10 Time Management Tips That Work

BY JOE MATHEWS, DON DEBOLT AND DEB PERCIVAL |

116 Comments |

10K

3K

18K

Chances are good that, at some time in your life, you've taken a time management class, read about it in books, and tried to use an electronic or paper-based day planner to organize, prioritize and schedule your day. "Why, with this knowledge and these gadgets," you may ask, "do I still feel like I can't get everything done I need to?"

The answer is simple. Everything you ever learned about managing time is a complete waste of time because it doesn't work.

Related

No B.S. Time Management, Second Edition

By Dan S. Kennedy

Before you can even begin to manage time, you must learn what time is. A dictionary defines time as "the point or period at which things occur." Put simply, time is when stuff happens.

There are two types of time: clock time and real time. In clock time, there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. All time passes equally. When someone turns 50, they are exactly 50 years old, no more or no less.

In real time, all time is relative. Time flies or drags depending on what you're doing. Two hours at the department of motor vehicles can feel like 12 years. And yet our 12-year-old children seem to have grown up in only two hours.

Related: Spring-Cleaning Tips for Your Business

Which time describes the world in which you really live, real time or clock time?

The reason time management gadgets and systems don't work is that these systems are designed to manage clock time. Clock time is irrelevant. You don't live in or even have access to clock time. You live in real time, a world in which all time flies when you are having fun or drags when you are doing your taxes.

The good news is that real time is mental. It exists between your ears. You create it. Anything you create, you can manage. It's time to remove any self-sabotage or self-limitation you have around "not having enough time," or today not being "the right time" to start a business or manage your current business properly.

There are only three ways to spend time: thoughts, conversations and actions. Regardless of the type of business you own, your work will be composed of those three items.

As an entrepreneur, you may be frequently interrupted or pulled in different directions. While you cannot eliminate interruptions, you do get a say on how much time you will spend on them and how much time you will spend on the thoughts, conversations and actions that will lead you to success. 

Related: Tips for a More Productive Day

Practice the following techniques to become the master of your own time:

1. Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You'll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions.
2. Any activity or conversation that's important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they're unworkable. Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.
3. Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results.
4. Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you're doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having "office hours." Isn't "office hours" another way of saying "planned interruptions?"
5. Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.
6. Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what's missing in your next call or activity?
7. Put up a "Do not disturb" sign when you absolutely have to get work done.
8. Practice not answering the phone just because it's ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don't instantly give people your attention unless it's absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls.
9. Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.
10. Remember that it's impossible to get everything done. Also remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts, conversations and activities produce 80 percent of your results.

Related Video: 

Matthews has held management roles with Subway, Blimpie, Motophoto and The Entrepreneur’s Source. DeBolt is a former president of the International Franchise Association. Percival works in franchise development. They are co-authors of Street Smart Franchising from Entrepreneur Press. 

How to Manage Your Time

These days, time seems to be at a premium. We have devices that keep us constantly connected with work, with friends and family, and sometimes even with complete strangers. As a result, it's easy to get distracted. If you're like most of us, you have a lot to accomplish. We'll show you a great way to do just that!

Steps

1. 
   1
   Prepare yourself first, by taking 30 minutes of your time to fix yourself something to eat and relax. Then Make a list of the tasks you need to accomplish. But before you can manage your time, you need to know what it is you must manage. A list of tasks, from the mundane to the critical, will help you get a handle on what needs to get done.
   • Assign realistic priorities to each task:
     • Priority 1: due today by 6pm
     • Priority 2: due tomorrow by 6pm
     • Priority 3: due by the end of the week
     • Priority 4: due during next week
   • You can further prioritize tasks within this grouping by adding a decimal place. For example, a Priority 1.0 task needs to be done immediately, whereas a Priority 1.5 task simply needs to be done by the end of day.
   Ad
2. 
   2
   Balance your effort. Work on small portions every day of work that will be due by the end of the week, starting with the most important tasks first.
   • Do today's tasks. Concentrate On what is at hand, do not allow yourself to lose focus. Then move on to the next daily task. Once today's tasks are completed, mark them as such, and proceed to tomorrow's tasks.
   • When tomorrow's tasks are complete, work on the other tasks due by the end of the week, and when those are complete, work on the tasks due early next week. A small portion of each is better than one huge,laborious task and will keep your time managed more efficiently and reduce stress and eliminate burn-out.
   • Make one of your final daily tasks the completion of tomorrow's task list. Each day should be ended with a new task sheet for tomorrow to keep you on track.
3. 
   3
   Focus on your most productive time of day. Some people work better in the morning, and some are more focused in the evening.
4. 
   4
   Manage time in increments. Play a game with yourself by competing against the clock.
   • Work in fifteen minute, half hour or hour intervals,scientifically it is known that 45 minutes work followed by a 10 minutes rest is the best for the average studier.
     
   • Give yourself a time goal to complete a portion of a task or the entire task.
5. 
   5
   Take a break. Clear your mind and refresh yourself to refocus.
   • Decide beforehand on a 5, 10 or 15 minute break and stick to that decision.
   • Breaks provide incentive by giving you something to look forward to having.
6. 
   6
   Keep track of your progress.
   • Cross things off the list as they are completed.
   • You'll feel more relieved and relaxed just by getting through the daily tasks. Not only will you be getting things done, finishing tasks will give you a sense of accomplishment and spur motivation.
7. 
   7
   Reassess the list. Rewrite and prioritize your list on a regular basis.
   • Add new tasks to the list. This should be done on a daily basis, especially when you are just getting started with a time management regimen.
   • Eliminate or adjust tasks that are completed, or fall in priority.
   • Delegate tasks to others. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to do it all. You can be much more effective if you can delegate tasks as necessary.
   • Use technology to complete tasks more quickly, efficiently or accurately. Today's mobile technology features dozens, if not hundreds of apps that will help you manage—and even accomplish—your tasks efficiently.
8. 
   8
   Leave time for fun. While there are times when we just need to power through a large project, it's important to give yourself time to let loose. Not only will it refresh your mind, it's good for your body, too. It doesn't have to be a lot of time but make sure that you do!
9. 
   9
   Sleep for 7-9 hours every night. Getting the proper amount of sleep will help keep you alert and energetic, able to think clearly, and function at a high level.
   Ad

Add your own method

Installing and Testing Wampserver

Hopefully, you have now downloaded and installed Wampserver. This will give you a server on your own PC (Windows users), somewhere you can test your scripts. If you haven't yet dowloaded the Wampserver software, you can download it here:

Download Wampserver

If the installation went well, you should have an new icon in the bottom right, where the clock is:

Click the icon to see the menu above.
From here, you can stop the server, exit it, view help files, and see the configuration pages.
Click on localhost, though, and you'll see this page appear: (Localhost just refers to the server running on your own computer. Another way to refer to your server is by using the IP address 127.0.0.1.)

Click the link under Tools that says phpinfo(). If all went well, you should be looking at the following page (The one below is a different php version, but don't worry about this - as long as you see something):

The info.php page (click to open in a new window 66K)

If you saw the above page, then congratulations! Your PHP server is up and running, and you can make a start scripting PHP pages.

Troubleshooting

If you don't see the info.php page, then you will need to refer to the wampserver forums. The page you need is here:

Wampserver Forums

Hopefully, your question will already have been asked an answered. (Unfortunately, we can't answer questions about Wampserver, as it's not our software.)

Saving your PHP files

Whenever you create a new PHP page, you need to save it in your WWW directory. You can see where this is by clicking its item on the menu:

When you click on www directory, you should see an explorer window appear. This one is from Windows Vista: (You'll probably have only two files, index and testmysql.)

This www folder for Wampserver is usally at this location on your hard drive:

c:/wamp/www/

Bear this in mind when you click File > Save As to save your PHP scripts.

Launching your PHP scripts

Suppose you have created a php script called test1.php. To launch this script, you need to add the script name after localhost in your browser. So instead of this:

http://localhost/index.php

You would type this:

http://localhost/test1.php

You don't type the name of the wamp folder, however. This would be wrong, for example:

c:/wamp/www/test1.php

As too would this:

http://localhost/www/test1.php

Your server knows where the www folder is, so you don't have to type it out: just add the script name tolocalhost. Likewise, if you create a folder under www then you'd just type this:

http://localhost/folder_name/script_name.php

OK, we'll assume that everything is now up and running. If it's not, click "Move on to the Next Part" below, for some troubleshooting. If it is, click "Back to the PHP Contents Page".

Tutorial: How to write a WordPress Simple Plugin?

Tutorial: How to write a WordPress Simple Plugin?

WordPress is not just a blogging platform and it is such a powerful CMS with unlimited capabilities, besides having a huge user base. Almost anything can be scripted with wordpress. You can extend wordpress either by means of plugin or by a theme.
In this tutorial, i will show you how to write a Hello World wordpress plugin, which unlike many believe is surprisingly easy, once you understand the very fundamentals. All you need to have is a basic knowledge of php scripting.
Before we move on coding a plugin, please make sure you remember the following coding practices.

1. Always you chose a unique name to your plugin so that it doesnt collide with names used in other plugins.
2. Make sure you comment wherever and whenever necessary in the code.
3. You will to test the plugin in your localhost (using xampp) along with latest version of wordpress.

Plugin Files & Names

Assigning unique names, documenting and organizing the plugin files is very important part of plugin creation.

Although wordpress allows you to place the plugin php file directly into the wp-content/plugins folder, for a good plugin developer you will need to create a folder named hello-world and within place readme.txt and hello-world.php.
The readme.txt contains information about your plugin and can come in handy when you submit your plugin wordpress SVN plugin repository. See the readme sample.
Go ahead and create these files and we will add the content to these files later.

The Plugin Basics

The heart of a wordpress plugins is the below 2 functions (commonly called `hooks`)
add_action ($tag, $func) documentation
add_filter ($tag,$func) documentation
It is very important to know the difference between the above functions.

• add_action –> does an action at various points of wordpress execution
• add_filter –> does filtering the data (eg. escaping quotes before mysql insert, or during output to browser.

Refer to the WordPress Plugin API for more better understanding.

Plugin Information

Open your hello-world.php and in the first line, add this commented plugin information to your file.

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Hello-World
Plugin URI: http://yourdomain.com/
Description: A simple hello world wordpress plugin
Version: 1.0
Author: Balakrishnan
Author URI: http://yourdomain.com
License: GPL
*/
?>

Save this php file,

• Place the plugin folder to wordpress > wp-content > plugins,
• Go to your wordpress admin > plugins and you will see the new plugin listed, waiting to get activated.

simple ain’t it?

But this plugin had to do something right?

Why not we make it print  “Hello World” when we call it from wordpress theme template files.
for that we write the code using add_action below the commented plugin information in the hello-world.php

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Hello-World
Plugin URI: http://yourdomain.com/
Description: A simple hello world wordpress plugin
Version: 1.0
Author: Balakrishnan
Author URI: http://yourdomain.com
License: GPL
*/
/* This calls hello_world() function when wordpress initializes.*/
/* Note that the hello_world doesnt have brackets.
add_action('init','hello_world');*/
function hello_world()
{
echo "Hello World";
}
?>

Thats it! Our Hello World plugin is nearly done and with just few lines of code. When our plugin is activated, add_action command calls our hello_world() function when wordpress starts loading.

Lets Test our Hello World Plugin

We really dont know whether our plugin works or not. To test our plugin, go to plugins, activate the hello-world plugin.
Then open your worldpress theme wp-content > themes > default, open any of index.php, archive.php or single.php and place the following code anywhere.

<?php
if(function_exists('hello_world')) {
hello_world();
}
?>

The key here is function_exists() call which checks whether plugin loaded or not and then allows the hook into the plugin function.  Call to hello_world() in the theme files without checking it, often leads to “Fatal error: call to undefined function” and our blog would crash, if the hello world plugin is not activated or deleted.

How to develop a "Hello World" plugin in wordpress

How to develop a "Hello World" plugin in wordpress

Hi all, hope you all are doing well and enjoying best of your healths.

Today i had been searching word-press official website for any tutorial for "how to develop a hello world plugin" and i couldn't find any good tutorial for this. Then i studied some other tutorials and asked my friends about it and thought that why not i should post this on my blog with very simple words, so that others can find a good tutorial on this. So here we go for the tutorial....

Step 1

Create a directory with name “hello-world-plugin” under wp-content/plugins, then create a file “hello-world-plugin.php”. put the following code to this file and save it.

1:  <?php  
2:  /*  
3:  Plugin Name: Hello world plugin  
4:  Plugin URI: http://localhost/wordpress/  
5:  Description: Add HTML snippets to posts and/or page footer.  
6:  Version: 0.1  
7:  Author: me  
8:  Disclaimer: No warranty, use this in your own risk.  
9:  */  
10:  ?>  

You have successfully created your first "Hello world" plugin and you can now activate this like other plugins from word-press admin panel. But for now this plugin wont do anything because we haven't put any logic behind this. so lets add some working code.

Step 2

for now “hello-world-plugin.php” file contains just plugin info. Let us open this and put below code under plugin info and save.

1:  add_action('wp_footer', 'hello_world_plugin_wp_footer');  
2:  function hello_world_plugin_wp_footer(){  
3:       echo '<div>Hello world! '. get_option('blogname') .'</div>';  
4:  }  

after adding this, just refresh your page and see "Hello World" printed in footer of your page. But make sure you have activated the plugin from admin panel.

In above code you can see add_action() function. Actually this is called action. Word-press follows hook architecture and this is the way to bind our function with word-press hooks. Word-press hooks is another topic and you can read this topic here.

That is all and we have now developed very simple "hello world" plugin in word-press. The whole code looks something like this,

1:  <?php  
2:  /*  
3:  Plugin Name: Hello world plugin  
4:  Plugin URI: http://localhost/wordpress/  
5:  Description: Add HTML snippets to posts and/or page footer.  
6:  Version: 0.1  
7:  Author: me  
8:  Disclaimer: No warranty, use this in your own risk.  
9:  */
10:  add_action('wp_footer', 'hello_world_plugin_wp_footer');  
11:  function hello_world_plugin_wp_footer(){  
12:       echo '<div>Hello world! '. get_option('blogname') .'</div>';  
13:  }  
14:  ?>  

Although this is a very simple plugin, but this teaches you how to take initiative for developing a plugin in word-press.

Please feel free to post your comments and feedback.

Story of Anna Jarvis The story of Mothers Day is the story of firm determination of a daughter, Anna Jarvis who resolved to pay tribute to her mother, Mrs Anna M Jarvis

Story of Anna Jarvis

The story of Mothers Day is the story of firm determination of a daughter, Anna Jarvis who resolved to pay tribute to her mother, Mrs Anna M Jarvis and all other mothers of the world. Anna Jarvis dedicated her life to fulfill her mothers dream of the recognition of day for honoring mothers. Though never a mother herself, Founder of Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis is today recognised as the 'Mother of Mothers Day'. An apt title to define the remarkable woman's ceaseless devotion to her mother and motherhood in general.

Anna Jarvis: Childhood
Anna Jarvis was born in Webster, Taylor County, West Virginia, on May 1, 1864. She was the ninth of eleven children born to Ann Marie and Granville Jarvis. Her family moved to Grafton when Anna was a year old. It was here that the Anna did her schooling. In 1881, she enrolled at the Augusta Female Academy in Staunton, Virginia, now Mary Baldwin College. After finishing her academics, Anna returned to Grafton and did teaching in a school for seven years.

Anna Jarvis: Inspiration for Mothers Day
Anna Jarvis got the inspiration of celebrating Mothers Day quite early in life. It so happened that one day when Anna was 12 years old, Anna's mother Mrs Jarvis said a class prayer in the presence of her daughter. To conclude the lesson on 'Mothers of the Bible', Mrs Jarvis said a small prayer,

"I hope that someone, sometime will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it." 

Anna never forgot this prayer. And at her Mothers graveside service, she recalled the prayer and said, "...by the grace of God, you shall have that Mothers Day." The words were overheard by her brother Claude.

Anna Jarvis: The Struggle for Mothers Day
After the death of her mother in 1905, Anna Jarvis resolved to honor her mother. She became all the more serious in her resolution when she found that adult children in the US were negligent in their behaviour towards there parents. Besides the desire of her mother that someone would one day pay tribute to all mothers, living and dead and appreciate their contributions made Anna decisions even more stronger.

In 1907, Miss Anna began an aggressive campaign to establish a National Mothers Day in US. On the second death anniversary of her mother she led a small tribute to her mother at Andrews Methodist Church. By the next year, Mother's Day was also celebrated in her own city of Philadelphia.

To give shape to her resolution, Miss Anna Jarvis along with her supporters began to write hundreds of letters to those holding the positions of power advocate the need for a national Mothers Day. A fluent speaker, Anna used every platform to promote her cause. Though the response was cold initially, she achieved a breakthrough by gaining the support of great merchant and philanthropist, John Wanamaker of Philadelphia. The movement gained a fresh impetus with his support. In 1909, forty-five states including Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Canada and Mexico observed the day by appropriate services. People also wore white and red Carnations to pay tribute to their mothers, according to the tradition started by Anna Jarvis. Anna chose carnations because they were her mother's favorite flowers. White carnation was her most favorite because it represented the purity of a mother's heart. A white carnation was to be worn to honor deceased mothers, and a red one to honor a living mother.

By 1911, Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state of the Union. And in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the second Sunday of May.

Anna Jarvis: Purpose of Celebrating Mothers Day
An activist to the core, Anna Jarvis stepped outside the four walls of the house. Striking feature of her personality is that she did not frowned on the traditional women who felt complacent staying at home. Instead she strived to bestow honor and dignity on women who were homemakers. This was one of her main purpose of celebrating Mothers Day.

Mothers Day is meant to give due honor to the woman who gave us birth and life. Though we often have the feeling of gratitude towards our mothers we do not confess it often. Mothers Day is celebrated to share those feeling with our mothers. To spend some time with her and make her feel special. Those staying away from mothers must express their feelings of love and gratitude by writing to them or talking over phone.

Anna Jarvis: Her Disappointment with Mothers Day Commercialisation
It is poignant to note that though Miss Anna Jarvis devoted her life for the establishment of national Mothers Day but in the end she was disappointed at the way thing turned out. She was concerned with reform, not revenue. She hated the commercialisation of the day, so much so that she felt sorry for ever starting the tradition of celebrating Mothers Day.

Anna died at the age of 84 on November 24, 1948. She is interred beside her mother in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. On the day of her burial, bell on the Andrews Church in Grafton was tolled eighty-four times in her honor. The Anna Jarvis Birthplace Museum is located four miles south of Grafton on U.S. Route 119/250.

Anna Jarvis: Her Mother, Mrs. Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis
Mrs Anna M. Jarvis gave birth to 11 children but only four lived to adulthood. Inspite of the large family, Mrs Jarvis maintained an active life. She regularly participated in activities of the church and civic affairs. Her remarkable contribution to the society in which she lived was the formation of Mothers Day Work Clubs in the local churches. Mrs Anna Jarvis called on the women of Webster, Philippi, Pruntytown, Fetterman and Grafton to join the club and combat poor health and sanitation conditions that existed in those time in their neighbourhood and attributed to the high mortality rate of children. The clubs were highly successful and their role in tackling the local community problem was honored by all.

During the Civil Wars, Mrs Anna Jarvis urged the members of Mothers' Day Work Clubs to take a neutral stand and nurse both Union and Confederate soldiers. Near the end of the war, the Jarvis family moved to the larger town of Grafton, West Virginia.

In 1865, after the Civil War, Anna Jarvis organized a Mothers' Friendship Day at Pruntytown Courthouse. This was done to bring together soldiers and neighbors of all political beliefs. The event was a big success and came to be organised annually for several years to promote peace and friendship.

Mrs Anna Jarvis was also an active member of the church. She took charge of the primary department of the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church school when the church was completed in 1873. For more than two decades, she taught the students of the school. Mrs Jarvis was also a renowned speaker of her times. Her lectures were quite popular in the church

After the death of her husband, Granville E. Jarvis, in 1902, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis moved with her daughters, Anna and Lillie, to Philadelphia to live with her son, Claude. Mrs. Jarvis died at the age of 72 on May 9, 1905. She was interred in the West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. On the day she was laid to rest, the bell of Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton was tolled seventy-two times in her honor. 

Mother's Day History Earliest History of Mothers Day

Mother's Day History

Origin of Mother's Day goes back to the era of ancient Greek and Romans. But the roots of Mother's Day history can also be traced in UK where a Mothering Sunday was celebrated much before the festival saw the light of the day in US. However, the celebration of the festival as it is seen today is a recent phenomenon and not even a hundred years old. Thanks to the hard work of the pioneering women of their times, Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis that the day came into existence. Today the festival of Mothers day is celebrated across 46 countries (though on different dates) and is a hugely popular affair. Millions of people across the globe take the day as an opportunity to honor their mothers, thank them for their efforts in giving them life, raising them and being their constant support and well wisher.

Earliest History of Mothers Day
The earliest history of Mothers Day dates back to the ancient annual spring festival the Greeks dedicated to maternal goddesses. The Greeks used the occasion to honor Rhea, wife of Cronus and the mother of many deities of Greek mythology.

Ancient Romans, too, celebrated a spring festival, called Hilaria dedicated to Cybele, a mother goddess. It may be noted that ceremonies in honour of Cybele began some 250 years before Christ was born. The celebration made on the Ides of March by making offerings in the temple of Cybele lasted for three days and included parades, games and masquerades. The celebrations were notorious enough that followers of Cybele were banished from Rome.

Early Christians celebrated a Mother's Day of sorts during the festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent in honor of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ. In England the holiday was expanded to include all mothers. It was then called Mothering Sunday.

History of Mother's Day: Mothering Sunday
The more recent history of Mothers Day dates back to 1600s in England. Here a Mothering Sunday was celebrated annually on the fourth Sunday of Lent (the 40 day period leading up to Easter) to honor mothers. After a prayer service in church to honor Virgin Mary, children brought gifts and flowers to pay tribute to their own mothers.

On the occasion, servants, apprentices and other employees staying away from their homes were encouraged by their employers to visit their mothers and honor them. Traditionally children brought with them gifts and a special fruit cake or fruit-filled pastry called a simnel. Yugoslavs and people in other nations have observed similar days.

Custom of celebrating Mothering Sunday died out almost completely by the 19th century. However, the day came to be celebrated again after World War II, when American servicemen brought the custom and commercial enterprises used it as an occasion for sales.

History of Mother's Day: Julia Ward Howe
The idea of official celebration of Mothers day in US was first suggested by Julia Ward Howe in 1872. An activist, writer and poet Julia shot to fame with her famous Civil War song, "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Julia Ward Howe suggested that June 2 be annually celebrated as Mothers Day and should be dedicated to peace. She wrote a passionate appeal to women and urged them to rise against war in her famous Mothers Day Proclamation, written in Boston in 1870. She also initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June in Boston and held the meeting for a number of years. Julia tirelessly championed the cause of official celebration of Mothers Day and declaration of official holiday on the day. Her idea spread but was later replaced by the Mothers' Day holiday now celebrated in May.

History of Mother's Day: Anna Jarvis
Anna Jarvis is recognised as the Founder of Mothers Day in US. Though Anna Jarvisnever married and never had kids, she is also known as the Mother of Mothers Day, an apt title for the lady who worked hard to bestow honor on all mothers.

Anna Jarvis got the inspiration of celebrating Mothers Day from her own mother Mrs Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis in her childhood. An activist and social worker, Mrs Jarvis used to express her desire that someday someone must honor all mothers, living and dead, and pay tribute to the contributions made by them.

A loving daughter, Anna never forgot her mothers word and when her mother died in 1905, she resolved to fulfill her mothers desire of having a mothers day. Growing negligent attitude of adult Americans towards their mothers and a desire to honor her mothers soared her ambitions.

To begin with Anna, send Carnations in the church service in Grafton, West Virginia to honor her mother. Carnations were her mothers favorite flower and Anna felt that they symbolised a mothers pure love. Later Anna along with her supporters wrote letters to people in positions of power lobbying for the official declaration of Mothers Day holiday. The hard work paid off. By 1911, Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state in the Union and on May 8, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

History of Mother's Day: Present Day Celebrations
Today Mothers Day is celebrated in several countries including US, UK, India, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan and Belgium. People take the day as an opportunity to pay tribute to their mothers and thank them for all their love and support. The day has become hugely popular and in several countries phone lines witness maximum traffic. There is also a tradition of gifting flowers, cards and others gift to mothers on the Mothers Day. The festival has become commercialised to a great extent. Florists, card manufacturers and gift sellers see huge business potential in the day and make good money through a rigorous advertising campaign.

It is unfortunate to note that Ms Anna Jarvis, who devoted her life for the declaration of Mothers Day holiday was deeply hurt to note the huge commercialisation of the day.