to get you back on track...

TimerDIET

Make Your Menus
Weight loss, whether through diet or exercise changes are number one for New Year’s resolutions and goals, and they are the easiest to get side tracked on. Why? Partly because we don’t manage our time wisely, but probably because we don’t plan for a realistic day. Somehow we think we will have 30 minutes several times a day to make a healthy nutritious meals, an hour and half to run and weight lift and we will never ever be tempted to stray from our plan!? Not true—any of it! Sometimes you will have 1 minute to find something to eat, and you need to be prepared with easy to eat 1 minute meals, and 5 minutes, 15 minutes and if you are really lucky and have an entire 30 minutes then great make something more extravagant. The same with working out—if you can find 20 minute pockets of time to work out you will be further ahead than those who wait until they have an entire hour to hour and a half that they can devote to working out! You can work out several times a day and incorporate other activities into your work out like watching something you normally would do sitting down.

TimerSAVINGS

Get Your Finances Under Control
Getting a handle on your finances in the New Year (especially after the holidays have just ended) can seem futile. But remember it is not where you are that matters as much as where you are headed. You can make changes right now as to where you are going with your finances. Have you gone through all of your monthly expenses to make sure you are in the right product? Unused data, channels you never watch, deductibles you never use, warranties that don’t make sense, magazines you never read…question everything see if you can get a refund or reduce your future monthly spending! Then look at your discretionary spending and see if you feel you are making wise decisions. You should be able to save money and have some for discretionary spending, if not you need to think of ways to increase your ability to make money. There are amazing ideas coming out daily—you probably have one inside you right now!

TimerORGANIZER

Keep Your Plans Sacred!
The master of sidetracking is time management. Keep a piece of paper next to you (computer/app if you must) but every time you realize you have gotten sidetracked—write it down! Right as soon as you notice and then the approximate time spent. At the end of the day, look at your list of things to do that you did not get done and look at your sidetracked list and ask yourself—was this the best use of my time today?

Sherri Sue Fisher author of TimerDIET, TimerORGANIZER, and TimerSAVINGS



®

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Free Time

Free Time

How does free time work into your daily life and make you a well-balanced person and affect your weight, daily organization, and monthly savings?

TimerSAVINGS

Sometimes savings does not get enough attention. We think our free time should be spent in front of the TV or spent with friends on a daily basis from sun-down to sun-up. But, maybe if our Free Time was more sacred and thought of more highly we would find ways to make more money and save more money. So think of ways to make money in your Free Time and spend your Free Time doing something that actually brings something of value to you!!

TimerORGANIZER

We have more Free Time than we really think we do. So many times we say “I am so busy” but if you really look at the time you spend you will find that much of our Free Time is spent on things that do not create relaxation, rejuvenate you, or provide you with any of the things you feel you value. What are your values? Is what you are planning on spending your time on what you truly value? Or have you allowed yourself to get sucked into time wasters that have nothing to do with what you value?

TimerDIET

Free Time is important to your ability to lose weight, hands down! If you are constantly stressed then you are going to find it hard to lose weight and keep the weight off.  Life has many facets to it and to omit some free time into your schedule is a recipe for disaster in your weight loss goals! Be sure to include daily exercise into your schedule. Not for weight loss but for stress reduction!! If you feel you are doing something only to lose weight you are more than likely not to do it or you will think you can eat less of something instead. But the benefits of exercise cannot be substituted by eating or drinking less of anything. A 30 minute daily walk is the most ideal way to get your daily exercise.

Sherri Sue Fisher Author of TimerDIET, TimerORGANIZER, and TimerSAVINGS




Sunday, January 11, 2015

Sleep

Sleep

So it is still the New Year and many experts are saying “WAKE UP EARLIER” as a way to meet all your goals. But…

TimerDIET®

When it comes to losing weight making sure that you get a good night’s sleep (anywhere from 7-9 hours) is so important to making sure you are ready for the day. Making good food choices, finding the energy to work-out every day, and allowing your body to get the much needed rest for premium weight loss starts with a good night’s sleep. So waking up earlier without going to sleep earlier is going to backfire and not help you in reaching any of your goals! If you are able to go to sleep at 10:00pm and wake up at 6:00am great! But if you can’t get to sleep early enough to get 8 hours of sleep by 6:00am you will need to reassess what time you get up in the morning or when you can get to sleep. Remember that insomnia is not sleeping so if insomnia is a problem you deal with you will want to figure out what the cause is as soon as possible.   Get a good night’s sleep each and every night—it is the number one secret to losing weight!!

TimerORGANIZER™

You may wonder how sleep can affect Organization, but it is crucial. When you have a good night’s sleep you make wiser decisions about your time and you don’t waste time on things that do not matter. When it is time to put away the groceries in a manner that makes it easy to cook or find snacks, or when you are deciding which errands to do today and which to do next week, or what projects to work on and for how long—how much sleep you have had the night before makes all the difference.

Some people use lack of sleep as a way to say they are busy and have so much going on, but getting a good night’s sleep helps you not be so busy; instead you will be productive and make wiser decisions and be able to accomplish so much more!

TimerSAVINGS™

So you may really be wondering how sleep can affect Savings, but you will understand soon!! Infomercials count on you being a little less than awake to want to buy whatever is being sold after midnight! But what about all the decisions that you make daily…whether to work, not work, take on business opportunities, to do what it takes to make more money…there are so many ways that lack of sleep can adversely affect your ability to make money, keep money, and be responsible with your money!

So whether it comes to your weight loss goals, time management, or financial goals your ability to get a good night’s sleep and make wise decisions is paramount! So wake up earlier if you think it will help, but get to bed earlier too!


 Sherri Sue Fisher, author of TimerDIET, TimerORGANIZER, and TimerSAVINGS




Sunday, January 4, 2015

Getting Around To It

Getting Around To It

So it is the first week of January 2015 and you are probably already wondering how you are going to get everything done that you thought you wanted to in 2015…does that sound about right? January 1st came and there was a resounding “I’ll get around to that—soon/tomorrow/next week” Let’s see how Timer® Tips can help.


TimerDIET®

Losing weight can seem daunting if you don’t have a plan and you have no idea how you are going to lose weight or how much weight you should lose. There are a lot of things you need to do before you start losing weight, in fact Chapter 4 of TimerDIET is dedicated just to what you need to do before you start to lose weight. Sometimes we procrastinate because we are just not sure where to start. Fear of failure can set in since we are truly positive we have no idea what we are doing or should do!

Here are the subsections in Chapter 4—Before You Start
  • ·         Wardrobe Makeover
  • ·         Refrigerator, Freezer, Pantry, and Spice Cabinet Makeover
  • ·         Kitchen Makeover
  • ·         Cooking
  • ·         Nutrients
  • ·         Grocery Shopping and Menu Creating
  • ·         Journals
  • ·         Bad Habits and Vices
  • ·         How Did I Get Here?
  • ·         Loving Life, Stress, and Giving
  • ·         Giving Up One Food
  • ·         Goal Setting

Preparation is the most important step (next to action) to get you to where you want to be!

TimerSAVINGS™

Lack of savings affects more than our spending decisions. It can affect our weight, our health, and our joy of life. Savings is not just for a rainy day. Savings allows you to live life without being in constant fear that you may lose a job, a client may leave, or an illness will bankrupt you tomorrow. Sometimes our desire to save money can be so great that we forget to give and that too, can create its own set of problems. We were really meant to spend, save (invest), and give. It helps our psyche! The way we see the world. The way we interact with the world. The amounts are irrelevant, the percentage of our out flow is really what makes a difference. While I think the percentage decision is a very personal one and you will feel it in your gut when you are right and when you are NOT! The most common starting points are 10% of income to giving and savings should be one year’s salary in the bank. Please don’t stress out if you don’t have this in savings, but do what you can to make that your goal this year. You will be surprised when you make savings a goal, along with a giving plan, miracles begin to happen. So do it now, make your plan and work your plan!

TimerORGANIZER™

Are you not so organized or perhaps organized in some areas of your life and not so much in others? Organizing your things so you are not constantly looking for them is just as important as organizing your time so that you can get the most out of each day! Think each day how long will a task really take, try setting your timer and give yourself that exact amount of time to finish the task. You will be surprised that giving yourself only so much time to get something done will actually force you to get it done in a shorter amount of time. Be sure to set aside time at the end of the day to organize your stuff for the following day. Do your best to put in your ‘to-do’ list only what you plan on doing each day. Otherwise you are training yourself to not finish what you put on your ‘to-do’ list. As you go through the day and you realize that your time is not as available as you originally thought, start moving or deleting things from your to-do list. This allows your to-do list to be only those items you currently believe you will finish that day!  

I hope these Timer®Tips help you in Getting Around To It, when it comes to your diet, organization, and savings!

Sherri Sue Fisher author of TimerDIET, TimerORGANIZER, and TimerSAVINGS