Posts Tagged ‘Katana Abbott’

What’s the secret to effective multitasking? 

I don’t know about you, but I am a major “multitasker”. It’s in my genetic makeup – the way I have always functioned.  Most of the time, I have 10 projects all going at the same time, big ideas, lots of excitement, lots of doing and lots of overwhelm.

Does this sound like you?  You may even be very successful in spite of yourself simply because of your enthusiasm and high energy.

How is your multitasking serving you though?

Look around.  Are there multiple unfinished projects sitting around?  Do you create To-Do lists that are miles long, only to start a new one all over again?

Would you like the one biggest secret to effective multitasking?  Okay…here it is…Stop!  Don’t do it. 

Having many uncompleted projects, or multiple new projects pending or all going on at the same time begins to weigh on you and this creates stress, overwhelm and it knocks your confidence too.  I know, because I suffer from this too.

Anytime you do more than one thing at a time, you delay the completion of both tasks.

The key is to focus on ONE thing and ONE thing only until completion.  Simple.

If you are in the habit of multitasking throughout your day, I challenge you to focus on only one thing at a time and observe how much more productive you actually are, and how much more you get done.

Try it and see how much you can check off your list today.

Here is a tip.  Try these three steps for ONE week:

• I want you to create an actual list each day with just THREE TOP THINGS that you must complete that day…only three.  Keep that list in front of your printed out and prioritized.  Once you complete the first item, cross it out and go to the next.  You will be amazed at how powerful this system can be.
• If you are distracted by email, turn them off and open them up for very short periods of time at specific hours during the day.  Then go back to your three top priorities
• At the end of the day celebrate and express gratitude for all you have accomplished AND create the list for the next day, so it is waiting for you on your desk when you arrive back at the office in the morning.

That’s it.  Again, very simple!  I know for some, this is simply how they operate, but if you are one of the millions of multi-taskers in the world, try this for one week, and let me know how it works for you below!

This blog post, for example, is #1 on my “list of three” for today.  Guess what, I can now check off “Done!” and do to #2.  Boy this feels good!

BTW, Dave Crenshaw has created a great exercise to help you see the negative impact in efficiency caused by “switchtasking”.    Click Here for the Worksheet Now.

To your prosperity,

Katana Abbott, CFP
Founder and Prosperity Coach
Smart Women’s Prosperity Institute

P.S.  Be sure to pick up your brand new free gifts that I just created for you, including my signature 33 page Financial Organizer Planning System, my Masterclass on “How to Create Wealth and Live the Life You Love” with Workbook and Transcript.  Go get your free gifts now!
www.HowToCreateProsperity.com

Jill Jordan and me with Dr. Michael Beckwith of The Secret

I am so honored and excited to be participating in this amazing event called, Motivation Marathon with 46 Experts and Celebrities, including Dr. Michael Beckwith (featured in the Secret).

The Happy YOU Year Telesummit is designed to give you the tools and support to change your life.

With 46 of the most influential experts and celebrities, speaking over 9 days, the Happy YOU! Year includes some of the most successful certified professional life coaches, authors, celebrities, experts and radio hosts.

Each speaker will not only cover how they become successful, but how YOU can take what they learned and apply it to achieving the success YOU deserve.

 Click here to register and pick up your free ebook

I will be speaking on Thursday, January 19th at 8 pm EST on the topic of “How to Create Prosperity in 2012“.  I hope you can join us!   

With love and gratitude,

Katana Abbott, CFP, CSA
Prosperity Coach
Smart Women’s Prosperity Institute
www.HowToCreateProsperity.com

By Katana Abbott, CFP, CSA

Today is the Winter Solstice – or the shortest day of the year if you live in the northern hemisphere.

One of the things I notice living on the lake is that the sun now sets directly out from our back window and the sunsets are amazing. I snapped this picture last year at this time from my deck. I rarely see anything like this in the summer.

Although I absolutely love the long hot days of summer – I welcome this time of year. It’s a time to really slow down, connect with friends, make time for myself, and to simply savor the simplicity of life. Here are some great rituals that we enjoy as a family.

1: Enjoy great movies

This is a great time to invite friends and family over to watch new movies on great topics and have discussions. Consider subscribing to Spiritual Cinema or getting great movie ideas from Brent Marchant’s book, “Get the Picture: Conscious Creation Goes to the Movies.

2: Light up the candles

These dark evenings are the perfect time to light your home up with gorgeous candles. This can create a sacred space in all areas of your home. I have them in my office, our bedroom, on coffee tables and fire places and especially on the dinner table! Be creative!

3: Bring out the games

The last few weekends we opted to turn off the TV with our children and their friends and have instead dusted off the game boards…literally! The other night we had seven young people playing charades around the Christmas tree while listening to Christmas music. It was magical!

4: Start a family Gratitude Journal

Pick up a beautiful journal and leave it on the coffee table where all members of the family and even friends can write down what they are grateful for. My husband and I start and end almost every day together – usually in our hot tub looking out at the lake or stars – expressing everything that we are grateful for.

5: Feed you birds!

I love looking outside and watching the birds. Not only do we have lots of berry bushes that attract birds all year long, but we try to keep our bird feeders stocked. This creates festive and joyous entertainment as we name all the species coming to visit. In fact, we keep a full color book handy to look up different species. Once I saw a female Red Breasted Groesbeck which looked like a very large sparrow!

6: Get out in nature

We live near lots of nature trails and parks, so one of my favorite activities is to call my friend and take meet in the park with our dogs for long hikes. It’s especially gorgeous when it’s just freshly snowed. Another fun activity is ice skating on the lake once we get a good solid freeze. This is a perfect time for hot toddies, mulled wine and hot cider and a bonfire!

7: Morning yoga or workout

One of the best remedies for sore and ache muscles is a good workout or I like heading to my yoga class. They keep the room nice and dark and it’s extremely warm. I feel fabulous when I come out and the added benefit is the positive mental state that stays all day long from those nice endorphins released from the workout! It also assists in being present.

8: Engage your creativity

This is the perfect time to brush up on your Spanish or other language you have always wanted to learn. Consider something like Rosetta Stone that is interactive and fun. Or think back to what you loved doing as a child and play! My husband is tuning my piano for as my Christmas gift so I can bring out my old sheet music. Winter is a great time to paint, knit or create something beautiful!

9: Work on the family tree

Open an account with ancestory.com and invite relatives to join you in putting together the puzzle pieces. I have now engaged a relative in Scotland who has sent photos, ship manifests, birth certificates and more about my grandmother’s ancestors. It’s amazing to see where you came from!

Share your winter rituals in the space below and enjoy this holiday season with those you love!

I believe the easiest way to change our energy state AND to simply stay in a high energy vibration state all day long is to move in Gratitude. So you say, “How do I do that?”

Here are three quick things that you can do every day.

1. Start and end every day in Gratitude: Before you even get out of bed in the morning…take a breath and ask yourself, “What am I grateful for today?” then begin listing everything in your mind, one after another – the way my cat purrs in the morning when I wake up, the sound of the rain against the window, my gorgeous gardens, you get the idea…AND do the same thing every night before you go to sleep. Make it a habit. I promise you will get addicted to it because it works.

2. Now what do you do about during the day when you are going crazy multi tasking, meeting deadlines, and facing a lot of negativity? Simply take what I call a Perfect Life Pause…just 1 minute will do. Just stop what you are doing and take a deep breath or to through your nose…and notice your body. This will bring you into being Present. Now do the same thing you did this morning and begin to list all the things in your head that you are grateful for. Do this with your eyes open or closed. Sometime, just looking around the room you will see things that you are grateful for and your whole energy will change. Do this several times a day.

3. Okay and this is one you can keep for yourself of share with your loved ones and even clients. At my yoga studio, they have a Gratitude Journal in the lobby and they invite everyone to list things that they are grateful for. I suggest that you buy a gorgeous journal. I found some at Marshall’s for just $5 with beautiful jewels on them. Use this to record your Gratitude’s.

4. Okay and here is a quick bonus…a story…because we all remember stories…and over the next month, we will be dealing with a lot of family and travelling…so I think it will come in handy. My husband and I were watching this comedian on YouTube and he told this story about how frustrated he gets with people complaining about their trip like when they say, “I had the most terrible trip possible…not only was our plane late and we had to wait 30 minutes, but then we sat on the tarmac for another 45 minutes. It was awful.”

He says, “What are you talking about…you are flying in the air like a bird going hundreds of miles an hour – sitting in a chair. As soon as you finish your snack and your movie you will be in LA! It used to take 30 years to go from one coast to the other – people would die and have children!”

My husband and I were driving downtown to his concert in traffic about to complain when we both looked at each other and repeated his story! See how you can use this analogy with others when they go into a state of lack, fear or resentment…and help them move into a state of gratitude. This could be especially fun with children! SO TO SUMMARIZE

OUR SMART WOMEN TIP TODAY:

• a. So go into gratitude every morning and night
• b. Take a quick Gratitude Pause several times a day
• c. And Start a gratitude Journal
• d. And of course remember this airplane story!

Share what you are grateful for below. I would love to hear from you!

My yoga instructor shared this passage with us this week in class and I just wanted to share it with you as you go into the weekend.Be sure to make some time for yourself to rejuvenate, to be present, to have fun with friends and family and simply be present and enjoy the moment right now.

“Let go of the ambition and embrace the practice of peeling back your layers.Just be where you are, play your edge, and the prizes will be revealed along the way.Transformation is an endless process to be lived.It cannot be captured or possessed, you can only participate in it.”

~Baron Baptiste

I just finished interviewing Media Coach, Susan Harrow, on Smart Women Talk Radio with Co-host, Vicky Trabosh, and want to share a few tips to help women in business with making more money.Her secret formula to being remembered is Speaking in Sound Bites for Women.

On today’s show, Susan shared secrets from her new book, Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul and we discussed how to:

• Speak with confidence, clarity and calm
• Be taken seriously and respected
• Enjoy lively banter while getting what you want

Sound bites simply allow us to speak succinctly and clearly so our message will be easy to understand and memorable.Susan suggests creating the following:

• Short stories keep these short and sweet and under 30 seconds if possible
• Facts use facts to create credibility (your experience, credentials, successes)
• Statistics that support your platform or message
• Acronyms use when possible since these are memorable

There are several more, but the secret is taking the time to create this material and then practicing until it becomes natural and rolls off your tongue effortlessly.

Practice makes perfect.Susan suggests practicing the above with a partner or buddy.Speaking out loud is how we discover ourselves she states.Compare this to reading poetry silently vs. out loud.Test yourself in front of the video camera to see how you look and how you do under pressure.

To listen to this entire interview, click here.You can listen via your computer or sign up to receive all our shows on iTunes!

Also, visit Susan’s site at www.PRSecrets.com to sign up for her free sound bite audio ecourse.Share you are the sound bites that you have created for your platform in the comments section below!

With gratitude,

Katana Abbott, CFP, CSA
Founder and Prosperity Coach
Katana Abbott Consulting PLLC
katana@katanaabbott.com

P.S. Don’t miss our show next week, when we will be interviewing Kristen Moeller, author of“Waiting for Jack – Confessions of a Self-Help Junkie: How to Stoop Waiting & Start Living Your Life”

Smart Women Talk is every Tuesday at 11 am EST/8 am PST

Many American women are really on an adrenaline rush most of the time. I have found that if we don’t slow down and allow things to flow, the Universe finds a way to do it for us.

I have found a wonderful solution to help create balance in my life and it only takes three minutes.I call this process The Perfect Life Pause. Any time during the day that I feel overwhelmed, stressed, tired, or frustrated, I follow this process to refocus my energy and intention.

Exercise:

I suggest doing your first Perfect Life Pause when you first wake up with just four simple steps!

• Start with your eyes closed. Listen to the sounds in the room, your breathing notice your body and relax. Then focus on What you would wish for in your life if you had a magic wand and could make any wish you wanted? Pause in that moment.How you would feel, what you would be doing and how you would look.
• Now spend the next several minutes in this wonderful state of mind believing it is real.
• At the end of the three minutes, be sure to express gratitude and believe that this is your Perfect Life.
• Confirm that the right people and opportunities will flow into your life at the right time.

By pausing 3-4 times a day simply to become present and to focus on your breathing and what you really want in life like it is real, you will actually be meditating and focusing on your Intentions 10-15 minutes a day. Remember, we get what we focus on! Each day we create our reality through our thoughts and we are all very intricately connected somehow.

Example of the Law of Intention in Action:

My husband, Mark, and I were in San Francisco last August for a conference. Prior to the conference, we went to Napa for a wine tasting experience. It was one of the best vacations we ever had. We spent three days driving through wine country in a convertible with azure skies and the most beautiful scenery we had ever seen.

During our trip, we purchased a couple cases of wonderful wine and brought them back to our hotel in San Francisco thinking that we would find some packing tape and just ship the wine back with our luggage. We were enjoying our trip so much, that we never really looked seriously for the tape.

We had an early flight back to Detroit and were ready to take our bags down for the trip to the airport, when we realized we still did’nt have any packing tape. I called the front desk, and they said all they had was scotch tape.

I told Mark that I was going to go downstairs and find some tape. Specifically, I said, Let’s create the intention that we will find some packing tape and send that intention out to the Universe to see what happens.He looked at me and said, Let’s do it! So we left the hotel room and stepped into the elevator.

There was another couple in the elevator from our group, and I noticed they were holding a box, so I said, What’s in the box, did you buy wine too? We are trying to find some packing tape.The man said, No these are our costumes, we never even opened the box, and we still have our packing tape.The woman looked at me and said, Do you need some tape? Here take it we never used it.And she opened her back pack and handed me a roll of packing tape.

At that moment the elevator door opened up and they stepped out. We said goodbye and pushed the button to go back to our floor. We were both speechless. We ran back to our hotel room, slammed the door and screamed with amazement!

How does something like this happen? Some may say it’s just a coincidence. I say we created an intention and it materialized. I now do this all the time it’s amazing once you become aware of this principle. I keep the empty tape dispenser in my dresser as a reminder.

This is the principle behind focusing on your Perfect Life Pause. Something magical happens when we focus our energy and intention we actually materialize what we want.We are constantly manifesting our thoughts negative or positive even when we are not conscious of it.So try this Perfect Life Pause as a way to consciously create vibrant health, abundant wealth and happiness effortlessly!

To your prosperity!

Katana Abbott, CFP, CSA

Check out my new home study course:Get Clarity Now: Your Five Step Roadmap from your Purpose and Passion to Prosperity!www.getclaritynow.com Use coupon code “clarity” to save $100 immediately at check out!

I just watched this 5 part video* on creative consciousness with Deepak Chopra and was blown away, so I thought I would share it with you! This is a 5 part series – just 10 minutes each.One of the takeaways was this simple exercise:

Since everything is energy, we want to be sure we are staying in a high vibration and attracting what we want in our life…rather than being in a state of struggle and fear.Deepak suggests,every day, ask yourself three questions:

• Is it easy?
• Is it fun?
• Am I getting results?

If the answer to any of these is no, then consider how it is affecting your life.Could this be why your are not experiencing success, joy, vibrant health? What is the Universe trying to tell you? What one thing could you do, change or let go of to create more ease, flow, fun? Could this possibly change your results or experience?

Play with this? Have fun with it.Stop being so serious.Let go of the fear, find someone to share your ideas with.Find a mastermind group.Ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that can happen anyway and is it worse than staying where I am right now?”

I just had a huge breakthrough this week working with my new Operations Manager, Sue, and you will be seeing major changes in the work I am doing.Yes, it’s scary, but it’s also time to step up, get out of my comfort zone again, and to see what happens. I’d love to hear your thoughts, what can you release that is draining your energy? Post your answer below! Thanks!

Katana Abbott, CFP, CSA
Prosperity Coach
www.talkwithkatana.com

P.S.Want to Awaken Your Inner Goddess in Costa Rica? Click here to learn more!

To watch the remainder of the 5 part video series with Deepak Chopra go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sATHei-_cxg&playnext=1&list=PLF6E798DA94E4F73C

*The video used in this blog was used because of its invaluable content and is not intended to be an endorsement of the company Zrii or its products.To learn more about the company, product and opportunity please visit the URL referenced in the video, Zbundance.com.

Vicky and I just finished an interview with author, Michael Linenberger, on Smart Women Talk Radio and I have to share this fabulous tip with you on time management and managing your To-Do List!

I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want is a two page “To-Do List” on my desk looking at me square in the face each morning when I arrive ready to start my day.

In fact, Linenberger states that research shows that individuals with long To-Do Lists experience symptoms similar to ADD and tend to lose focus, become less affective and lose discrimination as to what is even important anymore.

I believe that an unmanaged To-Do list can knock our confidence creating that, “I am a loser” syndrome, simply because we are in a state of overwhelm.

In Linenberg’s bestselling book, Master Your Workday Now! Linenberg has created a fabulous Workday Mastery To-Do List designed to help you:

• Gain Control
• Get Creative
• Connect your workday to your life purpose

I love this! He states that Workday Mastery will help give you the feeling and knowledge that your life and business are flowing more effortlessly, your goals are clear and objective, and your career is developing just the way you want it to (in line with your values).

In his book, Linenberger goes into detail on how to manage tasks with his “Now Task List”.Many of you may already be familiar with my Perfect Life Time System made up of Perfect Days, Prep Days and Power Days which is based on how to schedule and focus each day to stay rejuvenated by leveraging your time, energy and money.The Now Task List is how to manage your To-Do List, so they are a perfect marriage!

ACTION:

Linenberger suggests creating ONE LIST and break it up into three categories:

• Critical Now nly 5 items (must do today) and states that you look at this list hourly
• Opportunity Now: only 20 items (due in next 10 days) and look at this list daily
• Over the Horizon:everything else (due over 10 days) and update this list weekly

I use a 90 Day Project Worksheet listing all my projects and their tasks by category.Next I take those tasks and move them to Linenberger’s Now Task List.It’s perfect! Doesn’t just reading about this take your stomach ache away?!!

You can manage this list on paper, on a Microsoft Word Document or even with your Outlook Task System.You can learn more about all of this by listening to our interview with Linenberger, or visiting his website where he has created some videos on how to implement this system.

Feel free to watch my videos on implementing the Perfect Life Time System and then consider using Linenberger’s Now Task System to manage your To-Do List.I and my team have been using this combined system for the last year and it’s been wonderful.

I’d love to hear from you.What is your biggest challenge in managing your time and energy?How do you like these tips?

With gratitude,

Katana Abbott, CFP, CSA
Awakened Prosperity
Your Dreams * Your Life * Your Legacy
www.katanaabbott.com

Click here to book a complimentary 30 minute business strategy session now!

What is your daily practice? This is a ritual that you practice on a daily bases – like cleaning your teeth – that help s you stay more rejuvenated, joyful and successful. I just made a list in my journal the other day and I was shocked to see how long the list was.Some of the items had to do with making money, others with getting organized and running my household and others had to do with taking care of myself.

I realized immediately, that the most important – and actually the easiest to skip — have to do with self care.So today, let me know what are the daily rituals or practices that you can create in your life to help you stay rejuvenated, so you can do your best work and have a more joyful and prosperous life!

With love and gratitude,

Katana Abbott, CFP, CSA
Awakened Prosperity
Your Life, Your Dreams, Your Legacy
katana@katanaabbott.com