Alex Goswami's Key Ideas from 15 Secrets Successful People Know about Time Management
by Kevin Kruse

Others choose to do the most unpleasant tasks early in the morning in what’s known as the “eat the frog first” strategy. It’s a procrastination-fighting technique that says if you have something unpleasant to do, just get it out of the way first thing. This is good advice if it defeats procrastination,

• Highly successful people don’t have a to-do list, but they do have a very well-kept calendar
• Surprisingly, the simple act of scheduling tasks on your calendar, instead of writing them on a to-do list will free your mind, reduce stress, and increase cognitive performance.

• First, schedule a chunk of time for everything that is important to you; this is called “time blocking” or “time boxing.”
• Second, important items should be scheduled as early in the day as possible. No matter how much we try to control our time and calendars, we all have things that “come up” that might need our attention.
• Third, don’t cancel goals; reschedule them if necessary.
• Fourth, treat your time-blocked calendar entries as if they were appointments with your doctor; they are that important.

In Jeff Weiner's calendar, there is a host of time slots greyed out, but with no indication of what's going on. The grey sections reflect "buffers,"

He schedule between 90 minutes and two hours of these buffers every day. It's a system, he developed over the several years in response to a schedule that was becoming so jammed with back-to-back meetings.

At first, these buffers felt like indulgences. But over time I realized not only were these breaks important, they were absolutely necessary in order for me to do my job.

The key point is not to use a to-do list as your primary time management tool. Items on a to-do list can sit there forever, constantly getting bumped by things that seem urgent in the moment. And having this list of things that still need to get done is the root cause of our underlying stress.

To beat procrastination once and for all, you have to understand it. You don’t procrastinate because you’re lazy. You procrastinate because:

• You lack enough motivation.
• You underestimate the power of present emotions versus future emotions when you set your goals or make your task list.

Ultimately, if we aren’t jumping out of bed in the morning excited to tackle our project, it’s because our dreams aren’t big enough. They aren’t motivating enough. And motivation comes down to pain and pleasure. For the tough tasks you always tend to procrastinate, think about and even visualize the “why” behind them. 

• What pleasure will I get by doing this thing? 
• What pain will I feel if I don’t do it?