We accumulate so much unnecessary baggage throughout the years that we consistently need to eliminate: Ideas, Projects, Work, Objects and so forth. If you find yourself struggling to focus, try this strategy: Make your life so simple that it’s a breeze to live.

Eliminate, to gain focus

Also, if you’re more productive than average people:<ul><li>you’ll advance faster in your career</li><li>you learn more</li><li>you do more </li><li>and eventually are rewarded more</li></ul>

A productive life = A happy life 

If you want to manage your time better, you have to know where it goes first. How do you know your time? Keep an activity log. An activity log is exactly what you imagine — an hour by hour record of what you’re doing throughout the day.Boom. That’s it. Know where your time goes. Identify the critical tasks from the trivial tasks in your life. And cut the trivial, time-wasting, tasks. “That simple?” Yes. If you want to be a super effective person, you regularly keep a log.

Manage your time

Effectiveness, however, refers to getting the right things done. And if you want to do your job well, earn money, live a meaningful life, or learn skills, that is what matters the most. Otherwise, you just run around in circles. You might appear busy, but you won’t achieve anything meaningful. In other words: It’s easy to do useless work. Work that doesn’t bring you closer to the outcomes you desire.

Be effective, not busy

"Results matter the most. Practically, that means this: You might work for 50 hours a week, but if you don’t experience any growth personally, emotionally, financially, you’re not effective."

When you complain every day, eat junk food, and never work out, those things add up too. That’s how we become miserable. You almost never hear about how one single moment destroyed a person’s life. Of course, tragedies happen. But for the majority of us, we simply let life slip away from us. We decide not to do it today. Because “what’s the point?” Well, here’s the point: Life is good if you know how to live it.

Harmful things add up too

Because focusing on a single thing is one of the hardest things at work. There’s always something that interrupts you, right?Sure, you can blame those things, but everybody knows that those things can’t interrupt you without your permission. That means every time you’re not focused; you’re giving someone or something permission to enter your mind. Scary, isn’t it?

Do you give interruptions permission?

Most people are afraid to say no. Maybe you don’t want to let people down. Maybe you are uncomfortable with the word no. Doesn’t matter, really. What matters is this: If you keep saying yes, you’re living someone else’s life. Think about it. Deep down, we all know that it’s true. We’re not even in control of our own time. Want to be in full control of your life? Say no to a million things and yes to a few things that matter.

Say No

What you do today determines where you will be in a year, two years, and even ten years from now. Every single day, we keep on doing things that we don’t desire. I’m not talking about paying the bills or cleaning your toilet. I’m talking about how you invest the majority of your time. The time that sums up your life.

What you really need is a system for doing work. A lot of people shy away from routines, systems and frameworks because they want to have “freedom.” I’m sorry to disappoint you: Freedom is your enemy. The fact is that, if you want to get things done, you need rules. Some things research proved to be effective:<ul><li>Internal motivation</li><li>Self-imposed deadlines</li><li>Accountability systems</li><li>Working/studying in intervals</li><li>Exercising 30 minutes a day</li><li>A healthy diet</li></ul>

Willpower Doesn’t Work.
Systems Do.

Procrastination is not innocent behavior. It’s a sign of poor self-regulation. Researchers even compare procrastination to alcohol and drug abuse. It’s serious.The present evidence suggests that procrastinators enjoy themselves rather than working at assigned tasks, until the rising pressure of imminent deadlines forces them to get to work. In this view, procrastination may derive from a lack of self-regulation and hence a dependency on externally imposed forces to motivate work.

Procrastination is addictive

"“I suck!” No, you don’t. “Why?” You got out of bed this morning, right? “Yeah.” Congratulations. You survived this hard thing called LIFE. Be proud of yourself. Everything you do after getting out of bed is a win."

All you need to do [to increase serotonin levels] is remember positive events that have happened in your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a region just behind the prefrontal cortex that controls attention. When serotonin goes up, your focus goes up. Ultimately, that’s what you should do.

More Serotonin = More Focus

It’s easy to read an article or listen to some advice and apply it for a day. But that’s useless. We only make real progress and achieve big things by doing small things every single day. When you do the little things every day, they add up. And over time, they form big things like a strong body & mind, self-reliance, a large investment portfolio, and so forth.

Do small things every single day, they add up

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

A round-up of useful sources to refer to when willpower gets low.

books

Books

problemsolving

Problem Solving

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

timemanagement

Time Management

Beat Procrastination

Are you also tired of putting off your dreams until "tomorrow?" Guess what! Tomorrow never comes. Am I right? I've procrastinated and putt off my desire to write a book for a decade. I always came up with excuses like, "it's not the right time." Or, "I need to do more research." But in 2015 I got tired of this endless procrastination, and finally took action. Six months later, my first book was published. Look, we all have limited time on our hands. And we're getting closer to death every single minute. That shouldn't scare. That should motivate you! Time is limited, that's why we must do the things we want: Today. In this "best of" collection, I've handpicked 30 of my best articles that help you to overcome procrastination, improve your productivity, and achieve all the things you always wanted. Plus, I've written an extensive introduction about my life and work philosophy. And I've made many improvements and edits to the articles. So the content of this book is different from the articles on my site. In Do It Today, you'll learn: 1.Why we procrastinate and how we can overcome it 2.How to increase your productivity without being stressful 3.How to achieve more meaningful things in your life so you can enjoy it more Are you ready to start reading this book? If so: Do it today--not tomorrow.

productivity

Productivity

Are you also tired of putting off your dreams until "tomorrow?" Guess what! Tomorrow never comes. Am I right? I've procrastinated and putt off my desire to write a book for a decade. I always came up with excuses like, "it's not the right time." Or, "I need to do more research." But in 2015 I got tired of this endless procrastination, and finally took action. Six months later, my first book was published. Look, we all have limited time on our hands. And we're getting closer to death every single minute. That shouldn't scare. That should motivate you! Time is limited, that's why we must do the things we want: Today. In this "best of" collection, I've handpicked 30 of my best articles that help you to overcome procrastination, improve your productivity, and achieve all the things you always wanted. Plus, I've written an extensive introduction about my life and work philosophy. And I've made many improvements and edits to the articles. So the content of this book is different from the articles on my site. In Do It Today, you'll learn: 1.Why we procrastinate and how we can overcome it 2.How to increase your productivity without being stressful 3.How to achieve more meaningful things in your life so you can enjoy it more Are you ready to start reading this book? If so: Do it today--not tomorrow.

Darius Foroux (pronounced as Da-reeus Fo-roo) is the author of 7 books, and the creator of 6 online courses. He writes about productivity, business, and wealth building. His ideas and work have been featured in TIME, NBC, Fast Company, Inc., Observer, and many more publications. Until now, more than 30 million people have read his articles.

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