goals

Be the Master of Your Time

Lynette M Burrows

In today’s society, Time is counted as our most precious commodity. But is it? Time is a construct. We created the way we measure minutes, hours, days, months, and years. We also create the way we measure success. Are we using Time to beat ourselves up? I know sometimes I am. Here are five tips on how you can be the master of your time.  1. Align your goals with your values. If you work toward goals you don’t value, you will never feel accomplished or successful. The key is in not spending time, but in investing it. Stephen Covey 2. Be purposeful. List your long term and short term goals and keep them posted where you see them. Each morning, make a list of things to do. Choose one or two that are the things that will make you feel successful for that day. Make those your priority. Plan your day or your day will evaporate in doing. Time is what we want most, but we use worst. William Penn 3. Details count. In planning, remember the details so you plan accordingly. In assessing your day, appreciate the details that you accomplished. Don’t spend time beating on a wall, […]

Practice Makes Perfect is Full of Baloney

Lynette M Burrows

Practice makes perfect is full of baloney. Some people who practice may reach perfection, but not most. Yet, practice is vital no matter what you’re doing. So how do we manage? When you Google “Fun Facts About Practice” you get a bunch of “fun with math” links. Um. That’s not what I had in mind. But, isn’t it interesting? We’re desperate to prove that mathematics can be fun, but not one word about practice as a thing to do. I believe we do a disservice to everyone with the practice makes perfect phrase. Practice becomes the thing that we focus on. We kill our enthusiasm with forced practice. As a child, I took piano lessons. I loved playing piano but I grew to hate it. The rule at my house was thirty minutes of practice after homework and before anything else. I hated to practice. It was drudgery. The seconds ticked as if mired in molasses when I sat at the piano. We improve with practice, without a doubt. And there are times when rote practice is what we have to do. But as Mary Buckham says it’s when our practice becomes a game that your progress will explode. And […]

Writing Is Easy–Until It’s Hard

Lynette M Burrows

Writing looks easy. We all learn to write essays about what I did this summer at an early age. And writing is easy–until it’s hard. The hard work comes when you desire to create a compelling story. This is the story of one way to learn to create a compelling story. Many people instruct wanna-be-writers to read-read-read and write-write-write. That’s good advice, but it doesn’t go anywhere near far enough. One must also study-study-study the craft. Every writer starts at a different place in their skill levels. So it’s counterproductive to dictate that all writers must start here or there. All the steps are necessary. Only you can decide how deeply you must dive into the learning and in what order you need to learn these skills. This is the story of how I went about learning to write and publish my book. I share my story in the hopes that someone might find some guidance and inspiration in my story. As with most writers, I loved to read from the get-go. I don’t know when I started reading. Books and stories were as necessary to me as the air that we breathe. I wrote stories in a journal. I […]