Top ten tips to improve your memory

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MEMORY

Four simple truths about memory:

1. It is normal to forget.
2. You can remember more and retain more for a longer period of time than you probably think you can.
3. A few memory aids that many people have found useful may work for you.
4. The best memory technique may be one you create for yourself, one that corresponds to your learning style.

Top 10 tips

The following is a list of strategies that have worked for many people:

1. Decide to remember. Resist passivity. Become an active learner by making a conscious, deliberate decision to remember. Follow through on this decision.


2. Combine memorizing with a physical activity. Each sense that you use while reviewing provides another pathway for information to reach your brain. Recite either silently or aloud, while riding a bicycle, while doing aerobics or calisthenics (floor exercises like sit-ups and jumping jacks), and while walking or running. Feel good about yourself for keeping fit and for exercising your mind.


3. Use mnemonics. Mnemonics are tricks, games, or rhymes that help you remember things. You learned some as a child—“In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”


4. Use acronyms. An acronym is a word formed by the first letters of other words or items that you want to remember. For example, “TEAM” is an acronym for --
   “Together Everyone Achieves More”.


5. Associate to remember. Association is the process of connecting new information that you want to remember to something that you already know. An association is often
   personal. For example, use something personal to you to remember something unrelated. A friends name or a place you know can be used to trigger the association.


6. Visualize. Form an image, or picture, in your mind of something that you want to
   remember. Visualization is an especially good way to link names with places or parts with
   locations. Draw things on a board or in a book that will remind you of the thing you need to remember rather than listing in words what needs to be remembered


7. Use an organizational technique. Organize information in a meaningful pattern that shows how each item relates to the others. List steps in a process. Outline complex
   materials. Make charts, diagrams, and information maps that show the relationships of parts to a whole or one part to another.


8. Sleep on it. Reviewing before sleep helps you retain information. Because you are relaxed, concentration is focused. The information stays in your mind while you sleep. When you awaken, try to recall what you reviewed the night before. Chances are good that you will remember.


9. Remember key words. Sometimes you have to remember a series of connected ideas and explanations. To recall items stated in phrases or sentences, select a key word to two in each item that sums up the whole phrase. Recalling key words will help you recall the whole item.


10. Memorize. Useful for recalling certain kinds of information, memorization can be an effective tool if it is combined with other memory techniques. Memorization works best when recalling spelling, definitions, maths and facts about historical events, life cycles, etc.

Remember: A flexible memory system is best. The basic elements of successful memory work also include the following:

• Be organized. Information that is organized is easier to find.
• Be physical. Learning is an active process. Get all of your senses involved.
• Be clear. You can reduce the background noise that may interfere with recall.
• Be smart. Intelligent application of memory techniques can save work.

Your memory is a muscle.. if you exercise it, it will become bigger and stronger… Exercise your memory daily…
By improving your memory, you can find greater success in your career and in your personal life.

Business Owners 10 great questions to ask yourself

1. Customer base
Ask yourself: If I just bought this company, how would I sell more/expand what I sell to this customer base?

2. Cash
Ask yourself: If I could invest this cash in any one part of this business/niche/product line for the biggest cumulative return/profit over the next 5 years, where would I invest it all?

3. Market Leadership
Ask yourself: To remain the market leader for the next 25 years, where should I invest my time and company's resources right now?

4. Reputation
Ask yourself: What can I do to double the strength of our current reputation, within the next 6 months?

5. Momentum
Ask yourself: What's working well right now and how can I keep it working well?

6. Key Staff
Ask yourself: Who are the 5 key people in my organization and what game/plan can I create with them so they'll stick around for a long time?

7. Systems
Ask yourself: What systems work so well that we take them for granted? How could we improve them?

8. Responsiveness
Ask yourself: How quickly and completely do we respond to changes in our customers, market, technology, staff needs or economic conditions?

9. Intellectual Property
Ask yourself: What do we have, IP-wise, that just isn't being as leveraged as it could be?

10. The X Factor
Ask yourself: What do we have that's very, very special and that we could really maximize, just for the pleasure of it?

18 STRATEGIES FOR HIRING THE BEST

1. Focus on hiring only the best.
2. Make sure you have a written job description.
3. Don’t limit your sources for good employees.
4. Avoid hiring someone who averages more than one employer every two years.
5. Use a rating system so that early candidates are not forgotten in the interview process.
6. Where possible, promote from within to maintain employee morale.
7. A person with an extensive self-employment background is very likely to go back to self-employment as soon as possible. Hire this person as a consultant.
8. Disabled workers often do a better job with greater loyalty and less absences.
9. Use a temporary employment agency instead of hiring an employee in haste.
10. “Over qualified” people are better than “under qualified” people.
11. Have the person leaving the position interview their replacement.
12. Test the skills and industry knowledge of a prospective employee. Get specific.
13. Look into a potential employee’s energy levels. If you engage in more than one interview, try to do it at different times of the day.
14. Look into any significant gaps in employment.
15. Consider using outside recruitment agencies if you won’t follow a process.
16. Use pre-employment questionnaires.
17. Check an applicant’s background and all references thoroughly.
18. Memorialize the terms of employment.

The Power of NO!!!!

The Power of NO!

You don't know how to say No to a person then please learn because a single Yes can eat up your fruitful quality time.

1) If you don't know how to say NO, people will take undue advantage of you. At office you will be bogged down with work and others will enjoy while you will be doing their stuff.

2) Adapt yourself to all circumstances and situations because it may so happen that your Boss or your peers may transfer their own work to you because you cannot say “NO”

3) If you are a parent you very well need to understand when to say NO or else children's take undue advantage and when you give in they become a spoiled brat.

4) If you cannot meet a person’s expectations just tell him NO rather than thinking what will he think if I say NO and then worrying and getting sick.

5) Its always better to say NO rather than saying YES for a work and then suffering afterwards.

6) If you cannot drink alcohol say NO, Cannot smoke a cigarette just say NO rather than getting addicted and suffering afterwards.

Be true to yourself, you understand yourself better than anyone else. Believe me this is the truth and reality. You have to understand when and how to say NO. The people who are close to your heart may feel bad if they hear a NO from you, so you very well need to understand how to tell NO to them assertively without hurting their feelings and without giving in to the situation.

It happens with everybody and you are not the only one. In day to day life we face these situations and it’s upon us how well we can manage that situation.

We have got 24 Hrs in a single day and we need to manage that time for all our work. We need to go to office, look after home, do shopping for home, look after parents and children, do social activities, take out time for friends and take out some time for ourselves and our personal life.

If we start doing others work there will be a great imbalance in our own life which may lead to irritation and frequent quarrels.

Try out the power of saying “NO” and be a different and transformed person

Eat a Frog for Breakfast!

The secret to successful time management.
From a book by Brian Tracy

The key to happiness, satisfaction, great success and a wonderful feeling of persona power and effectiveness is for you to develop the habit of eating your frog, first thing every day when you start work.

Fortunately, this is a learnable skill that you can acquire through repetition. And when you develop the habit of starting on your most important task, before anything else, your success is assured.

Here is a summary of the 21 Great Ways to stop procrastinating and get more things done faster. Review these rules and principles regularly until they become firmly ingrained in your thinking and actions and your future will be guaranteed.

1. Set the table: Decide exactly what you want. Clarity is essential. Write out your goals and objectives before you Begin;
2. Plan every day in advance: Think on paper. Every minute you spend in planning can save you five or ten minutes in execution;
3. Apply the 80/20 Rule to everything: Twenty percent of your activities will account for eighty percent of your results. Always concentrate your efforts on that top twenty percent;
4. Consider the consequences: Your most important tasks and priorities are those that can have the most serious consequences, positive or negative, on your life or work. Focus on these above all else;
5. Practice the ABCDE Method continually: Before you begin work on a list of tasks, take a few moments to organize them by value and priority so you can be sure of working on your most important activities:
6. Focus on key result areas: Identify and determine those results that you absolutely, positively have to get to do your job well, and work on them all day long;
7. The Law of Forced Efficiency: There is never enough time to do everything but there is always enough time to do the most important things. What are they?
8. Prepare thoroughly before you begin: Proper prior preparation prevents poor performance;
9. Do your homework: The more knowledgeable and skilled you become at your key tasks, the faster you start them and the sooner you get them done;
10. Leverage your special talents: Determine exactly what it is that you are very good at doing, or could be very good at, and throw your whole heart into doing those specific things very, very well:
11. Identify your key constraints: Determine the bottlenecks or chokepoints, internally or externally, that set the speed at which you achieve your most important goals and focus on alleviating them;
12. Take it one oil barrel at a time: You can accomplish the biggest and most complicated job if you just complete it one step at a time;
13. Put the pressure on yourself: Imagine that you have to leave town for a month and work as if you had to get all your major tasks completed before you left;
14. Maximize your personal powers: Identify your periods of highest mental and physical energy each day and structure your most important and demanding tasks around these times. Get lots of rest so you can perform at your best;
15. Motivate yourself into action: Be your own cheerleader. Look for the good in every situation. Focus on the solution rather than the problem. Always be optimistic and constructive;
16. Practice creative procrastination: Since you can’t do everything, you must learn to deliberately put off those tasks that are of low value so that you have enough time to do the few things that really count;
17. Do the most difficult task first: Begin each day with your most difficult task, the one task that can make the greatest contribution to yourself and your work, and resolve to stay at it until it is complete:
18. Slice and dice the task: Break large, complex tasks down into bite sized pieces and then just do one small part of the task to get started;
19. Create large chunks of time: Organize your days around large blocks of time where you can concentrate for extended periods on your most important tasks;
20. Develop a sense of urgency: Make a habit of moving fast on your key tasks. Become known as a person who does things quickly and well;
21. Single handle every task: Set clear priorities, start immediately on your most important task and then work without stopping until the job is 100% complete. This is the real key to high performance and maximum personal productivity.

Make a decision to practice these principles every day until they become second nature to you. With these habits of personal management as a permanent part of your personality, your future will be unlimited.

Just do it! Eat that frog.

TRYING DOESN’T WORK!

Trying doesn't work. When we say we're going to try, it presupposes failure.

I tried for years to make certain changes and do certain things. What I didn't realise was that the feeling of trying was becoming familiar. People like what's familiar, so once I got used to trying, my neurology didn't want to shock me by having me succeed. So I went on trying for years.

Have you become familiar with the experience of trying or struggling? If so, it may be time to find out what happens when you move beyond trying. What happens when you imagine getting what you want? How does it feel?

As Yoda said "Do or do not. There is no try." Trying doesn't work.

Power up your Presentation Skills – 10 Tips for Better Presenting

Power up your Presentation Skills – 10 Tips for Better Presenting

Presenting in front of an audience is not everyone's cup of tea but with the correct advice, guidelines and practice it can be enjoyable for both the presenter and the audience. Preparation is everything and it is essential that you know your subject matter. The more prepared you are, the more confident you will feel which makes for a better presentation.

Follow these simple tips and your presentations will be fun, interesting and rewarding for both you and your audience.

1. Keep your PowerPoint visual – Keep them clean, not too wordy and relative to the presentation. They should just be a visual representation of the subject. The audience isn't there to read your slides; they are there to listen to you present.


2. Engage with the audience - Make eye contact with everyone throughout the room. If you don't do this then you aren't engaging the audience, you are just talking to yourself. Each person should feel like you are speaking to them personally.


3. Deliver with a passion – It's amazing how catchy enthusiasm is. If your voice is expressive and your gestures animated, you will appear confident and passionate.


4. Make them laugh – Have some fun! Although you want to educate your audience, you need to make them laugh too. In essence, it keeps the audience alert and they'll learn more from you than someone who just educates.


5. Ask questions - People hate it when they get talked at, so don't do it. You need to interact with your audience and create a conversation. The easiest way to do this is to ask them questions as well as letting them ask you questions.


6. Be human –Simply be truthful to your audience. Telling the truth and being human will earn you respect and people will trust you for your honesty. Putting yourself on a pedestal and being super-human can work against you. So tell them how it is.


7. Don't over prepare – Of course, you need to be prepared enough to know what you are going to talk about but just enough to make sure your presentation flows naturally and not sound memorized. Experienced speakers will tell you not to rehearse your presentation too much because then it won't sound natural.


8. Show some movement – Keep yourself moving. People will stay engaged if you are animated. If you have a large audience or big stage make sure you spend an equal amount of time in front of all of your audience. Being animated also helps display a sense of passion too.


9. Watch what you say - You may not notice when you say words like "uhm" or "ah", but the audience does. If you use them a lot when presenting it can get quite irritating; so much that some members of the audience will probably count how many times you say these useless words and tell you!


10. Don't read directly from your notes – One of the most common mistakes made by first time speakers is to stand up and read directly from notes. If a speaker is looking down at a page of notes it does not allow them to engage eye contact with the audience to hold their interest. As alternative, bullet point key messages that you wish to get across on cue cards to keep you on track and it won't sound so scripted.
    

Giving it away! - Delegation

Giving it away! - Delegation

People use many excuses for not delegating. Their reasons are usually unfounded. You'll get more done through delegation if you assume the opposite of the following statements is true:

• I could do it better myself.
  
• I don't know if I can trust her to do it.
  
• He isn't qualified to do it.
  
• She doesn't want any added responsibilities.
  
• I don't have the time to show anyone how to do it.
  
• There is no one else to delegate to.
  
• He already has enough to do.
  
• I don't want to give up this task because I like doing it.
  
• I'm the only person who knows how to do this.
  
• She messed up last time, so I'm not giving her anything else to do.
  

What To Delegate

• Don't delegate what you can eliminate. If you shouldn't be doing an activity, then perhaps you shouldn't be giving the activity away to others. Eliminate it.
• Delegate routine activities, even though you don't want to:
• Fact-finding assignments
  
• Preparation of rough drafts of reports
  
• Problem analysis and suggested actions
  
• Collection of data for reports
  
• Photocopying, printing, collating
  
• Data entry
  
• Delegate things that aren't part of your core competency. For small businesses, these include accounting, web site design, deliveries, hardware upkeep, software help, graphic design, travel arrangements, patenting, legal issues and even HR functions such as payroll.
  
• Some things you can't delegate: performance reviews, discipline, firing.
  
• Create a plan to delegate. Don't give out assignments haphazardly.
  
• Invest short term time in training to gain a long term increase in productivity.
  
• Others may end up doing a better job than you can or finding new ways to complete a task.
  
• Delegate, don't abdicate. Someone else can do the task, but you're still responsible for the completion of it, and for managing the delegation process.

Delegation Instructions

Make sure the standards and the outcome are clear. What needs to be done, when should it be finished and to what degree of quality or detail?

• Delegate the objective, not the procedure. Outline the desired results, not the methodology.
  
• Ask people to provide progress reports. Set interim deadlines to see how things are going.
  
• Delegate to the right person. Don't always give tasks to the strongest, most experienced or first available person.
  
• Spread delegation around and give people new experiences as part of their training.
  
• Obtain feedback from employees to ensure they feel they're being treated appropriately. A simple "How's it going with that new project?" might be all that's needed.
  
• Be sure to delegate the authority along with the responsibility. Don't make people come back to you for too many minor approvals.
  
• Trust people to do well and don't look over their shoulders or check up with them along the way, unless they ask.
  
• Be prepared to trade short term errors for long term results.
  
• When you finish giving instructions, the last thing to ask is, "What else do you need to get started?" They'll tell you.

Reticular Activating System - The RADAR in your brain

Part of your brain is known as the Reticular Activating System or RAS. Your RAS plays a vital part in your ability to achieve goals.

Imagine that you're walking through a busy noise airport passenger terminal. Think of all the noise - hundreds of people talking, music, announcements, luggage carriers. How much of this noise is brought to your attention? Not a lot. True, you can hear a general background noise, but not many of us bother to listen to each individual sound.

But then a new announcement comes over the public address system - saying your name or maybe your flight. Suddenly your attention is full on. Your RAS is the automatic mechanism inside your brain that brings relevant information to your attention.

Your reticular activating system is like a filter between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. It takes instructions from your conscious mind and passes them on to your subconscious. For example, the instruction might be, "listen out for anyone saying my name".
There are some interesting points about your reticular activating system that make it an essential tool for achieving goals.

First, you can deliberately program the reticular activating system by choosing the exact messages you send from your conscious mind. For example, you can set goals, or say affirmations, or visualize your goals. Napoleon Hill said that we can achieve any realistic goal if we keep on thinking of that goal, and stop thinking any negative thoughts about it. Of course, if we keep thinking that we can't achieve a goal, our subconscious will help us - not achieve it.

Second, your reticular activating system cannot distinguish between 'real events' and 'synthetic' reality. In other words it tends to believe whatever message you give it. Imagine that you're going to be giving a speech. You can practice giving that speech by visualizing it in your mind. This 'pretend' practice should improve your ability to give the speech.

What we need to do is to create a very specific picture of our goal in our conscious mind. The RAS will then pass this on to our subconscious - which will then help us achieve the goal. It does this by bringing to our attention all the relevant information which otherwise might have remained as 'background noise'.

5 Simple Ways to ensure your testimonials work best for you..

Using customer testimonials in your advertising, marketing materials and on your website is a common practice. If your customers are saying great things about your business, then why not publicize those positive testimonials for the world to see?

Not so fast: There are two main problems with customer testimonials--overuse and legitimacy. Testimonials are used so often that they have lost some of their value. Furthermore, prospective customers don't always trust the truthfulness of testimonials.

How do you make your customer testimonials stand out from the crowd and make them more meaningful for your prospects? To create effective, meaningful customer testimonials, they must be:

1. Authentic
2. Quantifiable
3. Specific
4. Diverse
5. Approved

In short, don't leave room for guesswork when it comes to your customer testimonials. Leverage the role of your loyal and best customers by asking them to provide testimonials. Make sure your customer testimonials are verifiable, and specifically tell prospective consumers the benefits of doing business with you.

If your customer testimonials are honest and trustworthy, then people will respond to them which will translate to positive results for your bottom line. See my examples here...

You might also want to consider using a third party to gather your testimonials for you. Companies like The Disc Directory will pro-actively promote and publish positive commments from your satisfied customers. It adds great value and credibility having these published by a third party.