Llamagraphics, Inc. – creators of Life Balance software for iPhone, Palm OS, Macintosh and Windows – provides resources related to the process of balancing work, home, and leisure activities to optimize personal productivity and happiness by giving you the gift of time to do what you really want to do with less stress and more peace of mind.
See how it works...
New for iPhone, Life Balance!
Life Balance for iPhone is ready for download on the iPhone App Store!
There are also updates for the Mac and Windows desktop editions that support complete two-way WIFI synchronization to the iPhone version.
And don't miss the free Life Balance Advice Book for iPhone, as long as you are there.
New Year's Resolutions can succeed -- six goal setting traps you must avoid now!
A whopping 85 percent of people who make New Year's Resolutions do not keep them. Many people run into trouble after doing well initially in the first week to ten days of January. After that, things start to go haywire. If you want to be among those who do earn their New Year's merit badges this year, you will need to be prepared with tactics you can use to keep you focused and on track. Your ability to follow through on any goal is dependent on recognizing and avoiding these six common traps.
1) The "Vagueness" trap
Example: "I resolve to get organized."
This kind of vague resolution expresses a feeling that you want things to be different and better in the new year, rather than a commitment with a workable plan to get it done. Chances are, you have some idea what you mean by "get organized" but you are not sure where to begin, or when to declare victory.
Many of the good intentions resolved on New Year's eve through the bubbly haze of champagne, are too vast, too unwieldy and too vague to provide useful guidance for making changes in daily behavior.
Clarify your vision. Imagine that you have already reached the goal. Notice all the vivid details. Once you identify your goal, you can gather momentum toward the lifestyle you envisioned by writing it down and keeping it where you will see it often.
2) The "Intimidation" trap
Example: "I will plan for retirement."
Change can be intimidating and stressful. To make a commitment to lasting change, you might as well be climbing Everest. To get a grip on those icy slopes, you need a repeatable strategy that you can use for every kind of project.
For any project that involves venturing into The Great Unknown you may be tempted to hide under the covers. Most worthwhile goals involve new experiences, learning new skills and personal growth. There are few life changing goals where you will know all the steps required from beginning to end when you start out.
To avoid the intimidation trap, make learning and exploration part of the fun. Always start with simple tasks where you can be successful right away. These simple tasks add up and build confidence. Every successful task you get done along the way strengthens the new habits and contributes to the long range goal.
3) The "Deadline" trap
Example: "I will lose 10 pounds by next thursday."
At first blush, this looks like a great goal. It is measurable, and has a deadline. Isn't that what a goal should be?
Not only are you setting yourself up for failure by setting the deadline too aggressively, but it is also possible that the target goal you imagined is not right... maybe it is too high or too low. Could you lose 20 or MORE pounds by the end of the year? What's so special about 10 pounds or the end of the year? Redefine the goal to "reach your healthy weight," no matter what amount that turns out to be, or how long it takes. Then devise your plan with some intermediate milestones to track your progress.
If you do use deadlines to create a sense of urgency, do not judge yourself too harshly. If the original goal was unrealistic, there is no reason to sulk if you didn't reach it. Let's say that you lost 2 pounds by next thursday instead of your intended 10. Normal guidelines for weight loss are to lose no more than 2 pounds per week, so you might be surprised to find out that you were actually on track toward a more realistically set goal. There are some goals where you might not know what is realistic until you get started.
Jump in. Revise and refine your goals often as necessary as you gain experience. Abandon the arbitrary deadline and strengthen your commitment to the real results you want to see happen.
4) The "Every day" trap
Example: "I will go to the gym every day. I will go on a healthy diet where I eat nothing but salad every day for lunch."
Righty-o! Because life never throws you a curve a ball... your friends always support your goals, and every day is always the same routine. A variation of this trap is the good old fashioned Cold Turkey change, where you simply declare "no more Tiramisu for you." Cold Turkey is the removal of an activity "every day", instead of the daily addition of an activity. Either way, without a careful plan and a vigilant support system, this trap will gobble up your resolutions with a side of cranberry sauce.
What will you do when approximately 2 weeks into January, when your husband comes home with tickets to Bermuda? Or your daughter has a cold and needs to be picked up from school?
What will you do when the luscious Tiramisu wins?
Build in some flexibility to handle normal variations in your daily routine.
5) The "Instant Gratification" trap
Example: "I will get organized, lose 10 pounds by next thursday, eat nothing but salad, go to the gym every day, plan for retirement, get a new job and I want to do it all starting NOW!"
This trap, where you try to change everything at once, is a recipe for overload and overwhelm. All major life changes do occur in a dramatic moment of resolute decision, but you will still need to allow yourself a reasonable amount of time to get the details worked out properly. Careful research and experience will help you understand how much time you really need.
Start small. Get one good habit firmly established, or one project started with oomph and momentum before you add another. Rinse and repeat!
6) The "New Year's Day" trap
Example: "Uh, oh! I didn't keep my resolutions.... again....I am a terrible person....yada yada"
Fast forward to February. You have stopped going to the gym because you caught your daughter's cold, the house is a mess, and you just gained a pound from overindulgence in Tiramisu. All your New Year's Resolutions seem to be in tatters like the mountain of tissue that surrounds your sofa as you watch television and wonder what went wrong.
Stop right there. Lose the debilitating guilt. If it does not serve to inspire you to do better going forward, it does not matter so much where you went wrong. What's done is done. Will you wait until next year to try again? No, no, no! Not you!
On whatever day you find yourself in this sad state, that will be the day when you will need to have a firm grip on your strategy to keep going. Once you are over that cold, declare it New Year's day again. Visualize a new sparkling ball of lights is there in Times Square just for you. Countdown from 10, and take the next step toward your goals. You will feel better as soon as you do. Clean up the tissue boxes. Straighten up the living room. Put on your sweat suit for the trip to the gym.
Congratulations, you are a bona fide New Year's Resolution hero and champion.
By taking the time now to think through how you will overcome each of these common traps, it will be easier for you to be in the happy and smug 15 percent of the population who reaches the goals they made in their New Year's Resolutions. With patience and practice, you will soon be celebrating your successes all year long using the same techniques.
Copyright @ 2008, Catherine E. White, permission is granted for this article to be redistributed and shared with others in its entirety as long as links and attribution are maintained.
Catherine E. White is president of Llamagraphics, Inc., developer of Life Balance™ software for Mac OS X, Windows, Palm OS and iPhone. Life Balance helps you avoid these and other traps by providing a structure for your goals, projects and tasks that is priority driven, so you can to make better decisions about how to use your discretionary time in the New Year and beyond. To learn more, please visit http://www.llamagraphics.com/
Loosen up, lighten up, shine!
In the documentation for our Life Balance software application, one of the first principles that we set forth is that "You are a valuable but finite resource." You can't do everything at once, and you have to make choices. Mindful choices bring better results. The topic of mindful choices from a finite pool is a discussion for another day.
But this little sentence also contains something else, which is that you are already valuable. It is inside out and backwards thinking to believe that you aren't valuable, because you are. You have things to contribute to the world, and the world needs what you have to offer. You need what you have to offer, too. By doing some of what you most want to do, honoring your heart's desires, you become capable of doing more. Your Life Balance capacity immediately gets bigger by eliminating the flailing, frenzy, self doubt, and worry. Fretting is often a waste of time and energy, a waste of you, and a waste of that valuable resource. If it does not serve your purpose, then set that baggage down with a satisfying thud.
Many people, including me, can lose a lot of time worrying about whether or not they are "worthy" in some way or another to do the thing that motivates them the most. Imagine someone who says, "I want to play the saxophone," but then doesn't play the saxophone, because they are afraid that they won't be good enough, or as good as they used to be, or as good as someone else, or as good as someone else wants them to be. The variations on that theme are as endless and intricate as the ways to play the saxophone in the first place. Which is why the fear of not being good enough, or of making a mistake, is so damaging when it gets in the way. It either becomes an excuse for not doing anything about a cherished goal, or it wastes the time we could use to play and learn.
Playing the saxophone may be something that really stirs the heart. If you forget about that negative dialog in the background, and just pick up and play the saxophone, every day, then you will get better at it, and have the fun of doing it, and there you are. A few minutes here and there, without the fussing and worrying, and you can make real progress toward the goal, especially if you can find someone willing to show you how! There's a lot of power in sharing your enthusiasm and interests with others.
We also sometimes think that we shouldn't do those wonderful soul stirring things because we can't make a living doing them. Well, that may be, but people make a living doing all kinds of weird stuff. And if need be, you can make a living at one thing, and make a life from another. Turning your back on the things that motivate you, just constricts your energy and makes everything not work as well as it ought to. Find ways to include something of that soul stirring stuff in every day. You are too valuable a resource to ignore!
Loosen up on the perfectionism of having to be immediately successful at stuff. Go ahead and play the saxophone.... badly. Offer yourself the simple joy and understanding that you already have value and a reason to be, even if nobody else gives a squeak. Bring your already valuable self to the process and watch how quickly you learn.
Let your little light shine, because one thing is for certain, there is still much need for illumination.
Enjoy your day. It belongs to you, dear hearts, and I encourage you to do something fun, creative and wonderful with it!
Copyright @ 2008, Catherine E. White, permission is granted for this article to be redistributed and shared with others in its entirety as long as links and attribution are maintained.
Catherine E. White is president of Llamagraphics, Inc. developer of the Life Balance software. Life Balance provides a structure for your goals, projects and tasks that is priority driven, so you can to make better decisions about how to use your discretionary time. To learn more about the software, please visit http://www.llamagraphics.com/
When the primary expression of love is labor...
Christmas Knots: A bit of Fancy Work, sailor knots sitting with glass Christmas ornaments
'Tis the season to get crafty...
I like making things. Most of the time that's code and software, but I also like working with things that are tangible. I'm a very tactile person.
I've never been much for knitting, but I like sewing, crochet, drawing and painting, and this and that. This year, I'm tying lots of sailor knots. It's a long story, that starts when "a string walks into a bar..." and ends with me hanging out on the bowsprit of a 20 ton, 100 year old gaff rigged wooden sloop. Along the way, I got a lesson in tying sailor knots from a master rigger, and away we go. The kitchen twine that sat quietly in the back of the drawer for years came out to play parlor games with me.
The holidays and winter evenings seem to be just the thing for craft projects. This year I suspect that some people will turn to crafts as a way to save money on gifts, only to discover the cost measured in a commodity even more precious, namely, time and energy. That puts us squarely in the realm of what Life Balance is all about. Where are you putting your time and energy this holiday season?
Crafts represent a gift not just of a material object, but of time spent thinking about a person. While I made this, I was thinking of you. For craft gifts, it is the thought that counts. Every craft project, and every other project for that matter, begins by thinking about how to carve out the time to do it. Perhaps that is just to sit with a ball of yarn nearby while watching television, or to take a half day of stockpiled vacation time to do some wood working. I have a friend who makes beautiful bobbin lace while traveling on the commuter rail. The time has to come from somewhere. Look around for it, and you may be surprised how a few minutes here and there can add up into hundreds of intricate little sailor knots, because each knot takes very little time, and they all must be done one at a time. When you set your mind to the task, it may be easier than you think to find time to do a bit of fancy work.
When I was little, money was a very serious problem for my mom and dad. Times were bad then too. There was one noteworthy year, when my mom and I made all our Christmas ornaments out of yellow felt, bright fuzzy pink yarn, and bits of sequin notions sewed and stuck together with Good old Elmer's glue. I knew that money was a constant worry for grown ups. I also knew that we were in it together. With a bit of goofiness and creativity, there was still fun to be had. Even now, those simple cloth ornaments, are much loved, prized and enjoyed.
This season, you may be inspired or pressed by the unusual economic climate to make something interesting, beautiful and artistic, or even tasty! Have at it! Be joyful, loving and enthusiastic in the doing! And if you should happen to be fortunate enough to receive a homespun gift, that may turn out lopsided, drippy, or fruitcakey, keep in mind that the thought was probably far sweeter and much grander than the result. Givers and receivers, we still are all in it together.
Happy Holidays, whatever they may be, dear hearts, they are yours to put together with string and glue using all available skillful means... and a Merry Christmas too!
Copyright @ 2008, Catherine E. White, permission is granted for this article to be redistributed and shared with others in its entirety as long as links and attribution are maintained.
Catherine E. White is president of Llamagraphics, Inc. developer of the Life Balance software. Life Balance provides a structure for your goals, projects and tasks that is priority driven, so you can to make better decisions about how to use your discretionary time. To learn more about the software, please visit http://www.llamagraphics.com/
Life Balance™ application for iPhone helps people manage busy lifestyles.
As seen in the Boston Business Business Journal, Forbes, Earth Times, Los Angles Times, MarketWatch, Orlando Business Journal, and others!
Franklin, MA, November 13, 2008. Millions of multi-tasking mobile professionals struggle to keep up with the demands of their busy lives. Life Balance software for iPhone and iPod touch was just released for sale exclusively on the iPhone App Store to address the growing need for a new style of personal productivity tool. Life Balance™ is personal coaching software that helps you to decide what to work on, so that you can put your effort into the goals, projects and tasks that really matter to you.
Co-author and Llamagraphics’ company president, Catherine E White says, “For many people, conventional time management systems just result in a vicious cycle of procrastination, guilt and tension rather than in stress reduction, efficiency and happiness. Once you begin using Life Balance to get your daily routines under control, you experience a different way to approach the whole process of making positive life changes. Then, the software becomes like having a very organized roommate, who lets you know everything that is going on, but who is also willing to sit quietly with you under a tree.”
The iPhone App is out, the iPhone App is out!!!
Are you guys going to create an iPhone forum section?
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=294042...
Congratulations!
I apologize if you have already announced this somewhere.
Regards,
- Mark
Road to iPhone: Screen Rotation
You never really know a new platform until you use it every day. Sure, you can read Human Interface Guidelines to get the basics, but the subtler aspects of user interaction really demand that you spend some time every day with a device to learn its strengths and weaknesses.
Road to iPhone: Rethinking the Outline for Life Balance
Designing the iPhone version of Life Balance has been an interesting experience for all of us here at Llamagraphics. Having a device that is in some ways so small, and in other ways so capable, has given us an opportunity to rethink some of the design decisions that we've made in other versions of our software.
New Releases posted for Life Balance!
What's new in Life Balance 4.1 and 3.5
For Mac and Windows, we've added new Move Up/Down/Left/Right menu items to the Task menu that can be used to rearrange your Outline. On Mac, the keyboard shortcuts for these commands are Control-Command arrow key. On Windows, the shortcuts are Control-Alt arrow key.
For Palm, we've also added "Catch Up," "Skip," and "Defer Until" commands to the Task menu in the To Do List view. You can check out how it works in the revised manuals.
On all platforms, we've added icons that appear in response to the Catch Up, Skip, and Defer Until commands so you can tell that these commands have taken effect. These icons disappear when the to-do list is updated, so you will only see them on Mac and Windows if your to do list is locked.
What's coming up next? Life Balance for iPhone, of course!
Posting these releases for our existing platform customers clears the way for us to follow through with the upcoming new platform release of Life Balance for iPhone.
Yes, you can hear me now...
The Women: Four Generations of Our Women, meet on the Mountain to reconnect, and yes, there was croquet... a family tradition... this time, the course was set up in the woods...The women in my family decided that we needed to have a get together. No particular agenda, except that we were unwilling to drift along and with passing time, absentmindedly drift apart.
We are family. We all need our family faces to peer at for common expressions, crinkly smile lines, worry and pain, knowing glances and shades of meaning. There are family messages of support and understanding that must be done in person. Hugs must be delivered properly. Hands must be held. Cats must be herded. And we must stand shoulder to shoulder, at least for as long as it takes to capture the group photograph.
In our family, and I suspect in many others as well, the women are the glue that hold the whole darn domestic kit and kaboodle together. We are opinionated, strong minded, honest and intelligent, often loud, raucus and very funny, especially when we are all together.
