The daily juggling act of time, is on everyone's mind these days as the world and the clock seem to move at an ever increasing pace, but it is a struggle you need not have.

• How much time do you spend travelling every day, be it to work. appointment, schools, shopping, ect: Most of us spend at least 1/2 hr. 
• Do you go walking or jogging / running, or use home exercise equipment for your regular exercise programme?
• At the end of the day you collapse into the armchair and watch the square box or wide screen, but what do you watch? Are you selective?
• Kids board during the day but you have the ironing to do?
• These are just a fraction of the times you can use 'time management skills'

'Time management skills' How "we" hate this phase, it is the catch phase of business,constently on the lips of bosses world wide. We prefer "utilisation of MY time", be it in the work place or outside, it is my time no one else's, no one can take it away from me unless I chose to let them. I chose to manage MY time doing things I want to do. We are both very lucky as we do have jobs we are passionate about and we chose to continue working, but we also chose how, when & where we work.

Over the years we have used many strategies to utilise our time to allow for us to grow and develop as people. This time is split between personal development or learning new skills, and total rest & relaxation. We can not stress here to the absolute essential need to keep a balance of the two. This balance can make an enormous difference to the outcome of your dreams, desires and goals.

• Do you have a CD or MP3 player plug-in, in your car? If you do this is now your mobile class room.
• Have a CD player / DVD player in the house?
• The ability to read a book? Hard copy or online.

You have all the tools required, all you need now, is the information YOU need to meet your needs.

FREE supplies of information are everywhere when you know where to look. Disks and down-loads in there hundreds on the internet, in libraries, some work places and from personal contacts. 

• Internet: Search any of the Personal development sites like Jim Rohn for free or cost effective supplies. Many supply whole courses on hundreds of subjects. Some require you to sign up for their weekly / monthly E newsletter, but this can then bring more rewards, you can always delete from their mailing list later if you find its not for you.
• Join the Public Library. Apart from an endless supply of books, they also have talking books, (great for in the car, or while doing household chores)
• Talk to friends & family, work mates you maybe surprised at who has what and most people are more than willing to share, loan or swoop items.
• Video / DVD libraries/shops are a great place.    A couple of great family type movies are: 'Pay it Forward' This has a very penitent message for all ages. (this is one of our favourites, my daughter first told us about it). Another is 'The Notebook' (keep the tissues handy for both of these).

Keep a diary and use it daily, leave it open where you can see it. Block times in for:

• Travel and say what you will be doing during this time, i.e.:read book - title, listern to CD - title.
• Work time, Lunch break and how you will spend it.
• Appointments, Family time, rest & relaxation, note how you will spend this time to your advantage.

This takes a bit of practice especially if you have not done anything like it before but stay disciplined for a few weeks and you will wonder how you ever managed before. Trust us it works and we could never juggle our lives without it. It also means we both know what is on for the day / week and how we can help each other so we have more R&R together.

A tip here is to put some time aside each week-end with the family / each other and go through the following week, this way everyone has a say and nothing is missed out or forgotten. We also use this as a reminder for birthday cards to be sent, bills to be paid, ECT:

The ideas are limitless but this may help you get started along the road to personal success. Play with it and have fun.

Do let us know how it goes for you and any ideas or feed back which may help others.