Time Management

Bramble Patch Purpose

Is time management important to you? You may not have even thought about it until someone asked you to add one more to a long list of tasks or you got sent on a time management training course. Maybe you have just found that it’s impossible to do everything you might WANT to do? And you also realised that typical time management doesn’t mean anything to you. Have you ever thought of looking about you into nature for inspiration?

You CAN get everything done that you NEED to do if you take some tips from the bramble patch.

You may have brambles in your garden. Perhaps you planted them for their fruit or they may have just grown there and you would love to get rid of them! If you don’t have any brambles in your yard, there may be some in a rural location you visit to collect berries in the autumn.

Whether you have a bramble you love or not, almost everyone knows about the briar patch, the prickles and the juicy fruit but did you know you can also learn about time management from the bramble? Brambles are prickly shrubs with long looping thorny shoots – only the blackberry in the UK – but also including the raspberry in the US. There are thought to be 1,000 different varieties of bramble worldwide! So it is a widespread and successful plant. But how does it demonstrate time management?

Time Management starts with a Purpose.

(If you want to find out about your own purpose, scroll straight down to the bottom of this article now.)
The bramble has one purpose, to spread as far and wide as it can and to hold onto any territory it has gained. Any gardener knows that unwanted brambles are VERY difficult to remove and the longer you put it off, the harder it gets and the bigger the patch grows. In order to achieve its purpose, the bramble needs to hold onto the ground it has, spread into new areas and protect its core, in case of damage. These are its main goals.

Needs To Keep Ground Already Won

Protection

The bramble doesn’t want to get eaten by animals as a source of food, so its shoots have strong thorns that provide good protection from grazing animals. These thorns are also backward facing and can help shoots move rapidly through the undergrowth as they grow. The shoots grow in a tangle because their ends root into the ground, forming loops that rapidly create an impenetrable tangle.

Needs to Spread

Long arching shoots

In order to gain new ground, the bramble has to spread. It does that by getting resources (water, sunshine) and using these to send long shoots arching quickly into the air (to gain distance) and which then bend down to the ground. If the tip touches the ground, it sends out roots and a new plant becomes established.

Flowers and fruit

It also spreads by means of its fruit which is sweet and juicy and very attractive to many animals, including humans. The fruit includes seeds that are highly resistant to digestive system acids. They can also survive for 100 years! Animals eat the fruit and the seeds get scattered in their dung, so they have their own source of fertiliser ready made. The seeds create new bramble patches at a distance from the parent plant if they reach somewhere suitable.

Need To Protect Its Core

Brambles have a perennial underground rootstock. It is hidden below the earth, making it resistant to damage and possibly keeping it safe from fire.

So what is Your Purpose?

The bramble’s purpose is to spread as far and wide as it can. (OK, I know that a bramble doesn’t have a brain, nor does it appear to make conscious choices, however, its ACTIONS appear to be as good a way as any of determining what its purpose might be if it were a sentient being.)

What is your purpose? Why are you here, what is it you want to achieve?

Do you want just to survive and keep your head down, making as few waves as possible, just to get by?

Is your purpose to bring up your children as best you can?

Maybe it’s to be a success in your chosen employment or to win a race or achieve a difficult goal?

What Do You Need To Do To Achieve That Purpose?

The bramble needs to spread, to gain ground, (using looping shoots and seeds), it needs protection (thorns) and it needs to keep its core safe (perennial underground roots).

Brambles are highly successful plants, spreading aggressively, protecting themselves and keeping their core safe. They demonstrate time management through their actions in achieving their PURPOSE and in using their GOALS (spread, protect, hidden core) to achieve their purpose.

How can YOU copy the bramble and achieve YOUR purpose?

If you want to find your life purpose, watch this video:

https://youtu.be/js_Q27lMs_8

You can get the book at

Top Tips

Time management isn’t difficult if you use a few easily-learned techniques. There are also some useful tools you can use but they are not necessary for starting out to learn how to manage your time better.

Goals

Before you groan, it’s not difficult. Many people think goal setting is hard because they don’t know what they want, but that’s just the problem – they don’t know what they want so therefore, they can’t set goals to achieve it. A lot of people just want an easy life, with enough money coming in to avoid the debt collector at the door. If that’s what you want, fine, there’s nothing wrong with that if you can do it. It’s when you want something different from what you have already got that you need to set goals to get there.

If you have never set goals before and don’t know how to go about it, then take some time for yourself over the next few days and think about what you want. Maybe you want “an easy life”, or a new job or a foreign holiday every year, or to learn to paint or to write a novel or lose weight. Everybody has different goals in life but if you don’t know what YOUR goals are, then you won’t be able to achieve them. It’s like the Cheshire cat in “Alice in Wonderland” said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

So which road do you want to be on?

Once you have decided on your major goal, you need to set small goals on the way to achieving the main one. So if you want to write a novel, you might decide to write a chapter a week. If that’s 3,000 words, then you need to write 600 words a day if you work a 5 day week at it. So your daily goal might be 600 words and your weekly goal, 3,000 words. Now you know what you have to do each day and each week and can check off the steps along the way.

Of course, you may not be at the point of being able to write a chapter a week, you may need to develop your characters or your plot or be at the editing stage or looking for an agent or publisher. Whatever the overall goal, break it down into smaller goals that you can achieve in a day or a week and check them off as they get done. Each check mark is a new step completed on the road to success.

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In a world that is becoming increasingly digital and going really fast, it is becoming ever harder to keep track of your life.

“WHAT?” I hear you say! “I have a diary and a calendar on my phone, together with a time management system, a list of my favourite groceries on the local supermarket site, a reminder set up for things like feeding the dog and picking up the laundry and an emergency system set up for child care / elder care / pet care / watering the garden if I can’t be there. I also have a set of sticky notes on my computer screen to keep track of those important one off items. What more do I need?”

But is all of that together? Is it in one place, where you can easily access it and see EVERYTHING in one place?

Maybe digital isn’t always the best, unless you have something very complex (and expensive) created especially for you and even then it might not suit you or be flexible enough to cope with changes.

The Bullet Journal is described as a type of analog system: that is, it is NOT digital. It’s a journal that YOU design for YOU. It can track your past, organize your present and then plan well for your personal future. The system allows you to keep records on everything that is important to you in your life. You can use your journal for the purpose of an idea catcher, task manager, sketchbook journal and so much more. You can be as scientific or artistic, logical, minimalist, or whimsical doodler as you wish, with different styles for different things at different times.

Take a look at a bullet journal being created.

What You Will Need To Get Started On Your Own Bullet Journal

Your Mindset

The first aspect you will need to consider is why you are motivated to start a Bullet Journal. The majority of those who use a Bullet Journal do so because the system is flexible and allows them to operate the journal the way they like to work and because they see a system that will help them achieve what they most want.

It is for this reason that you should think about how you would like this system to work in your life before you begin. You also need to think about how you will access your journal. I keep mine at home on my desk but I am there a lot of the time, so I use a large A4 size journal. You may be out and about a lot, at work, taking photographs, travelling, or just out chatting, in which case you may prefer something smaller, that you can pop in a pocket or a bag. It needs to be something that will work for YOU and YOUR lifestyle, needs and wants. Below are some tips to get you started.

Tools

To be honest, just about any pen or notebook will suffice. My preference is for plain paper but if you would like to start with a journal that is already set-up with an Index and the page numbers, a good choice would be the Leuchtturm 1917 notebook, in whichever size suits you best. This notebook features an archival quality that allows you to keep what you have entered into the notebook safe and the writing doesn’t usually show through onto the other side (but you can use a page near the back to check all your pens, to see). The pages have a grid of dots on them, so you can draw straight lines, both horizontally and vertically if that is important to you but there is also plenty of space without feeling constrained by ready-printed lines.

The only other tool you need is a pen (or even a pencil). Many people like to use gel pens or colored pencils, some even use water color paints! But to start out, you only need a pen. You may also like to get some washi tape which is an attractive self adhesive product that you can use to decorate your pages or stick things in with.

How to Start

One good way to view a Bullet Journal is to think of it as a framework that you can move around and change to suit you, to help you organize your present and plan for your future, as well as motivate you to add or remove habits you want to change and helping you create a vision of things you want to do. For instance, you might want to lose weight, get more exercise, plan a holiday, or a bathroom remodel, learn a language, plan for a mountain climbing expedition, design a new gizmo or improve your intuition. The framework uses modules and these modules are the methods that help you organize the different areas of your life, as well as keep your ideas for your next novel, scientific project, personal achievements or great painting. One of the advantages to a Bullet Journal will be that you can mix and match modules that will suit your needs; and design or get ideas for keeping up your motivation. The four main modules suggested for beginners include your Index, Your Future Log, Your Monthly Log and Your Daily Log.

The Index

Dedicate the first 3 to 4 pages of your journal to your Index. As you begin to use the journal add topics into your Collections with the page number in your Index. In this way you can easily find and reference any topic.

The Future Log

This particular Collection can be used to store your items that are scheduled for a year or months in advance, or perhaps things you would like to tackle one day. The Future Log can be set up by graphing pages according to the number of months you need. For example 2 equally-spaced lines that run in a horizontal line across two facing pages can be used to create a 6 month calendar.

The Monthly Log

This log assists you in organizing one month at a time. To set up this log use two facing pages. The left hand side page will be called the Calendar page while the Right will be your Task page. Use the left hand side to number all the days in the month and the right hand side to schedule your tasks and events for those days.

The Daily Log

This log is for day-to-day use. The top of a page can feature a date. Throughout the day log Tasks, Events or Notes as they arise. Try not to set up Daily Logs too far into the future, but rather create them as the day progresses.

This gives you a start on creating your own bullet journal. I hope you enjoy setting it up and using it.

Before a person can manage his time properly he needs to understand exactly what time is. Most dictionaries will tell you that time is a period or point at which things occur. To put it more simply it just means time is when things happen. There are two different types of time. There is real-time and clock time. Everyone understands clock time because it has 60 seconds in each minute, 60 minutes in each hour, 24 hours in each day, and 365 days in each year.

Real-time however is a bit more difficult to understand because it is relative. A good example of this would be an upcoming vacation. If you have waited all year long for your vacation to arrive you will notice that the final few weeks seem to really drag on. It seems as if time has slowed down. On the other hand, when you are doing something that you really enjoy it appears as if time flies. The reason why this happens in these two examples is because of real-time. Therefore, the first thing that you need to understand before you can manage time properly is which time zone are you living in, clock time or real-time?

The majority of time management systems and gadgets will not work because they are specifically designed to manage clock time and clock time is irrelevant. People do not live in clock time but rather they live in real-time. During the year there will be times when time is flying by while at other times it will seem to be dragging along. To help you manage time you have to realize that real-time is mental. You are the one that creates your own real-time and since you are the creator you can also be the manager.
The first thing that you will need to eliminate is concepts such as “not having enough time” or “I ran out of time” or “this is not the right time.” These type of negative time thoughts will sabotage your goal to manage your time even before you get started. Real-time consists of three things: conversations, thoughts, and actions. Your entire life will revolve around these three things and if you follow the following techniques you will be able to better manage your time.

The first thing that you will need to do is carry a small notebook that contains a schedule. Record all of your conversations, thoughts, and activities for one complete week. At the end of the week analyze how much time you spend doing each one of these activities. This will help you to visually see how much time you are wasting on unproductive conversations, thoughts, and actions as opposed to how much time you are spending being productive.

Some people like to create to-do-lists. However, as the to-do-list grows longer and longer there comes a point where it becomes undoable. This will frustrate you to no end and rather than keeping a to-do-list you should have an appointment book to record schedule appointments. Always make an appointment with yourself and plan to spend at least half of your time engaged in activities, thoughts, and conversations that are productive. Also include a block of time for unplanned interruptions. These simple time management tips can help you to manage your real-time.