Ramsland - Simplify your time: stop running & start living!

Praise for Simplify Your Time

Marcia Ramslands easy-to-read book will motivate you to create the time you need to live the life you want. With over twenty years of experience as a professional organizer, her eye-opening, time-saving tools and tips will give you the insight to Simplify Your Time and more!

BARRY J. IZSAK

President, National Association of Professional Organizers

Time is all we have. Heres a way to maximize it and get great results.

MARK VICTOR HANSEN

Co-creator, #1 New York Times Best-selling series Chicken Soup for the Soul

Co-author, Cracking the Millionaire Code and The One Minute Millionaire

No one ever said life is easy, but my friend and colleague Marcia Ramsland really makes it simple. Follow her advice and discover years of free time. I did!

DR. DENIS WAITLEY

Author, Timing is Everything

Who couldnt use more time? Marcias book is like being given the gift of time! Thanks Marcia, I hope millions of men and women also get the gift of your book!

PAM FARREL

Speaker and Author, 10 Best Decisions a Woman Can Make

I thought I knew a lot about time management until I read Simplify Your Time. Marcia Ramsland has challenged me to get off the gerbil wheel of life and to start developing routines and systems that will make me more effective in my role as a wife, mother, and business owner. Every page is packed with stress-reducing and time-saving habits, tools, skills, and strategies that will make me more productive when Im working, and free of guilt when Im not. If you need more hours in your day, read this noteworthy book!

CAROL KENT

Speaker and Author, Becoming a Woman of Influence

Help! I want off the merry-go-round! My head is spinning, Im going too fast, Im not sure Ican keep up! If thats your cry, Marcias book can help you live a more balanced life. You will find her short chapters very easy and quick to digest. A plus feature to the book is her 101 Time Saving Tips. A must-read for those who want to make sense of the maze of life.

EMILIE BARNES

Speaker, Author, and Founder of More Hours in My Day

I loved Simplify Your Life, Marcias first book. I was so impressed that I wrote her from my organized desk, Now Im ready for the next book. And here it is! Now we have time to get things done and live the life we want.

JOANNE ROLLER, C.P.C.

Senior Recruiting Consultant

After reading Marcias suggestions, I am motivated to manage my time. I never realized how much time we really do have control over.

ANN LARSON

Tax Accountant and Author

So much to do with so little time, or so I once thought! As a homemaker, mom, and with a part-time business at home, its overwhelming to have a full calendar and a huge pile of projects that never seem to get done. Marcia has changed all that with Simplify Your Time, teaching us to break it down into smaller opportunities to be accomplished so we are not facing a mountain of frustrationvery needed.

TINA DEARMONT

Homemaker and Former Executive Assistant

simplify
your time

2006 Marcia Ramsland

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotation in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in association with the literary agency Alive Communications Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

The names and identities of clients mentioned have been changed or concealed in composites to protect their privacy. For those who granted permission to print their names, details about their lives appear as they happened.

Editors: Karen OConnor and Jennifer Stair
Acquisitions Editor: Debbie Wickwire
Cover Design: Terra Peterson at www.brandnavigation.com
Interior Design: Stacy Clark

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ramsland, Marcia.
Simplify your time : stop running and start living! / Marcia Ramsland.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-8499-1458-4
1. Home economics. 2. Time management. I. Title.
TX147.R368 2006
640dc22

2006012958

Printed in the United States of America

07 08 09 10 RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4

This book is dedicated...

to you, my busy friend,
in search of more time and a simpler lifestyle,

to my clients, who insist I teach them how to better manage their time
after I organize their offices and homes,

to Larry Nelson, a favorite client and friend, whose legacy reminds
me that you can live a full life of friends, productivity, and purpose
even if it is shortened by tragedy at age forty-seven,

and to my mother, Dorothy Rasmussen, age eighty-nine,
who outlived all our relatives
and reminds me that life can be satisfying at
every age and stage.

Life is a gift. Live it to its fullest by using your time well.

Contents

Since you picked up this book, you are probably very busy and looking for more time in your life. (Or you really liked the cover.)

I told my publisher that people who need more time dont have time to read a book; they need answers right now! So after some brainstorming, we agreed that if we organized the book in short, digestible chapters that could be easily applied, it would be invaluable. Thats what you have in your hands. Thirty short, practical chapters that will give you everything you need to learn the nuances of simplifying your time. You can read a chapter each day, or you can read an entire section in one sitting. The important thing is that you immediately start to apply what you are reading and build on those skills day after day.

When you think about it, everything happens in time: work projects, social events, travel and hobbies, crises and celebrations. We can simplify our time by evaluating our lives, learning new skills, and being intentional about where our time is going.

Studies have shown we have more than two hundred inputs a daye-mail, mail, thoughts, decisions, memos, phone calls, and on and on the list goes. But our short-term memory only holds seven items at a time. This explains why we often feel overloaded. To clear your mind and simplify your time, you need to know the best habits, tools, shortcuts, and strategies of time management. And I promise to make this book interesting by including client and personal stories to illustrate just how you can apply them.

Be ready to learn and to be entertained. Consider me your time coach as we warm up on the racetrack of life. Let this be your personal time management guide to help you relieve stress, find time for yourself, and create a lifestyle that supports you to get more done in less time.

Simplify Your Time: Stop Running and Start Living! is the practical application of the time management books you may have read and loved. From now on youll know how to save time, spend time, capture time, and multiply your time to simplify your life. Lets get started!