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Yesterday, I closed a chapter of my life - it was in fact one of the most eventful I’ve ever had both in every single area of my life. 

I made MORE changes.

I made MORE connections.

I made MANY MORE improvements.

I had MORE learnings.

I achieved WAY MORE than previous years.

But that chapter has had its time and has now completed.

A new one begins today. I am ready to make it even more exciting than the previous chapter. That’s the point really, isn’t it? That every chapter should be much more exciting and “harder to put down” than the previous.

Welcome, 2008! 

 In the last few days I joined up with Twitter.com. So many people have talked about it and I finally joined up. Actually, it’s nothing more than a place to post “what are you up to?” comments and gain a following.

Pretty simple but powerful. On the right of this blog, I’ve put up a twitter badge so whenever I update it, you can see it there. I’ve added it to my Facebook profile and I’ll also be adding it to Wellness Junction’s site too.

It’s all about social networking and it’s fun.

Join me on Twitter. It’s free. 

There are some things you enjoy doing more than others. Those are the things you wish you could do more often, but come up with unnecessary excuses most of the time.

I haven’t got time. I have to look after the kids. I’ve got to work. I don’t have the money right now.

These are just some things you may say to yourself.

2008 is fast approaching. It’s a time to put things right - to do more of what you enjoy doing.

Here’s what I’m going to be doing in 2008 to make sure I do more of what I enjoy doing:-

- I’m going to work remotely on my businesses in other countries for at least half of the year. Places I have lined up so far: Costa Rica, Bali, Panama and Rome.

- I’m going to play tennis more often; at least three times a week.

- I am going to spend more time with friends and family; exciting days and nights out together.  

- I am going to spend more time writing for my two main business projects: Inner Rhythm and Wellness Junction whilst looking after marketing at GetALife2008.com with Arvind.

There are more things of course, these are just a few.

What things would you like to do more of in 2008 and how will you get the ball rolling? 

Managing or leading a business by increasing growth, reaping consistent sales and greater relationships is more an art than a skill. So is planning ahead, delegating and taking sizable risks.

By getting structure and system in the way your work or business operates, you gain the privilege of more time off.

Here’s what I’ve done over the last 6-10 months that has given me far more time off:

a) Put in good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software in place to store data and keep in contact with customers regularly.

b) Transfer all online sales primarily from Paypal to Clickbank. Paypal gave me lots of problems linking to my CRM. Clickbank accepts cards easily and in USD. I only use Paypal for GBP transactions.

c) Hired a Virtual Personal Assistant to handle small marketing tasks on a regular basis, sift out customer service emails that don’t require my attention, book keeping and site management amongst other things. This alone has saved me at least 30 hours a month.

All I do in my business is set dates for workshops, create great content and deliver it by writing and speaking to groups of musicians.

As a result, the time I spend doing small tasks that I don’t specialize in is considerably less and the tasks I’m great at such as coming up with cool ideas, content for my readers and running workshops is all I do.

In your work career or business, how can you take more time off in 2008? 

In the Cambridge team, one member Dan O’Shaughnessy is said not to be one of the best in their team which consisted of Olympic champions and other race winners, however, the team members wanted him because of his good nature, popularity with the team and his communication.

He was a great team player. He was able to synchronise players together. He was able to make the team gel. Things were not so serious when he was around and the team could get out and perform their best, even though one player was not the best they had.

Teamwork is an important lesson here. And that’s what Mark de Rond, an expert on teamwork, uses as an example in his forthcoming business book, ‘The Subjectivity of Performance’ out in 2008.

Business and rowing is different - there are different goals, different ideals and different targets. But the teamwork concept is always the same.

How can you employ further teamwork in your work? 

I’ve been consciously improving my wine tasting skills, note-taking its colours, smells, strengths, tastes and giving them scores. I’m slowly growing my detailed spreadsheet of wines. I’m also collecting wines. Maybe one day in the near future, I’ll set up my own cellar.

I’m contemplating setting up a new and specific wine blog/website where I can regularly write my thoughts about specific wines. I don’t want to duplicate content already out there as there are lots of great wine sites that I couldn’t do as well as. And I’m also a whole lot younger than many of the wine writers out there.

What do you think I should do on this? I’m really excited about your answer, either way.

There is a skill and art to wine tasting. If you don’t know how to or would like to learn, here’s a really good guide to learning how:-

http://www.thewinedoctor.com/advisory/tastetastingwine.shtml

 And what are your favourite wines that you think I should go out and try?

There exists a Chinese tale from many, many years ago. It is said that a Chinese emperor named Shen Nung was boiling water outside when leaves from a nearby tree fell into the pot.

He didn’t get angry, he didn’t throw it out. Instead, he continued to prepare the water and tasted it, enjoyed it and then created the very first cup of tea!

If you’re a work-at-home person, entrepreneur or artistic individual, consider taking your next piece of work and doing outside.

It’s Winter right now, but don’t let that put you off. Wrap up work, head to the park or sit in your garden, and see what happens.

What would happen if you take your to-do list tomorrow and do as much of it as possible outside?

Experiments in time are a great way to learn the meaning when you forget it and want to re-learn it.

I am only checking email at one time each day. By turning my attention to the inbox just once a day rather than several times during the day, and therefore not having the send and receive function on “as soon as I receive an email” I have saved up nearly a few hours of time to use on productive work. At the same time, I am learning to re-focus that extra time on things that require more important attention.

Sol is also experimenting this week. As he announced on his blog, he’s only going to turn on his laptop for 6 hours this week. More radical than my experiment in more ways than one.I called him this morning at around 12 noon and he had told me that he had already spent one hour in the morning. Imagine that: Monday morning and you’ve only spent one hour of your 6 hour quota on the laptop. He found it quite exciting to batch up tasks and get them out the way. It was a solid, focused and productive hour. He now has five more hours for the rest of the week. Pretty impressive.

 Can you imagine just working on your laptop or PC for no more than 6 hours for at least one week. How would you spend your time? What would you do? 

Larry is known as the pitbull of personal development. He’s an extremely in-demand speaker and his books and writing are some of the best around.

Here are Larry’s Ten Rules for Business Success:-

1. A deal is a deal.

2. Do what you said you would do, when you said you would do it, the way you said you would do it.

3. Do the right thing every time. Not the cheap thing or the easy thing - the right thing.

4. Be the person others can count on to get things done.

5. Work hard on your job and work harder on yourself.

6. Never tolerate poor performance in yourself or others.

7. Focus on accomplishment - not activity.

8. Work faster, smarter and harder.

9. You are paid to work. You aren’t paid to play, socialise, be happy or like your job.

10. Manage priorities, not time.

How many are you living in your life and business?