Apply The 80/20 Rule To Everything In Time And Life Management

Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?

The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the Pareto Principle after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the “vital few,” the top 20% in terms of money and influence, and the “trivial many,” the bottom 80%.

The Great Discovery
He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this Pareto Principle as well.

For example, this rule says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results. 20% of your customers will account for 80% of your sales. 20% of your products or services will account for 80% of your profits. 20% of your tasks will account for 80% of the value of what you do, and so on.

This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth as much or more than the other eight items put together.

The Greatest Payoff
Here is an interesting discovery. Each of these tasks may take the same amount of time to accomplish. But one or two of those tasks will contribute five or ten times the value as any of the others.

Often, one item on a list of ten things that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the one that you should do first.

The Most Valuable Tasks
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80% while you still have tasks in the top 20% left to be done.

Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?”

Getting Started
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you seem to be naturally motivated to continue. There is a part of your mind that loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.

Managing Your Life
Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control over the sequence of events. Time management is control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.

Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.

Action Exercises
Make a list of all the key goals, activities, projects and responsibilities in your life today. Which of them are, or could be, in the top 10% or 20% of tasks that represent, or could represent, 80% or 90% of your results?

Resolve today that you are going to spend more and more of your time working in those few areas that can really make a difference in your life and career, and less and less time on lower value activities.

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10 Less Stressful Ways to Get Your Daily Work Done

“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.”
Jose Ortega y Gasset

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle

It is early morning. You’ve had your breakfast and done your morning routine.

So you head out into your day. And in a short while you’ll sit down in school or at your job and get started with your daily work.

But how can you get that work done in a way that is less stressful, less energy consuming and simply a bit smarter?

Today I’d like to share 10 tips that have helped me with that. I hope you will find something here that will help you too to simplify and relaxify your own daily work.


Do just one thing at a time. It will help you to get your task all the way to done, to feel less stressed and confused and you’ll do a better job compared to if you multi-task things. And if you feel stressed and overwhelmed during your day then you can tell yourself this simple thing to regain focus and inner clarity again.

Keep a minimalistic workspace. It makes it easier to keep your focus and attention in the right place and to keep your thinking clear. I keep a workspace with just a small wooden desk, a chair and my laptop and a glass of water or mug of tea on that desk.

Go slow. One good way to do more focused work is to go a bit slower than you may usually do. I have also found that by just doing something at a slower pace it feels less like a mental burden and so I am less likely to procrastinate.

Eliminate. From time to time ask yourself: what one task during my day or week can I simply eliminate and not do with few or no consequences? It’s easy to just keep doing everything simply because “you should” or because you’ve always done so. So question how you go about things to free up energy and time. There is often room to at least simplify a bit through elimination.

Cycle 100% focused work with 100% full rest. This is a big one for me. By doing things this way you’ll help yourself to keep your mental sharpness and energy up for the whole day and workweek. I do this by setting my egg-timer for 30 minutes (or sometimes 15 minutes).
During those minutes I only focus on the one task at hand and it becomes easier to do so because I know that I only have to do it for this limited time period. When the egg-timer rings I leave my work for 5-15 minutes. During those minutes I focus only on resting by having a snack, taking a short walk or by relaxing with my eyes closed on the couch.

Don’t beat yourself up when things don’t go as planned. Instead, be kind to yourself and smart with your energy and ask yourself: what is one thing I can learn from this? Use what you can learn to do things better and to avoid making the same mistake in the future. It’s a better use of your time than spending it on regretting a past that you cannot change anyway.

Let emails and other online checking wait until the end of the workday. Or at least for a few hours. Don’t start your day with going through your email – if possible – because it can add a lot of stress and suck away your limited energy and attention early in the day. It can also make it hard to even find enough time for your most important tasks if you get too distracted by your inbox.

Limit your daily information input. Regularly unsubscribe to blogs, podcasts, forums and email newsletters that doesn’t add much value to your life anyway. Keep only the most helpful, funny, inspiring and best ones. This very simple thing can free up quite a bit of both time and attention during the course of a month.

Ask yourself questions every day that help you to find your focus.It’s so easy to get off track during a day. To stay on it or to get back there if you get lost use one – or both – of my own favorite questions:
What is the most important thing I can do right now? And what would I work on if I only had 2 hours for work today? If you like, write these questions down on a note and put that note where you cannot avoid seeing it during your day.

Focus mostly on the how to and not so much on the what-ifs.Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis, overthinking and in the worry and lack of self-esteem that usually comes from those destructive thoughts. Instead, focus on what you actually can do, on what action you can take to move forward.
Empower yourself by asking yourself: What is one small step I can take right now to move forward towards my goal or out of this situation?

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25 Simple Ways to Motivate Yourself

Feeling less than motivated all too often? I do. Well, perhaps not too often. But sometimes I just feel really lazy and unmotivated.

Want some practical solutions to that universal motivation-problem? Here are 25 of them. Try a handful.

Let me know which ones work well for you.

I’m sure you’ll find at least one or two that do just that among these suggestions.


1. Make a deal with yourself. Good for overcoming procrastination and getting things done. You can make the deal small or large. You simple tell yourself something like: When I’m done with this chapter/these reports I can take a walk in the park and enjoy an ice-cream.


2. Act like it. If you don’t feel motivated or enthusiastic then act like it. The strange thing is that within a few minutes you actually start to feel motivated or enthusiastic for real.


3. Ask uplifting questions in the morning. Here’s what you do; every morning ask yourself five empowering three-part questions this way:


What am I ______ about in my life right now?
What about it makes me _______?
How does it make me feel?

Put in your own value in the blank space. For instance, a couple of my questions are:

What am I happy about in my life right now?
What am I excited about in my life right now?

It’s important that you really feel how it makes you feel. When I think about the last part about what makes me happy right now I really feel it. These morning questions are great because the way they are set up makes you recognize things you take for granted and then they really get you to feel those positive feelings.


4. Move the goalposts. Set a large and specific goal. This will motivate you much more than small goals. A big goal has a big effect and can create a lot of motivation.


5. Do something small and create a flow. Just clean your desk. Or pay your bills. Or wash the dishes. You just need to get started. When you have finished that small task you’ll feel more alert and ready to go do the next thing. You just to get started to get motivated. So if you really don’t feel like doing anything, start with something small and work your way out up.


6. Do the toughest task first. This will ease a lot of your day-to-day worries and boost your self-confidence for the rest of the day. Read more about doing the hardest task bright and early right here.


7. Start slow. Instead of jumping into something at full speed start slow. When you do that your mind will not visualize the task as something hard that you have to do fast, fast, fast. If your mind sees such things guess what often happens? Yep, you don’t get started. Actually getting started, even if it’s at a slow pace, is a whole lot better than not getting started at all.


8. Compare yourself with yourself. Not with others. Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation. There are always people ahead of you. Most likely quite a bit of people. And a few of them are miles ahead. So focus on you. On your results. And how you can and have improved them.

Reviewing your results is important so you see where you have gone wrong in the past to avoid similar missteps further on. But it’s also important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come. Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review.

9. Remember your successes. And let them flow through your mind instead of your failures. Write down your successes. Consider using a journal of some kind since it’s easy to forget your successes.

10. Act like your heroes. Read about them, watch them, listen to them. Discover what they did that was special and what made them tick. But remember that they are people just like us. So let them inspire you instead of looking up at them admiringly.

11. Remember to have fun. Or create fun in a task. Then you’ll stay motivated to do and finish it.


12. Get out of your comfort zone. Face your challenges to get a real boost of motivation. If you are holding yourself back have a look at 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear and the methods in this article. They can help you get started and take that first scary step outside your comfort zone.


13. Don’t fear failure. Instead redefine it as feedback and as a natural part of a successful life. As Michael Jordan said:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Also, try to find the valuable lesson(s) in each of your failures. Ask yourself: What can I learn from this?

14. Do some research on what you are about to do. Then your expectations will be more grounded in reality and you can also get good hints on what difficulties that you might run into along the way. Managing your expectations can lower the often almost explosive initial enthusiasm. But it can also lessen the lack of motivation that usually follows when most of that enthusiasm has dissipated.

When you know what has happened to others in similar situations – what path they have walked – you can adapt and try their solutions (and personal variations of those) and your own. This makes the worries and challenges easier to handle. Both emotionally – since you know at least some of the things that will happen and that others have lived through it before – and practically.


15. Figure out why you are doing something. If you don’t know or don’t have good enough reason to do something then it will be hard to get it done. Do things that you have really strong reasons to do. If you want to do something then figure out a good reason to do it. If you can’t find one consider dropping it and doing something that you have a good reason to do instead.


16. Write down your goals and reasons for working towards them. Tape them on your wall, computer or bathroom mirror. Then you’ll be reminded throughout the day and it becomes easier to stay on track and stay focused.


17. Take The Positivity Challenge! Learn to think more positively most of the time. Learn to let to go of negative threads of thought before they have a chance to take hold of you. You might not be able to be positive all the time no matter what happens. But I think most of us can improve on our positive thinking and the results it can lead us to. Perhaps more than you realize right now.

18. Cut down on TV. Do you watch it too much? Watch less of what they are doing in TV-land and do more of what you want to do in life.


19. Break it down. Break down your task or project into small steps. And just start with focusing on that first small step. When you are done move on to the next and just focus on that one. The small successes will keep your motivation up and keeping your focus away from the big picture stops you from becoming overwhelmed and discouraged. It’s amazing how much you can get done if you follow this simple method.


20. Reprogram your information intake. Program out negative and cynical thoughts from the media and society. Reduce your information intake. Then program in positive news and entertainment, more of your own thoughts and useful information such as personal growth tapes and books. Be selective and keep it positive.


21. Make use of your creativity. Take out a piece of paper. Write at the top of the page what area in your life you would like to have more ideas about. Perhaps you want ideas to earn more money or become a healthier person. Then brainstorm until you have written down 20 ideas on that topic. Then try for 10 more. Not all ideas will be good. But some will. And as you make use of your creativity you not only discover useful ideas. You also discover just how creative you can be if you try and how motivating and great that feels.

22. Find out what makes you happy. Then do that. As much as you want or can.

23. Listen while you’re on the move. Build your own small library of motivational/personal development tapes. Listen to them while you are driving, riding the bus or your bike, while you are out running or walking. Take a peek at my recommended personal development products if you are looking for a good place to start.


24. Think outside your box. Don’t imagine the future from the box of what you have now. Just because your mind is in box of previous experiences doesn’t mean that´s the limits of the world. Your possibilities are much larger. Create the future from the now and from nothing rather than your past to experience bigger changes with fewer limitations than you would if you created it from what you can see from your box.


25. Make each day count. We don’t have all the time in the world. So focus on today and do the things you really want to do.

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5 Tips from Billionaires to Help Achieve High Productivity

There are a ton of viral articles out there that are about “habits of millionaires” or“habits of successful people.”

Quite frankly, they are a bit plain and overdone.


5 Billionaire’s Tips to Achieve High Productivity

This advice comes directly from dozens of interviews and books by billionaires I have consumed. I decided to get advice from only the best of the best.

Here are 5 tips from billionaires on how to achieve high productivity:

1. Keep Your Calendar Simple

Keep your calendar clear and organized. Rather than having hundreds of complicated tasks on there, simplify it to the most important. Drop the rest.

The average person has many low-priority tasks that distract them on their calendar. It’s not a good idea to stuff your calendar with a thousand, small random tasks.

Warren Buffett has mentioned this many times in interviews.

Bill Gates has remarked about how amazing this is after learning it from Warren. Bill has used it himself since then.


2. Do What’s Most Important First

Your most important task should be done first when you start the day.

Average people fill their day with unimportant tasks. The start of their day is filled with tasks that could have gone undone and had minimal impact.

By the end of the day, their most important tasks are still incomplete and often pushed off until tomorrow. This leads to further procrastination and small results.

They were busy but not effective or impactful. You don’t want to be the person who does busywork to look busy rather than strategic, smart work.

Warren Buffett’s pilot, Mike Flint, learned this lesson after talking to Buffett.


Mike learned that the biggest threat to finishing the #1 most important task on your list is #2, #3, #4, #5, and so on. Throw out the other tasks until you finish #1.


3. Delegate Lower Priority Tasks

If your time is worth $50 an hour, every hour you waste doing tasks that can be outsourced for much less is a waste of time.

Do you know why billionaires don’t shop for groceries or cook themselves?

Part of the reason is because they can afford to. But according to billionaires like Richard Branson, part of the reason is because it’s an inefficient use of their time.

According to the book 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, failing to delegate low cost tasks can cost you tons of money.

If your time is worth $1000 an hour, you shouldn’t spend an hour a week buying groceries because you can get the same result in less time and earn more money.

Pay someone $20 an hour to do it for you and spend that time you bought back working. You have now earned $980 after expenses rather than losing an hour doing it yourself without earning anything.

OK, so you might not be making as much as $1000 an hour. But the same thought process can apply to how you spend your time. If your time is worth $25 an hour, how much time are you wasting at work and at home goofing off? 

4. Find Your Peak Performance Environment

People are different. Your most productive environment may be different from someone else’s.

Look for what time of day and what type of surroundings are you most productive in.
For example, some people find that they do the most creative work in loud, crowded coffee shops. Others prefer complete, isolated silence. Some people are most alert and focused in the mornings, while others do better late at night.

Build your environment and schedule to fit your optimal levels of performance.


5. Plan Out What You Will Do

According to the book, top performing billionaires plan out what they will do next ahead of time.

Plan out what you will do tomorrow and the next week. You can save hours of time by working more efficiently from the plans you made.

Without proper planning, your disorganization will cost you efficient moments of optimal workflow.

You’ll be confused and unsure of what to do. You’ll spend extra time trying to figure out what’s more important. You will be dazzled if you get interrupted and unsure where to resume.


Conclusion

There should be no excuses. Anyone is capable of turning these productivity tips into habits. I think the reasons people don’t are the lack of awareness and laziness.

Remember to keep your calendar simple, do what’s most important first, delegate lower priority tasks, find your best environment, and plan out what you will do next.
Are you as productive as a billionaire? Leave a comment below.

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How to Adopt A Productive Mindset

Everybody knows we live in an age of distraction. We have so many different things vying for our attention that it’s hard to focus on any one thing, let alone make progress on the multitude of tasks we have on our plates.

A lot of productivity advice would tell you that you need to cut out the distractions. If email or social media are distracting you, simply get away from them or use a program to block them for the amount of time you need to complete a task.

Here’s the problem: Being distraction-free doesn’t equal productivity. I’m a writer, and as a writer, I’m always working on building my platform and trying to connect with potential readers on social media. But there are times when I need to disconnect and just write.

How to Adopt A Productive Mindset

But just because you get away from the distractions doesn’t mean you’ll be productive with the time you have. As a writer, for example, it’s easy to justify doing anything other than writing as research or creative thinking.

We start to think that if we’re doing something, then we’re being productive. But you can work really hard at the wrong things, fooling yourself into thinking that you’re moving forward when you’re really just spinning your wheels.

The key to productivity is adopting a productive mindset and learning how to focus your creative energy on the things that matter.


1. Know Your Why

Leadership expert Simon Sinek says in his book Start with Why that “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” Sinek’s book is all about discovering the why that drives productivity and effectiveness.

There’s a why behind everything that we do, but it’s not always a conscious why. We eat breakfast in the morning probably because we’re hungry, but we don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about the purpose behind our desire to eat breakfast.

Having a productive mindset starts with identifying why you do the things you do.
Why are you writing that blog post?
Why are you contacting that client?
Why are you creating that product?

Questions like these force you to do some serious evaluation of your priorities because you’ll discover that the reason why you do some things isn’t a good enough reason to continue doing those things.

Knowing your why involves looking at your productivity strategy and identifying exactly what you hope to accomplish with all that you do and what motivates you to do it.


Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to move into the next step, which requires you to eliminate some of the things you do that aren’t aiding in your productivity.

2. Identify the Tasks that Make You the Most Productive

Any productivity system inevitably includes making a list at some point of all the tasks you have to do. This is good practice because it allows you to see on paper what you’re spending your creative energies on. It also forces you to see obvious disconnects between the more important things you do and the less important.

What are the tasks that make you the most productive?

Working hard isn’t enough to be successful at doing what you love because you can work hard at things that are only drying up your creative energy instead of creating results.

You have to identify the things that are most worth your time because they’re the most rewarding in terms of productivity.

If you’re a teacher and you want to learn how to better engage students in your class, researching engagement methods can be good, but there can also be a point when researching is only a practice in inactivity.

You have to identify what is going to be most productive for your context, which will likely include identifying the needs and interests of your students rather than reading about the strategies other teachers have used on their students.

Whatever it is you do for a living, identify the tasks that will make you the most productive in your professional arena.


3. Focus Your Creative Energy by Challenging Yourself

Once you have a list of the tasks that will make you the most productive, you need a strategy for actually completing those tasks. This is where going above and beyond the simple elimination of distractions is vital.

If you really want to get tasks completed, you have to challenge yourself. Tap into your naturally competitive nature and use it to your advantage.

Set a timer for a specific amount of time and challenge yourself to complete as much of a task as you can within that time frame. Of course, you want to complete the task well, so avoid using the timer as an excuse to do mediocre work.

Challenging yourself to complete a task in a certain amount of time assumes that you’ll be free of distractions.

Distractions would get in the way of reaching your goal.

A timed runner doesn’t stop to play a game or send a text message in the middle of a race because she realizes those distractions would only hinder her ability to reach her goal.

For a specific timing strategy, you might want to check out the Pomodoro Technique, which involves alternating between timed working on a task followed by a short break before the next dive back into the task.


“CHALLENGE YOURSELF EVERYDAY TO DO BETTER AND BE BETTER. REMEMBER, GROWTH STARTS WITH A DECISION TO MOVE BEYOND YOUR PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES.” – ROBERT TEW


4. Be Passionate About Results

A productive mindset requires a high degree of commitment to getting the job done. When the process makes you weary, it’s the results and your why that will drive you to keep going.

As a writer, it can be really easy to give up in the middle of a story because the process is starting to feel slow and unrewarding. But the story isn’t finished, and the only way I can see the result of a finished story is to keep going.

If you’re lucky, you’ll love what you do, but don’t focus too much on loving what you do because on some days, you won’t.

On those days, you still need to be productive, so when you’re not passionate about the process, at least be passionate about the results so that you’ll keep going to see the results in the end.

If you want to be more productive, you have to start with adopting a productive mindset. You’ll only make things happen when you begin to focus your creative energy on the things that matter.


How did you adopt a productive mindset?

And if you still haven’t done so, which of the points above do you think was most important?

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How to Approach Tasks You Really Hate Doing & Win

Everyone needs to do things they hate from time to time.

It might be anything from basic chores to a dull part of an otherwise interesting project. Those who get things finished know how to push through the tasks they hate in order to work on what they love.

Nobody is immune to procrastination, and even the most hardworking people around have their weak moments. While procrastination happens occasionally with neutral tasks, it’s a common problem people go through when facing things they really hate doing.


How to Approach Tasks You Hate Doing

Here are 9 strategies to help you find the motivation for doing tasks you hate and win every time you push them to completion.

1. Create a To-do List & Tackle Your Hardest Tasks First

To-do lists are the single best solution for making sense of your work and daily life.

Organization and scheduling is much easier if you’ve got a daily, weekly, or monthly to-do list as your point of reference.

Most of the time, you’ll spot your least favorite tasks at the very bottom of your to-do list. The trick to getting these done is simply moving them to the top.

This way you’ll gain a boost of motivation when thinking about more pleasant things that come right after the hard part.

Moreover, after completing your hardest tasks, everything else will look very easy in comparison. In other words, your to-do list will become a downhill ride.


2. Give Your Tasks More Depth

Boring tasks are annoying because they’re very narrow and don’t allow you to be creative.

A good solution to this problem is giving your task more depth. This is how you’ll make it more interesting and become focused on the task, consequently completing it faster than ever before.


CONSIDER YOUR ACTIVITY AS AN ART FORM THAT DESERVES TO BE MASTERED.

Instead of seeing it as an on-off kind of task, look at the potential ways in which you could achieve more in less time. Take small steps to make the task more enjoyable and always look for smart ways to optimize it.

3. Measure Time Spent on Various Tasks

One of the best methods to stop wasting time is to start measuring it. Record how many hours you spend on various activities during your day and put them all into a chart.

Every time you look at this chart, you’ll want to keep it moving in the right direction. That’s how you get a powerful motivation boost for your work. If you procrastinate, you’ll see its consequences right in front of you.

If you’re facing a series of things you absolutely need to do but don’t enjoy, create a chart to keep track of the time you spend on working towards their completion. This anti-procrastination technique is excellent if you’re having a bad week and can’t find the motivation for tackling the hardest or dullest tasks in your schedule.


4. Come up With Another Goal

Transforming an awful task into something pleasant isn’t always an option. But you still need to get it done. This is where you can use your objectives as effective leverage.

Instead of despairing over your activity, try to think about it in broader terms. How does it relate to your final objective? What is its meaning for your bigger picture of success?

This perspective will help you to see the task in a different light and get a motivation boost when you realize that it’s necessary for reaching your final goal.

Remind yourself of this goal once in a while to push through the things that you don’t find that exciting.


5. Set a Timer

If you need to complete a short mindless task, set a timer to ensure that you get it done as quickly as possible.

Create a specific window of time and you’ll be challenged to keep your focus throughout the activity. This way you’ll also get to more pleasant tasks sooner.

6. Make the Most Out of Your Time

Sometimes the most boring tasks are those which involve waiting, driving around, or mindless repetition of the same activity. Use this time to do something meaningful

If you’re stuck in traffic, listen to calming music or audio-books. If you’re waiting for an appointment, read a book or meditate. Listen to an interesting podcast while folding your laundry.

You can actively prevent this time from going to waste by adopting these habits that allow to live a fuller and more mindful life.


7. Focus on Your Task

If you think that getting over with a task as quickly as possible is a measure against procrastination, you’re making a huge mistake. This kind of attitude actually prevents people from getting started at all.

One way to stomach the unpleasant activity is to simply focus on it. Sometimes intense focus can help you start loving tasks you previously hated.


COMMIT TO THIS ACTIVITY AND INVEST ALL YOUR ENERGY TO CONCENTRATE ON IT.

Instead of thinking about all things you could be doing instead of this one, focus and do your best to complete it as efficiently as you can. Who knows, maybe you’ll start enjoying it in the process?


8. Break it Into Smaller Parts

Getting started is where things get difficult. We generally like to avoid tasks we hate for as long as possible. When we finally get started, we might get stuck for ages.

That’s why the key to boosting productivity lies in making it easier to get started. If an activity looks intimidating, you should break it into smaller components and commit to every single one of them.

If you’re a writer, set yourself a goal of one paragraph a day. This will make your task seem less daunting and give you motivation to complete the job once you stop actively avoiding it.


9. Delegate Tasks You Hate to Other People

Look around and you’ll inevitably find people in your life who could help you with these activities. If you build an image of yourself as too capable, others might easily start taking advantage of your ability and willingness to work on such tasks.

If you can’t find anyone to whom you could delegate your tasks, why not hire somebody to do them for you? Sure, it’s not a solution that will work for every kind of activity, but if the tasks in question can be outsourced, and you can afford it – just go for it.

This is especially valuable for managing tasks which are time-consuming. Just think of all the time you’ll gain to spend on other, more profitable or enjoyable activities. Plus, by hiring someone you’ll be helping them out as well.


Summary

Use these strategies and you’ll be on your way to getting more work done, consequently gaining more time for rest and doing things you really love.

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10 Crazy Ideas to Help Discover Motivation in Life

Motivation is elusive at times, so each one of us has been challenged to find it when it escapes us. Whether it is for a specific work assignment or simply to move life forward, motivation is an essential feature of high productivity and meaningful output. As a result, we lean on a variety of techniques to keep motivation high and continually adapt our approach to staying inspired. When motivation runs dry, use the following tips to turn things around.

Set a Mini-Goal

Success begets motivation, so setting yourself up to win a small battle is a great way to support ongoing productivity. The morale boost from a minor win creates momentum, which can be all that’s required to ramp-up motivation levels. When tackling a work project, for example, carve-out a short-term benchmark you can easily reach. And if that is not enough to spark a roll, move through subsequent tasks in the same way. Eventually, sustained motivation will set-in, seeing the project to completion.



Turn to Past Success

When frustration or self-doubt get in the way of motivation, turn your focus to things you have done well in the past. Reminding yourself of what you’re capable of is often all that’s required to restore forward thinking and ramp-up motivation levels. In fact, sometimes you can pull lessons directly from your past successes, to be applied to ongoing projects.

Compete

Playing a game or competing in a sporting event stimulates motivation. Pitting yourself against others or even against yourself in a solo sport stirs natural internal responses, which motivate you in all areas of life. Win or lose, competitive juices motivate you to perform at peak levels.

Find Help

Motivation and inspiration are infectious, so leaning on helpers can be a strong force for revving-up your own enthusiasm. Even tapping an associate’s or co-workers expertise for a single piece of the puzzle can be enough to boost your motivation tackling the other aspects of a project.

Get back to Nature

Though it represents a stark contrast to business environments and other fast-paced parts of modern life, nature has an amazing restorative impact on motivation. Walks through the park or a more intensive hike, for example, expose you to inspirational features of nature, which are easily carried to tasks you need to complete. Taking-in the larger picture this way inspires reflection capable of motivating observers to get excited about their own places in the universe.

Study Mentors

When struggling with your own output, it can be beneficial to study examples of the type of work you wish you were producing. Formal mentors can help with motivation directly, by sharing experiences and helping tweak your trajectory. But even studying respected colleagues from afar yields clues to what motivates them and keeps them on track.

Change your Scenery

Sometimes work environments become stale and uninspiring, calling for a change of scenery to boost motivation levels. If possible, shake things up by changing your environment, which can itself stir inspiration. Travel, for example, stimulates worldly feelings, which can be beneficial to self-motivation. And though it is not always possible to get away when motivation wanes, there are nonetheless worthy options found locally, allowing you to stay on-point with assigned work tasks. If you telecommute, for example, try heading-in to the office for a day or two to mix things up. Or if a cubicle stands in the way of motivation, seek permission to deliver remotely, enabling you to complete work assignments at home, the library, or some other inspiring location.

Get Fit

Mind and body are inextricably linked, so motivation levels are influenced by physical fitness as well as mental fortitude. If you find your productivity and inspiration slipping, account for your physical approach alongside the mental exercises you tap to increase motivation. Start slow, to get your blood flowing and synch your and and body. Once positive results are felt, it becomes easier to engage in exercise as a motivational force. Walks and other low-impact movements should not be underestimated for the benefits they bring.

Do the Opposite

Human beings undeniably get in ruts, reinforcing patterns that can be hard to break from. When your motivation slips as a result of sameness, try changing your approach with a radical departure from the status quo. By acting contrary to your standard approach, you’ll open new perspectives and channels of understanding. Even if you determine your original take on things is the best one available, it serves to reinforce your confidence, motivating you to keep up the good work.

Be Forgiving

Second-guessing your methods and performance can be enough to thwart motivation and hold you at a standstill. Rather than becoming mired in negative introspection, forgive periods of diminished motivation with a clear eye toward brighter days. This forward-thinking frame of mind helps you get beyond life’s inevitable speed bumps into positive territory that supports achieving your goals.

Motivation ebbs and flows throughout the course of daily life, and it doesn’t always synch with your personal and professional responsibilities. When motivation dips at the wrong time, it pays to reevaluate your approach using these helpful tips. In the end, jump-starting motivation levels leads to ongoing success for those able to move beyond trying times.

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How to Defeat Procrastination & Start Being A Go-Getter

We have all been there. You have a major deadline or task to do, and yet you sit around and waste hours of your precious time on Netflix or some other time wasting endeavor.

We try to console our mind by saying we have enough time to do it later on, but all we are doing is treating our mind with cookies and letting it become a ‘Couch Potato’.

How to Defeat Procrastination

If you don’t defeat procrastination, you are prone to wasting thousands of hours of precious time that could have been used for improving your health, building a business or any other major goal you have.

Procrastination, if untreated, will suck the motivation out of your life stage by stage. It is like cancer.

To avoid procrastination and become a High-Flying Go Getter, follow the following 7 steps that have helped me become a highly efficient individual.

Step 1: Use The “5 Goals Per Day” Technique

This should be your first step towards annihilating your procrastination habit. The technique will help you build discipline (which is the opposite of procrastination).

Here is how to use the “5 Goals Per Day” method:
Before going to sleep or every morning, set yourself 5 ultimate daily goals that you must accomplish before going to bed that day.
The Goals must not be huge, because if the goal is too huge and you don’t accomplish all your goals by the end of the day, you are only feeding your mind thoughts of you being a weak person.
For example, if I wanted to build a blog, my daily goals would be “Write 500 words today” or “Read chapter 2 of how to build a blog”. They are small but require effort.

Note: Whatever you do, make sure that you accomplish those 5 goals at the end of the day. You defeat procrastination by proving to your brain that you can accomplish goals and are a strong individual.


Step 2: Find Your “Optimum Efficiency” Time

Your optimum efficiency time is the time where you are most inclined to work and put in effort.

Are you a night owl or an early bird?

Well, if you already know what time you are most effective at, then you can jump this step.
If not, I have a defined plan that will help you find out. Here it is:

1. Sleep 8-10 Hours; Wake up early (5-7AM); Take a bath and start 

accomplishing your tasks.

Are you concentrated?
Are you yawning a lot?
Do you accomplish at least 75% of your goals…

Evaluate your results and if you were energetic and efficient, then, you are an early bird! High-Five!! That’s me too! If not…

2. Sleep 8-10 Hours; Wake Up; Take A Bath; Do your daily tasks until it becomes night time and start accomplishing your tasks.

Ask yourself the above questions I mentioned before.

Evaluate your results and see if you were efficient. If yes, then you are a night owl!
If both times are not your optimum time, then try noon, afternoon… and evaluate your results.


Step 3: Use The “Pomodoro” technique or an adaption of it

If you haven’t heard of the Pomodoro technique, here is a simple explanation:
Work for 25 minutes and take 5-minute break
Repeat
Repeat again, but now take 15-minute break
Now Repeat from the Top.

What makes this method effective are those 5-minutes breaks. They are basically rewards for working 25 minutes.

Now, you can change this technique by making an adaption of it, but I advise as a beginner, you don’t lengthen the 5-minute break part. It is a sweet spot.


Step 4: Make Sure Your Working Space Is Organized
Yes, it might not seem like a big deal, but if your working space is dirty and unorganized, you will lose concentration and motivation.

Make sure your table is well lit, well-spaced and well organized. Make sure everything you need to accomplish your goal is on the desk before you even start working.

When I am talking about organization, I am also talking about your computer. A disorganized computer can feed your procrastination like nothing else.

Step 5: Stop Multi-Tasking

This expands on the previous step. Even though, many people say that multi-tasking is effective, it actually hinders your effectiveness.

When you doing an important task on your PC/laptop, make sure you don’t open 12 tabs at once. It will casually lead to you opening another tab of YouTube, Facebook or some other time wasting endeavor.

This also relates to goals. Don’t focus on two of your goals at once. Make sure you finish and concentrate fully on the first goal before going on towards your next goal.

Step 6: Have One Major Long-Term Goal

On the first step, we discussed laying out daily goals that will help you become efficient, but what is also important is having one long term goal that you can focus 110% on.

How long should a Long-Term Goal be?

Well… in my eyes, the perfect long term goal should be between 3-6 months. The reason this time interval is effective is because it is not too far away as to inspire procrastination or too short to cause stress.

In the perfect world, your daily short term goals should lead to your ultimate major long term goal.

It is fine to have unrelated daily goals, but effectively, 80% of your daily goals should be goals that build your long term goal.

For example, if my long term goal is losing 30 pounds of fat in the next 3 months, then…
My daily goals would be similar to the following:
Track my calories
Full Body Workout
Drink 2L of Water…

Step 7: Do What You Hate First

In the perfect world, all your goals and tasks are going to be things you absolutely love doing, but we aren’t in that perfect world.


As a result, you should accomplish the tougher goals before doing the easier ones.

If you start out doing the easier goals first, you will eventually burn out by the time you get to the harder tasks. And almost always, the tougher goals are the more valuable.

So before accomplishing any other goals, make sure you are obliterating the tougher goals before you move forward.

If you have extreme discipline, then this is no matter to you, but why are you reading this if you are disciplined? Right.

To build discipline and defeat procrastination, you need to prove to your mind that you are a goal-oriented individual.

Procrastination can render your life goal-less if undefeated, as a result take the above steps seriously and you will develop a goal-oriented mind in under 6 months.

You can enjoy a lazy day once in a while, but make sure you don’t get trapped into over extending your lazy day to a lazy week and then a lazy month. I am not joking; it can happen to everyone.

This is why losing fat and becoming healthy is hard. People start for a week and then decide to have one lazy day and that lazy day transforms into a lazy year and then they are back to a new year’s solutions the next year.

The cycle continues…

This is why you should start defeating your procrastination habit early on and with full vengeance.


What is the best way to defeat procrastination? Well…

It is by following the above steps, but what is the most important is having goals that you accomplish. It literally does change your life if you become a goal oriented individual.

If you don’t know how to set goals, then make sure you give this guide a read.

But what is ultimately vital is that you take action. All this steps I gave you are absolutely worthless if you don’t put them into action.

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Organization Tips: Cleaning Up Your Workspace And Your Calendar

A lot of people think that being an entrepreneur means that I can do anything I want, anytime I want. While it’s true that I don’t have a boss who dictates my schedule, that doesn’t mean I’m just free-floating all the time—as an entrepreneur, I have learned to have a lot of self-discipline and to be very organized in my business and my life. So today I’m sharing with you some of my favorite organization tips. Your business can only grow to its full potential if your space and your time are clearly organized—I hope these tips help you clear the clutter and maximize your potential!

DESIGNATE A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING

Time is money, as they say, and having an organized space will save you time. If you don’t take 10 seconds to put something in its proper place, you might lose 10 minutes looking all over for it later. When I complete a project for my DIY business, I don’t call it a day until each tool is put back into its designated space and the workshop is clean. In those moments, I’m often tired and ready to relax at that point in the day, but I motivate myself by imagining how inviting my workshop will be when I set to work on my next project—and how much time (and, therefore, money!) I’m saving in the long run.

LOOK AT YOUR SPACE THROUGH SOMEONE ELSE’S EYES

Schedule frequent meetings at your workspace, whether that’s a home office, a rented space, or a workshop. Knowing that you’ll have regular visitors will force you to keep it orderly. When we’re the only one using our space, we have a tendency to become “blind” to dirt and clutter that might accumulate over time. But as soon as someone else comes by, we suddenly see what’s overflowing or out of place. Use this fact to your advantage by regularly inviting clients and colleagues to meet with you at your workspace—the pressure to have a clean, hospitable space will compel you to keep things organized.

TRY OUT THE KONMARI METHOD

If your space really needs an overhaul, I highly recommend picking up Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. This unlikely bestseller has taken the U.S. by storm and, after finally having a look at it myself, I can understand why. Kondo’s “KonMari Method” of organization involves radically purging your home or workspace of anything that does not “spark joy.” While this criterion might seem strange for organizing an office space, its basic premise of getting rid of anything that’s not serving a purpose seems right on target. The extreme purge takes time—Kondo recommends laying everything out and methodically putting back only what you need—but it is time well spent if, as she argues, you’ll never need to do it again!

KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING—AND PARK ON A DOWNHILL SLOPE

The first three tips dealt with organizing our space; now let’s turn to how we manage our time. I force myself to make a plan in advance for each day and WRITE IT DOWN. If my plan for the next day (or at least for the first half of the day) is written down in my planner, then I don’t have to think about it for the rest of the evening. I can relax knowing that my instructions will be there waiting for me when I wake up. Sometimes I even make a point of stopping short of completing a particular task the day before so that I can begin the next day by picking up where I left off. Productivity experts call this “parking on a downhill slope,” and it can really help you start the day off with some momentum.

TURN A TO-DO LIST INTO A TO-DO SCHEDULE

A list is designed to be added to, so it can make it hard to feel satisfaction if you’re adding as much as your checking off. To remedy this, try turning your to-do list into a to-do schedule. When I consult my calendar at the start of each week, I write in my to-do’s alongside my scheduled appointments. If I assign an actual time to a task, I am far more likely to actually get that task done. Having a to-do schedule has taught me to be much more realistic about how much I can get done in a given time. Sometimes it means not having time for everything on the to-do list, but it’s better to know that in advance than feel disappointed at the end of the week. With this method, I’ve found that not only am I getting more done but also I’m more tuned in to my schedule and can therefore say yes or no to new projects with much more confidence.

PUT YOUR SCHEDULE WHERE YOU AND OTHERS CAN SEE IT

Put your important appointments/tasks on a shared, visible calendar where everyone else who matters can see it (family members, coworkers, roommates…). If you make your schedule and goals “public” in this way, you can avoid scheduling conflicts. You’ll also be more likely to complete tasks on time, because others can hold you accountable. You might share your schedule digitally, via a Google calendar or other shared site, but you can also go the try-and-true dry erase marker route. For home use, I got a magnetic wipe-off calendar from The Board Dudes with a set of markers so I can color-code based on category or person. For the office, I like their bigger and more professional-looking glass wipe-off calendar—it’ll keep you organized, give you a highly visible place to write down goals and important reminders, and look sleek if clients or collaborators come by.

STICK TO A SYSTEM

Don’t be fickle. I love organizational tools, but sometimes they work against me because I get so excited about the newest app or planner that I don’t stick with one long enough to really reap its benefits. The most important thing about an organizational system is not if it’s pen-and-paper or digital, or if it’s got flashy new bells and whistles—the most important thing is that you stick to it. So do a little bit of research to decide what approach might be best for you, and then hurry up and start using it!

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