Time management isn’t just about planning your day and then trying to stick with your plan. Without the knowledge and skill of true time management, just about everyone struggles to stay focused.Why is this so? It’s because when someone wants to get better at managing their time, they will book into a one day time management course that teaches them how to set their goals, plan activities aimed at achieving them, how to plan their week and then how to plan their day.They leave this course all fired up, with all of this new knowledge and time management plan, arrive at work the next day ready to implement their plan and find that by the end of the day, they have struggled to achieve anything in their plan. This keeps happening all week and by the end of the second week, the plan and the course are just a memory and they are back to their old habits.Why does this happen?It’s because 1. Time management can’t be learnt in one day. 2. It is your thought patterns and habits that needs to change and very few if any time management workshops focus on this side of time management.There are two phases to time management training;1. Knowledge and process development.2. The ongoing knowledge consolidation and skill and habit forming process.These 2 phases are comprised of 4 key components;1. Planning2. Time Management3. Self-Discipline4. People Management Skills1. PlanningTime management is impossible if you don’t have a plan. The plan determines what activities are important to you and therefore have to be done first to achieve your goals in business and life. With a plan, you know where to best use your time.Steps to building your plana. Why – The planning process is about understanding why you do what you do. Understanding the Why is very important to helping you do and achieve what is really important to you and to keeping you focused during the tough times.b. Vision – The vision is the picture that you have in your head of what you want to achieve. Get it out on paper, it helps clarify and solidify what you want to achieve.c. Goals/Targets – Your main goals come from your vision, they are the targets you are looking for to achieve your vision. You can set your goals over 1, 3, 5, 10, 20 year time frames, however, if that seems unrealistic to you, just set yourself some goals for the next 12 months and focus on building a plan to achieve then.d. Quarterly Action Plan – This is the point where planning starts to cross into time management. In a quarterly action plan, you create a plan for the next 3 months. In this plan you set your goals for the quarter and each month of the quarter. You then set the activities that you will action in each week of the month to achieve those goals.2. Time ManagementTime Management is about setting your plans on a weekly and daily basis, determining which day and time activities will be carried out in.a. Weekly Planning – Using your quarterly action plan and dairy system, you plan which day activities from the action plan are to be completed on. You also plan in your appointments, family, social and any other activity you intend to carry out in that week.b. Daily Planning – is about scheduling in your activities for the day, creating a to-do list that you prioritise and then following those priorities no matter what. How you set your prioritisation of this list is very important, the way most courses teach you to prioritise is wrong and results in only today focused tasks to be completed and goals not achieved. Our method of prioritising tasks each day results in our clients getting more of the important activities actually completed on time.3. Self-DisciplineWithout self-discipline, creating new and better time management skills simply will not happen. The process has to start from within you.a. Avoiding Procrastination – There are many excuses as to why we put off doing things, but the simple fact is, each time we avoid doing something that is important, we are destroying our success. We need to learn how to control the way we think about various activities and complete them in their sequence of importance.b. Distractions – An inability to stay focused on an important activity for a pre-set amount of time prevents us from achieving the success we want. Allowing ourselves to be constantly distracted by an array of things such as emails, phone calls, SMS, new apps, new technology, social media, new shinny bright things etc, etc means it just takes longer and longer to do things.Each time you are distracted from doing something important, it takes 10 to 20 minutes to get back to presence you had before you were distracted. You need to create a methodology on how you let yourself be distracted for short periods of time in between the important activities.4. People Management SkillsOne of the biggest road blocks to achieving good time management skills and habits, is interruptions from other people. Team members, customers, suppliers, family etc. It’s important that you identify what interrupts you during your day, and create an action plan to eliminate those interruptions.There is a lot to learn about managing people, however from a time management perspective, there are some key things you need to learn that will help you get back hours in your day.a. Learn to teach your employee’s how to solve their own problems and make the decision you pay them to make, instead of coming to you all of the time. If you are someone that requires employees to come to for decisions and not make them themselves, you will always struggle with time management. It is not a good management style.b. Learn how to communicate with people effectively. Everyone has a primary behavioural style and a primary learning modality. When you learn to communicate with someone based on their primary behaviour style and learning modality, the communication is significantly more effective saving you enormous amounts of time.RecommendationAs you can see, learning how to create better time management skills is not a one day event. Gaining the base knowledge in each of these 4 areas can be done quickly, actually building a thorough knowledge and turning them into valuable skills takes much longer.The way to implement the development of your time management skills, is to incorporate into your goals and activity planning, the skills you identify need to be developed in the Self-Discipline and People Management Skills areas.I also recommend you have someone you meet with on a regular basis (at least monthly) who can help you further develop your knowledge and skills and keep you accountable for implementing your quarterly action plans

When anybody tells you that a weekend is enough to see Budapest, they do not know what they are talking about. A week will probably give you a quick taster of this place and the feeling that you must return for more. The turbulent history of this city, the terrors of 40 years of Soviet occupation and communism and all the heart aches of foreign invasions still did not manage to destroy the natives ‘joe de vivre’ and all of the beautiful architecture this old city has to offer.Budapest, is not about the ‘Heroes Square, or the Váci Utca! I would like you to see much more than that!You can wine and dine away your stress in the numerous restaurants Budapest has on offer. It has all the usual international cuisine with a strong bias to Italian, Mediterranean, Spanish, not forgetting the spicy Hungarian cuisine. From the stylish bite on Fashion street by the Kempinsky Hotel to the cobbled street of The Royal Palace or Obuda, they all have different food and ambiance on offer. From the most elegant of Gresham Cafe to the humblest Deryne Bistro, you will be treated with great hospitality. The world-famous wine of Tokay can be tasted at special events throughout the year.As for spas, Hungary, and, especially Budapest, has more than 30 and occupies the number one spot in the world. Among the most coveted are the baths of Szècheny and Gellèrt. My favourite is not the Gellèrt, which everybody has heard of, but the Szècheny Bath, a Neo-Baroque wellness mecca, situated in the ‘Vàrosliget’ = City Park (a large green park just behind the Heroes Square. Here you can have lunch, rest, feed the ducks and if you are still left with some energy left, go into the mini version of a Disney Park for a spin, giving thrill-seeker extra hours for flipping, soaring, whirling and tumbling until well after dark during the summer months.In the winter, there is a very large ice skating rink, just behind the Heroes Square where you will have a unique experience complete with a view of a mock Medieval Castle.Culture Vultures will feel the heat, and not been able to choose from the many attractions this place has on offer. From classical music to opera and operetta, rock and jazz, it is all there for the taking. The new concert hall, the Palace of Arts has one of the best acoustic designs in the world. Anyone for Mozart?The Hungarians celebrate the 20th August, with spectacular fireworks, dancing, eating and much joviality, this is to mark the first king, St Istvan settling in today’s Hungary in 896. All the bridges are lit up along with the Royal Palace & the Statue of Freedom.The Budapest Summer Festival is a regular occurrence, an ongoing series of concerts, drama performances on at the Margaret Island Open-air Stage. Every Friday and Saturday night guests can enjoy live jazz in the open air at Casino Holdudvar, Margaret Island.The city and its surrounding are also rich in architecture and historical buildings. Budapest has one of the most famous and largest Basilicas in centre Europe, only to be beaten by her big sister in Esztergom, which is even larger. To see this you would need to take a half-day boat trip up the River Duna. Talking about boat trips, Szentendre is another place on the river Duna, much favoured by artist, painters and sculptors alike. It is only a short trip from the city, with its old cobbled-streets and lovely old restaurants; and is one of my favourite places where I return year after year. The old medieval, painted houses support each other in a Cezanne like painting, piled on top and next to each other as if they are drunk with the mighty river view thrown in for free.One must not forget the health and well-being services this city has become well-known, namely, there are more dentist in this city than flower shops, the cosmetic industry following close behind. You can save something like 60% on the UK prices.For those on the honeymoon, the luxury homes in Buda or Pest is the best place to visit. The awesome views from the top of the Royal Castle, candle lit dinners with views to the Danube combined with the City’s romantic atmosphere will stay with them until the rest of day life.With innumerable homes to select from, you will be confused which one to choose. You can select from a wide variety of apartments depending on your budget. But be sure to choose an apartment with panoramic views. The luxury end of Budapest homes represent style and glamour. Luxuries like a swimming complex, 24 hour security and secure parking place is no longer the privilege of rich people, but available to all. Try it and live like the other half!

Music therapy is one of several healing art forms that is progressively gaining prominence and a place among complementary mind, body, spirit therapies offered in hospitals in the United States. Music as a healing art has been around for eons and now there are research reports that document its effectiveness and benefits.Music has been a part of cultures and societies throughout history. It may have been in the form of drumming, chanting, toning and musical instruments of the time. Shamans, medicine woman and man, tribal sweat lodge singings, initiation ceremonies and funerals used music to promote healing and a smooth transition after life.BenefitsIt is, without a doubt, a beautiful, melodic form of therapy that can reduce stress and anxiety, relieve pain, lift depression and produce feelings of happiness. Music is energy and produces a flowing of inappropriate (negative effect) energy within the body, outward from the body (positive) resulting in restoration of balance and harmony.Sound waves are produced by music and they are processed in many areas of the brain which then influences the condition of the body. Thereby, bringing harmony to the body, mind, spirit and the emotions. Research has demonstrated the beneficial effects on a person’s blood pressure, muscle tension and respiratory rate.Categories of music include:1. Big Band-Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman
2. Jazz-John Coltrane, Miles Davis
3. Blues-B. B. King, John L. Hooker
4. Ambient/New Age-Brian Eno, Halpern
5. Baroque-Bach, Handel
6. Classical-Beethoven, MozartListening to music one hour a day can improve learning, promote clarity of values, personal intent and creativity.Harp music (harp therapy) has been used to reduce pain, anxiety and promote relaxation.Music has the ability, according to various studies and lived experiences, to increase dopamine levels. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter, is released when there are rewards and pleasures such as music, food, sex and drugs. It is a ‘feel good’ substance, a motivator. Music for healing is pleasurable experience. The pleasure of music can distract a person from feelings of pain, lower blood pressure and reduce depression.