The way to optimize your time so that you can achieve your goals is in the ability to do what is the most important action to take at a given time. Just getting up in the morning and doing what others have decided you should do will help achieve their goals and not yours. Even "to do lists" if not properly planned will not be all that helpful.
First you need to set your goals. Remember that this includes both business and personal goals. For action planning purposes, list the goals that need action in the next twelve months. Then, prioritize the goals. For each of these goals, write down the action steps together with start and end times wherever possible.
It is best to review the long-term goals quarterly to ensure progress and make any adjustments as needed.
You should do your planning weekly. Your appointments that have already been fixed will be inserted into your planning document first. Then review the activities of your previous week. For those that need further action, update time slots into your plan.
Once you have taken care of the daily and weekly commitments, then review your actions that you listed to achieve your goals. Insert those that are planned to start in the week for which you are planning. In this way, both short-term and long-term activities can be planned for effective handling.
The magic of documenting your weekly plan is the first victory towards actually getting down to action. When activities are not committed to a plan, it is very easy to give in to urgent short-term matters and ignore the important activities that impact your long-term goals.
The next important step is to fix a time daily to review how you have progressed. This can be the end of the day or early in a day. Make the necessary adjustments based on the progress made.
The question now will be what happens to "to do lists". Instead of having a "to do list" that never seems to finish, spread your action items across the days. You will have an idea of how much time you have left in a day, so that you can plan what you can practically finish within each day. This way you can get a sense of accomplishment as you complete your planned work, instead of the frustration of a never-ending "to do list".
If you finish your planned activities for the day, you can always pull forward actions planned for the subsequent days. If you cannot complete, then when you do your daily review, make the necessary adjustments to the following days to fill in these activities.
As you complete your activities, check them off. Indicate activities that are transferred. Activities can also be dropped and these must also be noted. There is a sense of satisfaction and control as you carry this out in a disciplined manner.
You may think that this is very restrictive. What about priority activities that come up during the day? When this happens, it makes sense to do what is most important at that moment in time. When you do your daily review, you then make the necessary adjustments to get back on track.
With this organized method of planning, acting and reviewing, you will find that you can get a lot more things done. Importantly, you will also be working towards your long-term goals as well, instead of just working on your day-to-day activities.
One other technique that successful people use is to include affirmations in their daily life. An affirmation is a word or phrase you use to remind yourself of the way you want to be. Examples of affirmations will be "Celebrate Life" and "Do It Now". Affirmations must represent something important to you. Repeat many times daily to reinforce it. It is a good idea to write your affirmations on your daily planning pages.
Why is this method very effective? Consider past actions, present actions and future actions. Future actions can only be controlled indirectly. Past actions are gone and totally outside your control. The only thing you can control is your present actions. Others can influence you but only you can control your action at a moment in time.
The only way then to optimize your time is to use each moment on the best possible action that you can be taking at that moment.
We have all set a goal at one stage of our lives or another, whether it be only once a year as a new year resolution or maybe it was a weight loss goal. Whatever it might be, we all experience different levels of success with accomplishing the goals that we success. Some achieve moderate success, while others are just abysmal failures when it comes to achieving the goals they set.
With the abundance of goal setting books out there and the number of self help/motivational gurus telling you how to dream and achieve your goals in life then why is it that so many people are still struggling to get what they want out of life.
Below you will find some common reasons why people fail to achieve their goals and hopefully you will learn to avoid making them on your journey to fulfilling your goals and dreams.
*I'll start tomorrow. This must be the line of every favorite procrastinator. They convince themselves that they will start that new diet tomorrow, they'll get their act together starting tomorrow, they'll stop spending on their credit card starting tomorrow. If you want to start a goal in motion the best time to start is yesterday. The second best time to start it is today. Stop putting off what should be done today for tomorrow because the only time you can control is the now and the present so why not start today.
*They take on to much all at once. The best way to guarantee failure is to have to many balls juggling in the air. It's almost addictive for people who consistently fail to get so overwhelmed with to many goals and things to do that they either overwhelm themselves or occupy themselves so totally with things that don't matter. You need to get clarity in your life with what is important and focus only on achieving that goal till completion. It's easy to be ?busy? for the sake of being busy but never actually getting any closer to achieving your goal.
*They don't stick to their goal. We all can get discouraged with the fact that things don't always go to plan. But you have to learn to persevere. If our parents all gave up on us after we fell down a dozen times trying to walk when we were toddlers than we would all be in a sorry state of affairs. But our parents had enough perseverance to believe that we will eventually get there with more effort and coaching that they persisted. We need to have that same level of conviction if we too are to succeed in our goals. Falling down is a normal part of learning. It's only through our failures that we learn and grow so why not fall forward and get up. At least you are that much closer to your goal. It is only the people who never stick to their goals that they never achieve anything of value in life and then wonder why they feel a sense of dissatisfaction with where they end up.
*They don't have enough accountability. We all know that we work better when we have someone that we are accountable to. We seem to rise up to the occasion and get that little extra out of ourselves. The best illustration is when we go to the gym to do a workout. We tend to always train with someone who can spot for us. It is that person that convinces us that we have one more rep left in us when everything in your head and body tells you otherwise. Ironically its these last reps where we grow the most in terms of muscle growth and strength. So when you have a goal you need to get yourself someone whom you can be accountable to. The person you pick needs to be someone who is supportive of your goals and can be strict with you to keep to your commitments. You will find an accountability partner invaluable to your success and if both of you have similar goals in mind then this is even better.
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