7 Keys to Living Timefully

Would you like to get more done in 2015 than 2014? Here’s how timefulness is becoming the new mindfulness and slowing down is the new speeding up.

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Key 1: Meditate daily

It is thought that every minute spent in the meditative state, gets added back to our lives. We either save any time spent by having a better day or add a minute to our longevity. When we learn to enter the meditative state with our eyes open, time bends and stretches so we get more done in less time.
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Key 2: Make a date with your Creative Self

Each and every day, even if it’s just for 10 minutes, a date with our Creative Self is like a supercharge for the mind, body and soul. We might write ‘morning pages’, pick up a guitar and strum or visit an art gallery. Just going for a walk in the park and imagining the most amazing future counts too.
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Key 3: Trust your gut & follow your heart

Our head ‘shouts’ quite loudly. So much so that sometimes the signals from our gut and heart get overlooked and overruled. So, for each decision you have to make, ask your gut for a Yes or a No. Next ask your heart if it is cold, luke warm or boiling hot about it. If your gut and heart give you the green light, proceed with gusto. If not, ask them what would have to change in order to get their blessing.
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Key 4: Create a To Love List

It’s said when we love the work we do, we never work as such again. So ditch your To Do list and start a To Love list. At the top, put the thungs you love to do first and tackle your list from the top down. If there are things on there you don’t like doing so much, either outsource them or be creative about how you could love doing them.
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Key 5: Sync with natural time

Our modern calendar has caused us to fall out of sync with natural time. Our creativity waxes and wanes wity the seasons, the phase of the Moon and the hours in each day. When we discover our naturally creative times, we go with the flow and stop pushing water up a temporal hill.
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Key 6: Be thankful

At the end of each day, either in a journal or just in your head as it hits the pillow, reflect on the highlights of your day. As you drop off into slumber, say one last ‘Thank You’ for the day to your bed for giving you a good night’s sleep.
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Key 7: Perform a Random Act of Kindness

When we get into the habit of performing a random of kindness to a stranger each day, something rather magical happens. Other people, who weren’t aware of our act or the recipient of our act, perform similar kindnesses to us. The ratio of kindnesses is more than two bestowed back on us for everyone we give out. The result is massive time saving.


Living Timefully

Visit www.livingtimefully.com to start creating as much time as you need

Creating an Interruption Barrier

Interruption BarrierIt said that every time we switch away from a task, it takes around five minutes to tune fully back into what we were working on. This means if we get just 12 interruptions a day, we lose around an hour in productivity.

Obviously, we can relatively easily remove self-inflicted diversions by switching off email, cell phones and social media. There’s an added bonus to be gained here. When we read less emails and interact less on social media, we create less noise in other peoples’ worlds and in turn they create less in ours.

I am currently having a self-imposed week of reduced social media involvement and I am amazed at how much more time I have to get more done. I also feel less anxious about checking in to see who’s talking about what – and me! I am just checking emails three times a day and only replying to everything in one session. It took a while to wean myself away from constantly checking in but now I am on the ‘other side’, it is strangely calming.

Even if you manage to tame the inner desire to divert your attention from the task at hand, external influences can darken your door just when you are fully engrossed and immersed in the creative zone. This is especially true in open plan office environments where conversations and other peoples’ phone calls can so easily disrupt our concentration.

Quite possibly, the worst type of interruption is that gentle knock on the door and a voice saying, “Have you got a minute?”

We never say, “If I had a spare minute, I would have sought you out and offered it to you.”

Instead we acquiesce and invariably that single requested minute morphs into several.

To prevent this kind of unrequited attention sapper, we can set up an interruption barrier. Like all strong defenses, it is best if it has several layers to stop the most ardent of penetrators.


Layer 1 : Physical

The first layer can be physical. When we are working on a creative task that needs our undivided attention, we can either work from home or lock ourselves in an office labelled ’Do Not Disturb’.


Layer 2 : Cultural

The second layer is both cultural and temporal. In smart organisations with intelligent employees, the time and space of others is respected. Simply announce the time and space you like to be interrupt free. A good practice is to designate the first working hour of the morning or after lunch as the time you need your own space. If everybody adopts this practice, nobody is therefore free to interrupt anyone else.


Layer 3 : Mindful

The third layer is slightly esoteric, yet the most potentially the most powerful.

It is postulated, by Carl Jung and other, that all thought permeates through a collective field. So if a person pops into your mind, it is possible that they are thinking about you just at that instant.

The reverse is also true. While you are working on a creative task, if your attention wanders and you think of somebody or other, then they might just think, “Ooh, I wonder if so and so is not busy and might be able to help me on this.”

So it is possibly our thoughts of others that cause them to interrupt us.


Over the years, I have noticed that the phone never rings when I am writing a chapter of a book or a blog. Yet, just a few minutes after a finish, it does. I realised I must have been doing something to stop my thought forms from leaking out.

The clue is this. Every day before I write, I meditate for 10 to 30 minutes. When I start writing, I remain in the meditative state. This means my internal dialogue is silent so I am not radiating any thought forms. The only ’words’ passing through my head are those that are passing through my finger tips typing these words.

This is especially true right now.

To create as much time as you need and get more done, start Living Timefully

Living Timefully

The Gift of More Time

Nothing in nature beats to the second

I woke up one morning last week with an idea. I realised that my Living Timefully Self Study programme could really benefit those facing life threatening conditions.

Less than a week later, that idea has been realised. It is now available completely free of charge to anyone with a terminal illness – and people have signed up already and reported some amazing benefits.

I’ve mentioned it to a few people and perhaps quite rightly they asked some questions of me, I thought my answers back were worth collating and sharing by way of this blog.

Q1 : Why would someone who is ill want to spend any of their precious time taking a time management course?

Living Timefully is unlike most time management programmes. It explores how we perceive time and how we can alter the speed of its passage. So, some people might want the clock to go quicker and some might want to slow it down. People who take the course will learn how to do both and take time under their control.

Q2 : Does the course help with the healing process?

When I developed the course, I did not have healing in mind. Yet people who have taken it report it’s made them less stressed and even cleared up headaches. As the course contains over four hours of meditations and visualisations, this perhaps is no surprise. It is well accepted now that meditation improves well being and increases vitality. So while the programme is not designed to heal per se, it will aid and assist with any conventional or alternative treatments being taken.

Q3 : What does someone need to take the course?

The course can be taken on any device with han Internet connection, like a laptop, tablet or smartphone. The exercises are best done with earphones on and for some you will need pen and paper. It even contains a guide on how to create Bucket Lists. Each week, over a 10 week period, an email will be sent to give access to the next set of ‘Timeful Tasks’ to complete. An hour or so of time a week is all that’s needed. This gift is a gift for lifetime so all modules will be accessible when needed should events mean a week gets missed out.

Q4 : Why are you giving it away free? What’s the catch?

Because I can and there is no catch. I want to give something back for all the blessings I have had bestowed on me. People who sign up will not be upsold to or encouraged to opt in to any sales schemes or scams. I take data privacy very seriously and the names of people on the programme will not be shared with any third parties. If people do benefit from the course and want to share their experience, I would appreciate testimonials but will use them anonymously.

Q5 : How you get proof or check that people are suffering from a life-threatening illness?

When people request access to the course, they won’t get instant access. I ask them to share a little about their condition. I will only block obvious scammers and spammers. Also, I have ways to ‘tune in’ and tell if people are genuine – the clues to how I do this are in Weeks 5 & 7 of the course.

Q6 : How do people request access?

Just go to www.livingtimefully.com and fill in the Request Access form.

Q7 : What if I have a question not addressed here?

Just add your question by way of comment below …

The Breath Clock

The Breath ClockBiologists have a pretty good handle on the purpose and function of the breath. On the in breath, we take oxygen on board and on the out breath, we expel toxic carbon dioxide. If our lungs are clogged, our airways are blocked or our air supply removed, it doesn’t bode well for us. Breathing is essential to life.

The breath though has some other more subtle, yet vital roles which are not generally recognised.

1. Powering Inspiration

Most people speak on the out breath (apart from some Icelandic people and some flautists I discovered).

Try and speak on an in breath to find out what I mean.

Our language, as always, gives somewhat obvious clues as to what is really going on. When we speak we voice our ’aspirations’. The in breath is of course the ’in-spiration’ phase of the whole re-spiration process. It is this ’in-breathing’ process that fires up our imagination and brings in ideas.

So if you find yourself stuck for inspiration, just close your eyes, breathe slowly and rhythmically for a couple of minutes. If you then pay attention to the still point between the in and out breath, the solution to your problem will just pop in ’out of nowhere’.

This works equally well if you go out for a walk (with your eyes open though).

2. Aiding creativity

Our neurons don’t store any oxygen so we need our breath just to think. As our brain uses 20-25% of our body’s energy, this is why it shuts down when we faint to protect our other vital organs.

So if you are starting a creative task, here’s a quick and simple way to give yourself an extra boost.

Close your right nostril with your right index finger and breathe in and out of your left nostril five times. You can do this at whatever speed feels right for you. This has the effect of oxygenating the right brain. Then use your left index finger to close your left nostril and oxygenate your left hemisphere by breathing through your right nostril five times. Repeat as necessary.

3. Controlling our Perception of Time

Time is not as fixed as is normally thought. It is both malleable and stretchable and affected by the speed of our consciousness.

By changing the speed of our breath, we can alter the perceived passage of time. It’s as simple as this. The faster we breathe, the faster time seems to pass. Slow your breath down and time elongates.

Watch this short video from my Slowing Down to Speed Up program to find out more …

So it is just possible by controlling the speed of our breath, we can not only live longer but get more done in the time we do have on this special planet.

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Related Links

Slowing Down to Speed Up
Living Timefully

My Magical Week

The days of our week are pretty arbitrary. Only humans use them and they are based on the names of gods as explained in this short video.

As they are arbritary, as per the example in the video, we can hijack them for our own individual use. So, I’ve come up with a yet another way to run my week using a different tack and leaning that I will adopt each day.

Note that I won’t spend all the day on each tack, just the core. This is mainly because each morning I meditate and write. Late afternoon and early evening, I will network and schedule exploratory conversations and podcast interviews.

In addition, I modulate phases of my projects with the seasons and the Moon phases. So my daily theme might take on a different flavour at various times of the year and each ’moonth’.

For the coming months, here’s what my new weeks look like and I throw down the gauntlet for you to re-define yours 🙂

My Magical Week

Mends Day : each Monday I have reserved three healing slots for clients between 11am and 6pm. I will also be mindful to mend and repair things that need attention in my life and world.

Tools Day : Tuesday is the day I spend all day building new tools for personal transformation and spiritual development. The aim is to build my customer portal into a huge repository of wisdom – I call it The Adytum, it’s quite possibly the world’s first De-mystery School

Weeds Day : Wednesday is another client day. Between 11am and 3pm, I have scheduled 3 client unblocking sessions to weed out those internal gremlins that stop us being magnificent.

Surge Day : Thursday is my day to spend on marketing. I have two slots for podcast guests and love to learn how to get more and more out of my CRM and ecommerce system, InfusionSoft.

Free Day : Friday is my treat. It’s the day I spend writing my fiction. Note that I write and create most days but this is where my creative spirit is set free to explore, dream and expand.

Sitter Day : Saturday and Sunday are somewhat transposable but this is generally the time to sit around, relax and socialise.

Sunny Day : again this might happen on Sitter Day but being outside gardening or walking the dogs is a big component of the week. To dogs of course, every day is a sunny day, a sitter day and a free day. Perhaps they know something that we don’t.

Related Links

Time-based Therapy – what I do on Mends Day

Living Timefully – one of the outputs from Tools Day

Creative Unblocking – what I do on Weeds Day

The Zone Show Podcast – a Surge Day Activity

Amazon Author Page – what happens when my soul lights up on Free Day

The Adytum – where it all ends up

Your Business Manager in a Box – how I deliver it all