How did I get the name Track The Time?

I was notoriously late for appointments and never seemed to mind until one day I took a class that changed my view about time.  I always thought I could get to an appointment on my time and if I was running behind it would be all right.  What I learned was that when you factor in a plan to enjoy your time to get to an appointment you set yourself up for a better day and a better life.

They say that Successful people become successful because of discipline.  Now I know I'm not perfect but I now Track the Time.  Since I was having problems with time I decided to use this as my username for twitter when I first began.  Little did I know that all these links would connect with my name and I would have to continue with this name.  So I am happily @trackthetime on twitter.

What have I been doing with my time?  Here is a bit of news...

I have self published a book called, "Remembering 9:11 in Bible Verses"

It's a book dedicated to those families and people directly affected by 9:11.  I have gone through the chapters of the Bible and taken the verses from those chapters that have 9:11.

My hope is that you find special meaning in these verses from the Bible.


If you'd like a copy you can order one for $14.99 and pay via Paypal.

10% of the proceeds will be going to foundations for  families that were directly involved with 9:11.





I also publish an Online Magazine called, "Heartbeat Connection Magazine"

This magazine is a lifestyle magazine all about the Art of Living with Heart.  In its pages you will find articles about artists, photographers, giveaways, social media, recipes, tech tips, Naples, travel, and heartfelt organizations.


Each month you can view it online or order a print copy to enjoy.










Four days a week, I am a RN and work from home Triaging Nurses in the Home Health Hospice Industry, speaking to families, Doctors, facilities, and Hospitals.  

And lastly, I have a passion for building websites and connecting people on Social Media so my husband and I have a website company called JENStar Media.  The JEN is the initials for all three of our kids:)  

It may sound kinda busy but each day flies by and I'm excited about all the different ways I get to spend my time.  

All the best,

Nicole Flothe @trackthetime

Summertime Plans

Traveling?

For those thinking of a trip out of the country make sure you get your VISAs complete.  Someday one of the things on my bucket list is to travel to Australia so I have been compiling resources that I keep close to my heart on this blog.  I also have started a Heartbeat Magazine and so when I get things that interest me or my friends lives I put articles together an post the Magazine online at www.issuu.com monthly.  You can view the lastest magazine at

http://bit.ly/HeartbeatJuneMagazine 

Some of my friends this month I enjoy are...

You can visit their websites...

1.  Breakthrough Intensive Seminars

2.  KAWAII for you

3.  Backpacks 4 Aussie Kids

4.  Connect2mums 

5.  4 Ingredients 

Tropical Smoothie Cafe National Flip Flop Day!

On June 17th, Tropical Smoothie Café will celebrate the 5th anniversary of National Flip Flop Day! It all started back in 2007 as a celebration encouraging our customers to kick off summer, and their shoes, by wearing a pair of flip flops. As a simple thank you to our loyal customers, the first 500 people wearing flip flops at each location were given a FREE 24 oz. Jetty Punch smoothie. Soon after, we realized that National Flip Flop Day was also the perfect opportunity to spread some sunshine to those in need. In 2008, we proudly announced a national charity partnership with a magical place called Camp Sunshine. Today, we still spend National Flip Flop Day celebrating the kick off of summer by wearing flip flops and giving away free smoothies, but we also raise awareness and money for Camp Sunshine. This year, we decided to expand our charity efforts into six weeks of fundraising to help children with life-threatening illnesses and their families to make more magical memories.

Learn more about Camp Sunshine here. Make a donation at any local Tropical Smoothie Café, or right now by clicking here. And, don’t forget to stop by your local Tropical Smoothie Café on June 17th for a FREE 24 oz. Jetty Punch smoothie*. Just remember to wear your flip flops, and to maybe bring along a dollar or two to help those in need. That’s the spirit we started National Flip Flop Day with five years ago, and one we hope will continue for many years to come.

I know I'll be getting my Free Smoothie:)  Yummy!

Using Wordle Today to show all my fun Social Media Sites

Here are all my links for Social Media Sites that I Enjoy:
Twitter Facebook Tumblr TweetDeck Twiends 
Blogger Wordpress Flickr Picasa 
Photobucket Animoto LinkedIn Technorati
 MailChimp iContact Constant Contact 
Cafepress Zazzle Feedburner
 Bit.ly Digg Delicious Tweetology whos.amung.us 
Mixpod Wordle

Preparing for Father's Day

Tiny Prints is your one stop shop this Father's Day with a great selection of customizable Father's Day Cards. They allow you to create individual personalized cards with photos, custom text and even embedded gift cards and have cards for every father in your life from your dad, to your grandfather, father-in-law, brother and son. In a matter of seconds, you can create personalized Father's Day Cards and have Tiny Prints mail them directly to you or the recipient. Instead of sending a generic run-of-the-mill card, search Tiny Prints for a selection of unique cards that are humorous, sentimental, show appreciation or poke fun at your Dad's favorite hobby.

From now until June 6th, Tiny Prints is running a special promotion offering customized Father's Day cards as low as $.99. Just use the code GC99 at checkout.

Glad that's taken care of, now I can check mark card off my to do list:)

Make it so

I have really enjoyed 3 Seconds - The Power of Thinking Twice by Les Parrott, PhD. 

I loved the true life stories he talked about throughout the book.  If we could only pause before we respond and calmly count 3 seconds and think before we speak our conversations would be more meaningful and we'd achieve more in life. 

The words of Commander Jean-Luc Picard "Make it so" are the catalyst to getting things done instead of waiting around for the perfect opportunity.

It's also amazing how Lou Holtz had a list of over 107 "Impossible" Goals and has completed 81 of them.  I will be completing my Dream goal list.

Great book from start to finish.

Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging Review

If you've never read the story of how Huffington Post was created it's pretty interesting.  Arianna Huffington provides the details in the Blogging Review Guide Book I'm reading.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Why Blog?  I blog because I am. -  Cali Williams Yost

Here are the things I've enjoyed about the book...

1.  Blog Infrastructure 
Which website to use for setup?
www.blogger.com
www.typepad.com
www.livejournal.com
www.wordpress.com
www.movabletype.com
www.facebook.com

2.  Ways to Enhance the Blog -
www.tumblr.com
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Video Logs - Vlogs
Photolog or sketchblog

3.  Anatomy of a Blog Post -
A. Template
B.  Header (Add your header here and put on every page and post)
C.  Titles - Short, clear, and Catchy
D.  Date/Time
E.  Tags
F.  Bio
G.  Blogroll -  list other blogs and connect them with your site.
H.  Sidebar
I.  Pull quotes
J.  Linking
K.  Comments






Measuring Traffic -
1.  www.sitemeter.com
2.  www.statcounter.com
3.  www.google.com/analytics
4.  www.google.com/alerts

Search engines to get listed with -
1.  www.google.com
2.  MSN (search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
3.  https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
4.  buzz.yahoo.com
5.  www.digg.com
6.  www.delicious.com
7.  www.technorati.com

Making Money on Blogs -
1.  www.google.com/adsense
2.  www.amazon.com/associates
3.  Linkshare companies
4.  www.publisher.yahoo.com

Community Institutions -
1.  www.webbyawards.com
2.  www.bloggies.com
3.  www.bloggerschoiceawards.com
4.  www.lulublookerprize.typepad.com
5.  www.thebestofblogs.com
6.  Meetup groups are good too.

The Book also had several pages listing The Huffington Post Blogroll which I'll list a few of my favorites but you'll have to check out the book to get the entire list.

1.  www.boingboing.net
2. www.buzzmachine.com
3.  www.dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com
4.  www.ecofabulous.com
5.  www.blog.wired.com/business
6.  www.justjared.buzznet.com
7.  www.popsugar.com
8.  www.treehugger.com
9.  www.blogs.wsj.com/wealth
10.  www.firstread.msnbc.msn.com

I just made a video at Animoto!

I just made a video at Animoto!

Sports and Kids Schedules

Sometimes I feel like I am the taxi driver extraordinaire. The kids go to school in the morning and then the youngest goes to preschool in the afternoon and then they come home. So I shuttle them back and forth from school three times a day for 5 days out of the week. To add on top of that some type of sport to round out their life is important to us but finding the time and cutting costs to fit our budget are two areas I always seem to be working on. I found a website that compares prices on sports items call www.become.com 

My sons have a friend that plays baseball and so I went to the website to do a few comparisons.  They had the Easton Baseball bat , the Tee Ball Bat , youth catchers gear , and some Nike baseball cleats.  I like the site Become because it gave a listing of different websites on the internet that had the best prices.  I could see someday when the time comes and my boys say, "I want to play baseball!" that I use this site to get the things on our list. 

My daughter will be starting Ballet tomorrow and since we just moved I have been looking for her ballet bag.  I haven't found it yet so I might just be using Become.com to do a search for some new ballet clothes. 

Kids, sports, and schedules will continue to be a part of our lives, so I will choose to enjoy it!

Lulu published my A to Z on Alligator Alley Ebook

I love www.lulu.com They have a great program for Ebooks and it's free to upload and share with the world. I've completed my first A to Z book that I hope you enjoy. You can preview it above.

Tweetology Review

Today I created an account on tweetology and it was a simple application and fun to use.  I have a few sites I like to keep up with and this allowed me to make a widget that posts updates of the latest live tweets.  So far I have added these different sites and you can view the application towards the bottom of the blog.

Will see how it works for the live feed aspect but for now I'm impressed with the ease of the service.

Activity on Blog

Due you ever get bogged down?  I'm getting more organized to be able to update my blogs on a weekly basis but sometimes it can be tough.  I see I haven't updated since June 4th on this blog and I've been active on my Social Media sites like twitter and facebook.  But bloggin has been slower.  I just found out you can connect your blog with your facebook fan page and your latest blogs will post on facebook.  The nice thing about this is that if you start with the Blog then you don't have to update facebook that often.  I also learned that the fan page can be connected to twitter so this takes three steps of Social media management to happen in one area.  What a way to simplify connecting and making it easier to share important information to others about what I'm doing and perhaps what is going on in the industry.  I love Social Media and I hope to help others with the Quick and Easy solution for their companies.

Google Feedburner Review and Setup

So Feedburner moved to Google and I had previously learned about the features but had never actually applied the subscribe to any of my websites.  I like it because it gives you the ability to have others get emails directly with your information from your blog and it has a super easy interface with blogspot.  Anything that makes it easy is for me.  Google has accomplished the epitome of simplicity.  My first thought if I don't know the answer I go to Google.  The key word "Google it!" has become common in my house and I'm sure across the world.

If you want to know the simple steps I took to add the subscribe to my blog than follow the list below...

1.  Go to www.feedburner.com
2.  Log in with your google account.
3.  Once logged in type your blog url into the burner and click next.
4.  Choose the correct feed source and click next.
5.  Either accept the name it supplies on this next screen or change your name for your feed.
6.  Than Congrats your Feedburner feed is now live.
7.  Move on to step 2 and check out the details about the feed, at this point I just hit next again.
8.  Lastly the feed is ready to be integrated and you can copy the html code to past onto your site.
9.  I like to publish a chicklet to display on my blogs.


I hope this has been helpful and it will eventually help me in the future if I ever forget how I created the Feedburner:)
Enjoy.

SwagBucks Review

So I just was on Facebook and my friend had a link saying she just earned swagbucks.  I was curious and thought I'd give it a try.  I would like to earn the free Amazon gift card.  I joined and was awarded 30 swagbucks right away.  Then on the front page of the site they had the Ipad drawing and you could get 1 entry for 30 swagbucks.  So since we have just bought the ipad and the whole family loves it I thought I'd enter for the chance to have one for the kids.  My friend also has a blog http://spencerlilyland.blogspot.com and does a lot of fun research on coupons and savings.  I currently am learning how to use swagbucks but she says so far she has earned several coupons at Amazon and other free cool things. 

In any case having fun surfing the internet, I might as well  earn a few swagbucks while doing it.  If you want to check it out you can visit my friends site or you can click here.

TweetChat Twitter and Seminar Tips

I'm enjoying a Barefoot Executive seminar online and one of the big tips was when doing a seminar online set up a hashtag on www.tweetchat.com like the one she used during her seminar was #online2010

- Schedule your seminar for the time that is good for you.

- Surround yourself with Rock Stars to motivate you and encourage you to complete your tasks.

- Don't chase every guru, tool, technique, pick one system to follow and complete.  This will get you progress.  Follow one course until successful.  FOCUS,  Figure out Your WHY!

- Build your niche and list and then create product that serves the person enjoying your seminar.

- How to choose the person you want to learn from - Resonation, Strategically choose your mentor, Study core strategies that provide you a plan.  Pull it together.  Plan, Path, Purpose, and Process
Review Dorothy on The Wizard of Oz as an example.

"You will never find time for anything.
If you want time you must make it."
- Charles Buxton


"The bad news is time flies.
The good news is you're the pilot."
- Michael Altshuler


Dream Bigger than a paycheck this will make you motivated to achieve.
Set a Goal.
Study a Pro.
Surround yourself with a winning team.  
Enjoy what your doing and create the niche that will get you going.
Play to Win.


You can watch The Barefoot Executive on youtube if you'd like to see some of her videos.


Quit thinking what do I want to be when I grow up, think about who you want to be when you grow up.
Like Zig Ziglar...
"Building a better you is the first step to building a better America."
Zig Ziglar 

Changing Blog Backgrounds

I love changing my Blog backgrounds and Designing Banners.  So I took some time tonight and tried out Free Blog Backgrounds from www.thecutestblogontheblock.com  I picked my Design as I love Sunflowers and this one reminded me of a nice day in the springtime that is soon to come.  I then created my header using their easy instructions and on my mac added the name of my blog.  Then I uploaded the header onto the blog.  Very simple and easy to edit. 

Whrrl story of Facebook and Twitter Today

Powered by Whrrl

Found @whrrl online and its a cool story website 
that you can connect with people and tell your story. 
I created my first story above. Enjoy!

Daily Routines Of Interesting People

Women in Business Article on Daily Routines

I have always been interested in how successful people layout their daily routines. I found this article on line at womeninbusiness.com.au and you can click on the link above to view. I imagine that most interesting people don't sit in front of the couch watching show after show. I would think they would be engrossed in their passion whatever it might be, art, music, acting, leadership, photography, internet/social media marketing. The list goes on. A great book could be titled, "The Daily Routines of Influential People". Perhaps someday I'll interview 10 extraordinary people and layout their routine for others to review. For now I'll just have to think about what my perfect Routine would be and work towards that.

http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/

Time Management and Business Success

I just recently left a post on Poshmama's social networking site about Time management.  I'm reading a good book called The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick & Chester Elton that talks about Leadership and ways to Accelerate productivity. So far I thinking time management is a process, starting out with setting goals and then moving on to the farming process as per my review of the book. I have struggles with my own time management and always look for tips so I would love to hear how your review goes. The biggest tip I can give is to plan your day the night before with the biggest tasks first and then the smaller tasks towards the end of the list. Seems to help me get things accomplished. All the best on your article.  Article

Sandman Melting this Holiday by the Ocean

I packed and packed the sand for one hour and then took my picture of my first melting Sandman.  It was fun in the sun.  I started with building the bottom base and then the second level of sand.  The third level was the hardest as the sand began to dry and started to crack.  What a fun challenge it was, no snow in Florida but at least lots of Holiday Cheer.