Sometimes to me it feels like time is traveling fast and what I am accomplishing is going at a rate of growing molasses. Unfortunately I know what the problem is and I can do nothing about it, at least for a while.

Here is the dilemma. As many of you know, I am not just trying to run a business but I also am attending college full time. This clogs my time up extremely between attending classes, driving time, studying, and doing homework. Having college be a part of my spectrum leaves far less time and energy for accomplishing my professional goals.

Here are the solutions I have been working on. I have been trying to develop ways to solve this dilemma and have come up with a few over the past couple of years. This can apply to having a job at the same time, going to school, or what ever else fills up your time and takes you away from accomplishing goals.

Time between time. Unfortunately school scheduling is not perfect so I often end up with an hour or two between classes. This is waisted time unless I can find a way to use it. An advantage for me is that a good portion of my work can be done on the computer. If that is not the case for you, I would recommend bringing a notebook along to plot ideas and take notes.

Go mobile. Having a mobile work bag that consists of anything portable really helps me get work done. My bag consists of my laptop and power cord, portable hard drive with plug-in cord, iPod charger and connector cord, and my business notebook. These are the essentials and only the essentials I need to accomplish tasks for my business.

The goal list. Not only do I have my goals written in big letters on my dry erase board but I also keep them mobile on my computer and in my notebook. If I am stumped and am not in the office I need this to keep me on track for what I need to accomplish.

Have a partner. This one is not for everyone because some like to be a lone wolf but I have found having a business partner really allows me to accomplish my company goals without all of the workload on my shoulders.

Keep organized. Organization is the key to time management. Being organized, which is a challenge for me, has saved me countless time and made me much more efficient. I know what I can do outside the office in a cafe’ or school and what needs to be done while at the workplace.

Separate tasks. When working at more than one thing like with business and school at the same time, I have found it easy to forget things needed to be done in one of those two categories. I have found keeping my lists of things to do separate with color coding for work and school makes it harder to bypass an important goal.

Schedule to start. Making the college schedule fit my week as opposed to fitting my week to my college schedule leaves much more room for efficiency. I have scheduled afternoon and evening classes to make sure my mornings are open to do my correspondence, meet with clients, and get work done. Keeping a business hour schedule for your networking, marketing, and client management is important for success. Clients don’t like to meet or talk at night in most cases.

Doing raw work later. After I get out of classes I will often do the business that needs no communication with others. This means the raw design work that keeps my business up and growing.

The most important rule to stress is time management. By filling in all the time that could otherwise be wasted I can get so much more done.

Since my family holds season tickets to the Chicago Bears I was able to snatch up tickets to the Bears vs. Lyons game which was today.

They lost.

But the game was still a lot of fun. It was my first Bears game and I went with my good friend and business partner Jestine Chakkumcal. Hopefully I will have some images up in the gallery from the game soon. We took about 160 pics.

All and all it was a great experience. Go BEARS! You’ll do better next time. (I hope)

If any of you have ever browsed through my site (you should if you haven’t) you’ll notice there is a very specific color and layout scheme. If anyone has seen it in the last several days you will notice it looks almost exactly the same as before. There is a difference though and for you tech nerds this is a big one. All the differences in the site are not visible but have improved my site greatly.

Though I am still not complete I have been updating the website to run off a CSS style sheet and some more advanced php coding. My side bar (and several other features) all are sourced from single pages instead of being code on every individual page.

Using a style sheet (www.warrengreeley.com/style.css) has help clean up the code on the individual pages and allows the site to load faster and run more efficiently. It also ensures the themes of all the different pages are the same.

Using a code source from a single page on all my pages was easy. I made the source on a page, side.inc.php, and then on every page that I wanted that source to go on I just imputed one line of code: include(’side.inc.php’). Then the content from that page shows up on whatever page I want. Doing this makes my job easier cause to change something on every page now I only have to alter one set of code and it makes the website load faster.

For those of you who are completely confused right now don’t worry. The point is not how I did it but that I did it. If you are not a web designer like me, then you can find someone (like me for instance) to do the job for you. What I am trying to stress is keeping and updating your website to be as efficient as possible.

In doing so the benefits are great (and may out weigh the costs). Your code is cleaner which means faster loading time and a better user experience. Your site will have an ensured matching theme. Cleaner code means it is easier to be Crawled by search engines. And you will end up doing less work with this efficient design structure.

Talk to your local web designer about how you can make your website run better and work for you.

There are two vital aspects of turning a dream or an idea into a reality; Goals and Plans. The two are somewhat mixed up when having casual conversations with colleagues and friends but need to be separated and understood each for their importance.

First up to bat is Goals. Goals are what you are aiming to accomplish. They are generally vague but very meaningful and are the necessary plateaus needed to be reached.

Plans however a much different. Plans are what is needed to be done to reach your goals. Plans are specific and intricate. They normally involve milestones, timelines, day to day steps, and lots and lots of alterations.

Now to turn an idea into reality these two things must be separated and appreciated. How to do it is simple. Use two separate mediums to convey their importance to yourself and your team.

Goals should be up on the bulletin, dry erase, or chalk board. They should be put on banners and used to make slogans for the team. Hell, paint them in big bold letters on the wall if needed. The objective is to have the goal implanted, inescapably, in your mind and the minds of those helping you.

Plans, on the other hand should be made in print; handed out to everyone involved with highlights of each person’s objectives to reach the goal, be it daily, weekly, monthly; whatever is need. They should be flexible and living.

The plans will change. This needs to be addressed and delt with accordingly otherwise the goals painted on your wall cannot be met. They also should be verbally communicated on a daily basis and made sure the plan is constantly staying on track.

Once a the plan has taken action, and only then can a goal be met, can the ideas and dreams of your visionary mind be set into motion to become a living entity.

Think about it. What can you change next time you are setting out to accomplish something, be it something small or something out of this world?

I have been doing my to do list page for only a couple of days but have decided to expand the idea. Above my to do list will be some statistics on things I am working on. First and foremost is my weight loss goals. To make myself clear, I am trying to gain a healthy lifestyle, not just lose weight.

I will probably add more stats that I am tracking in the future. See my new To Do List (+) page.

Yesterday I purposely left my business materials (computer and leather folder) at home as I left for class and this made all the difference.

Being a workaholic like many people in my industry I really love what I do but sometimes we all need time to regain our personal composure. Whilst not having my resources, I was able to free up the hour and a half between classes to do just that. Instead of the growing rhetoric of my work I instead went out to a pond by my school and laid next to it in the grass right under an enormous weeping willow tree that was swaying rapidly in the wind.

In that hour that I laid there with only my personal notebook in hand I was able to contemplate my life. Things I was enjoying, things I didn’t like, things I want to accomplish, etc. This was remarkable because having this free time and the fresh air really allowed me to clear my head. On top of that I was also able to record my most important thoughts in my notebook so I do not forget them.

As I laid there looking up at the clear blue skies and the weeping willow tree swaying in the wind I realized that I am really headed in a great direction and I have new motivation to work even harder.

For that hour I rested, wrote, meditated, reflected, dreamed and when I got up to go to class (besides a sore lower body from the hard ground) I felt so refreshed with my life. Once class started my teacher even mentioned to me that he noticed me being out there resting and envied that because of the work he was rushing to get done. I just told him it was remarkable what I accomplished by pulling myself away from work and intentionally not doing anything.

My lesson here is simple. Always remember to find the time to lay in the grass (or on a bench if your afraid of bugs) and contemplate your life in order to find your center once again. It really does make all the difference.

I am a man who is very involved in my convictions. My political and spiritual beliefs are very important to me so I have had to learn to keep them in their place.

When interacting with other business professionals, clients or customers it is important to keep politics, religion, war, and any other touchy life convictions out of your small talk. Small talk is important but raising these subjects can lead to assumptions, arguments, and lost relationships and profits. The world of business is not the place to discuss and debate these subjects.

Instead here are a few really easy things that will break the ice without completely melting it.

Sports. Though there is still much room for debate in sports it is more friendly and in most cases you are dealing with people in your region with similar sports teams.

Weather. It is always an easy subject when speaking in person and can fill the needed time very well because you will not get into much detail like with other topics so getting down to business is not difficult to transistion.

Business. If you are speaking to others in the business profession you have an easy in with this common interest. You are all in business so it is a well flowing topic.

Current Events. This one is tricky because it is hard not to sway into politics and religion but keeping it within the facts about big things happening around the world is good to show that you keep up with the times.

Dining. Great food is something almost everybody can get behind. Recommending a good restaurant can really impact the person’s perception of you.

Cars. Who doesn’t love cars? Men and women in the professional world have a lot to say about motor vehicles so it is a common interest for nearly all. Make sure you don’t sway into alternative fuels and oil companies though. That would be a no no.

World Travel. Speaking of great places to go shows you are cultured and interesting. Also you would be surprised how often others you are speaking to have been in the same places you have been. It’s a small world after all.

Anything else without beliefs. The key is to keep it off the subject of belief that can lead to argument or assumption. Keep it light and fresh. Business talks are not the place to debate or evangelize what you believe.