This week's thoughts

This week I have been pondering deeply on the course of actions I will take on my business, and how I will make my processes smoother and easier.
As I have mentioned here before, I run a very small language school from home and I use Microsoft Excel to organize every thing here! It would be great to have a software tailor made for my company, but I am still too small to afford that.
Meanwhile, I became a little tired of wrestling with the macros in excel, and thought it would be a nice option to hire an specialist to input all the macros I need for my formulas to work perfectly. I suppose there are people who could do it easily and who would not charge me much for this solution. I will start looking for options!
*Reminder - ask the members of my mastermind group for suggestion of people who could do it for me.
This week I've really enjoyed James W. Ritchie's video. I was kindly reminded of the formula for success and I wrote it in a big and bright post-it and stuck it to the wall right in front of me, so I can see it always!
I have been struggling with waking up early ever since.... ever since I was born I think! It has always been a challenge I really hope I can overcome soon! It is so difficult! Mainly because going to bed early is a hard task to me...
I will definitely work on that this week! 

BE BLUE, THROUGH and THROUGH

This week I really loved the readings!
I specially liked the devotionals from BYU-I. I enjoyed them so much I thought I should never miss another one on Tuesdays.
Sister Dew taught me that we need to be 100% integrous in our actions, and that even a small deviation from the right choice will lead us to sin. If we are not completely righteous and chose to do just a little thing in a wrong way, we will grow  to be more and more tolerant to sin.
Integrity is a virtue I hope to always have!
Elder Robbins talk was already familiar to me, since many courses ask students to read it. Still, this time it seemed I was able to learn a lot more. I used my listening technique, and I had a long drive that day, so I could ponder about how I treat my clients, and the kind of service I offer.
I know my students like my classes, but I definitely can do better on planning them and preparing more. I know I am able to do much better.
I want to be an A kind of entrepreneur, a leader Level 5, and a disciple of Christ!
Goal: Spend more time preparing classes, it will for sure improve my product and my business.

Thoughts on my Journal System

I love the idea of having an entrepreneur's journal. It is a practice that I have been developing for a while now and that I find is pretty helpful to me. With my journal I organize my thoughts and goals, analyse my income and financial matters and draw and outline ideas that will make my business grow. 
I have found that the best way of maintaining this journal (or at least the best approach so far) has been to keep it in the same book with my private journal. It is a large paper notebook that stays on top of my desk and just I have access to it. 
I cherish this assignment since it will give me more insights on how to improve my recordings, and -who knows- I might end up having a virtual version of my own journal here, but I feel its entries are too personal and contain private information.
With this said, I will continue to use this blog for the sake of the course and see how I feel with the online version of it. I do know that if I ever change to an on-line version, it would not be public. 
According to my opinion, in this secret little black book of mine I have my ideas of how to become better, be more competitive and organize my financial life... I've pondered and I can't find a reason as why to share my notes.

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First, I must say that I loved this lecture. I watched the whole version of it and I think I learned very much with Randy.

• Why do you think Randy Pausch was able to achieve so many of his childhood dreams?

I think he followed the opportunities Heavenly Father put in front of him, and I also think he never forgot what his dreams were. He kept them in mind throughout his life and worked for them.

• Do you feel that dreaming is important? Why or why not?

I think it is more than important, it is vital. If we don't dream we will never enjoy the journey to get to places in life. We won't have goals.... It would be very sad.

• Discuss at least one of your childhood dreams. Explain why you believe you can or cannot achieve this dream.

I have many childhood dreams, one of them is to be a plastic artist. I believe I cana chieve this by continuing to express myself through art, in many forms. Art is not the path I chose to make money in life (tough I do think it is a possibility), but I want to continue to improve my skills and be able to look back on line and know I have developed artwork that have embellished the world around me.

Double Tasking n an Effective Way!

I've been an entrepreneur for a few years now, and I run a tini tiny company -an on-line Language Teaching service- from home. During these years of learning and preparation I have been very busy!

My product offers an unique flexibility for my students, and for that I am available from 7 am to 10 pm to teach them, upon set appointments.  Because of that flexibility and the peak hours of teaching that are early in the morning, lunch time and evening, my spare time reserved to do everything else is spread ins short blocks during the day. On those free-of-teaching moments I have to do office work, study for my new major, run my errands, everything!

As a business major I have to read a lot! Many books each semester and a handful of long articles every week. We also have to watch many videos weekly. I have the goal to have strait As in this career and to do that I have to read it all with attention, which takes me a lot of time and has diminished my sleep hours. Going to bed at 3 am had become a routine that I desperately wanted to change.

During summer break I took only 1 class and added another time-consuming activity to my agenda: exercising at a nearby gym. I have been consistently working out for over a month now and I already feel the benefits of it in my health, stress management and overall well being. I can't stop it now that I know "I can do it", I don't want to!

Now, as the new semester starts at the university, I was feeling scared about time management and my ability to maintain the quality of my services, my A's, my personal life put together and exercising. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE? I asked myself. Is it EVEN possible?

I felt uncertain and concerned. But, I might have found the solution for my problems!

Not long ago I've learned to love audio books and the benefits of listening and pondering while driving or cooking, but not all books we need to read are available on that format.
A friend who spends a long time commuting to work daily, recently shared with me about TTS (text to speech) engines that can read your texts to you. I was doubting of the efficiency of such apps thinking the voice would sound like a robot, and that it would be an unpleasant experience, but I WAS WRONG!

This week I downloaded @Voice and Ivona, and I listened to all my pdf files instead of reading, and I loved it! I chose Ivona's "Amy" voice, which is in British accent but sounds great and natural (they haven't released an american accent voice for android platforms yet, but it is available on their website, if they had done so, I would have chosen "Joey"'s). The best part is that I could use the app as I did with audio-books and double task all day long. 

I drive about 5 hours every week and the car is a great place to listen to important files, because I can ponder about what I am learning without interruptions (traffic here is bad, so it gives me time to finish big sections).

Sometimes  I take my learning activities to the gym. I watch all the videos I was supposed to while doing cardio on a stationary bike and I fell it is very productive. Then I listen through the files I have to read while I lift some weight. I feel it is a relaxing and quite moment, when I can ponder on what I am listening to, and listen to it again if I so desired.

Now I use the time to drive to the gym, work-out and come back in a way that saves me time to study. Now I feel "I can do it" all, and I know I can do it productively. I look forward to learning very much this semester and to be enlightened by the knowledge I will face. It is my desire that I can apply all of that into my life and make the most of it. It will be hard, and I think this tip I've shared today will help me very much!

All of us are given the same 24hs and to be an entrepreneur we can't give up and we have to always invest in ourselves, even when it will make us busy as we can't picture. Double and even multitasking will be required at times and if we do it smartly we will be able to enjoy much more of our lives and achieve much more.

I hope you like the tip and I invite you to try it, and see if it works for you, too!
I would love to hear if you have other TTS engines suggestions or other tips on how to save time.