The fact is that we all have the same number of hours in the day, and it’s up to us to decide how we spend them.We each have our own personal values, concerns, and preferences.

"I've prioritized other things in my day"

There are 24 hours in a day, or 1,440 minutes. The average person sleeps around eight hours, that leaves 16 waking hours left to spend however we want. We need to subtract the seven to eight hours a day during which most people work; so, we’re down to nine remaining hours. Much of those nine hours are taken up by life administration: shopping, housework, unpaid labor (e.g. care work), and eating and drinking.

The anatomy of a day

In short, this is the rule where we spend one hour a day learning, reflecting, and thinking.We do this five times a week.The idea is that devoting an hour of your day to education exercises the mind, improves your skills, and rehearses great discipline.

The 5-hour rule

Here are three “first steps” to the 5-hour rule:<ol><li>Learn…however you can- Reading print on a book is one way, but podcasts, audiobooks, and spoken radio are all great ways to spend your hour.</li><li>Experiment- The most successful people in life were not those who stumbled on magic , but who tried and failed, tried, and failed again. Try something new, try something differently. When we experiment, we both have fun and learn a great deal.</li><li>Reflect-  This might mean a diary, journal, or time spent simply ruminating. When we reflect on our days and our mistakes, we turn failures into learning experiences.</li></ol>

How to spend your hour

A good rule of thumb to improving ourselves.

From Benjamin Franklin to Elon Musk, the most successful people in the world share one thing: they allocate time in the day to learning.

productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

habits

Habits

timemanagement

Time Management

The 5-hour rule: How to turn a wasted day into a successful one

A perfect organizational system would have to be:<ul><li>universal</li><li>flexible</li><li>simple</li><li>actionable</li><li>cross-platform</li><li>outcome-oriented</li><li>modular</li><li>opportunistic</li></ul>

THE P.A.R.A METHOD

<ul><li>Projects</li><li>Areas</li><li>Resources</li><li>Archives</li></ul>

P.A.R.A. STANDS FOR

Project is “a series of tasks linked to a goal, with a deadline.”Area of responsibility is “a sphere of activity with a standard to be maintained over time.”Resource is “a topic or theme of ongoing interest.”Archives include “inactive items from the other three categories.”

DEFINITION

A project has a goal to be achieved , this goal has a specific moment in time and a deadline or timeframeAn area of responsibility has a standard to be maintained, there is no end date or final outcome. Your performance in this area may wax and wane over time, but the standard continues indefinitely and requires a certain level of attention at all times. Projects always fall into Areas. A few examples:<ul><li>Running a marathon is a project, whereas Health is an area</li><li>Publishing a book is a project, whereas Writing is an area</li></ul>

PROJECTS VS. AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Do you see the problem? Not a single item on this list is a project. Do “vacations” ever end? Is there ever a time when you can cross off “productivity” from your list once and for all? No — these are ongoing areas of responsibility, not projects.

MAKING LIST (1)

You can’t truly know the extent of your commitmentsYou cannot know what to change until you know what you’re committed to. And what you’re committed to is not a collection of vague responsibilities, but a short list of tangible outcomes. In other words, projects.

MAKING LIST (2)

You can’t connect your current efforts to your long-term goalsBy breaking these responsibilities into bite-sized projects (as in the list on the right), you ensure that your Project List will change nearly every week. This creates a rhythm and a momentum of project completion to maintain your motivation. It generates the constant novelty that the latest <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Satisfaction-Science-Finding-True-Fulfillment/dp/080507600X">research</a> suggests is essential for satisfaction.

MAKING LIST (3)

Now imagine if you broke down this “events” area into each individual event that you planned and executed. Not only would this show the clear progression and growth you’ve experienced, each event building on the one before, it would also conveniently provide you with a catalog of outcomes you’ve reached to include in your performance review at year’s end. And you’d have much more than a list — you’d have separate folders for each completed project, with tangible notes, assets, and learnings you’ve produced for each.

MAKING LIST (4)

These are the two tools I recommend for using this method, but you can use any tool you want.<ul><li>Notion</li><li>Obsidian</li></ul>

PERSONAL RECOMMENDATION

This method has helped me to improve the way I organize my life, you should give it a try

Imagine for a moment the perfect organizational system. One that supported and enhanced the work you do, telling you exactly where to put a piece of information, and exactly where to find it when you needed it.  This system would have to be:  universal, encompassing any conceivable kind of information from any source flexible, able to work with any project or activity you take on, now and in the future

problemsolving

Problem Solving

The PARA Method: A System for Organization 

"Ideas are easy. Execution is everything."

OKRs is short for Objectives and Key Results. It is a collaborative goal-setting protocol for companies, teams, and individuals.In the author's words: "A management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization."Objective is simply WHAT is to be achieved. These are significant, concrete, action oriented and (ideally) inspirational.Key Results benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. These are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic, but most of all, measurable and verifiable.

What are OKRs?

"It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

The father of OKRs is Andy Grove, who implemented them in Intel, taking the company to the top of their sector.OKRs consists of four superpowers, which will be discussed in more detail in the following sections:<ol><li>Focus and Commit to Priorities</li><li>Align and Connect for Teamwork</li><li>Track for Accountability</li><li>Stretch for Amazing</li></ol>

OKRs Superpowers

"If we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing."

What is most important for the next three (or six, or twelve) months? That's what focus is all about.The best OKR cadence is the one that fits the context and culture of your business.Objectives are the stuff of inspiration and far horizons. Key results are more earth-bound and metric-driven.Pair Key Results to Quantity & Quality to measure both effect and counter-effect.Each Objective requires 3 to 5 Key Results to perform correctly.As S. Sandberg says: "Done is better than perfect."Summing up, priorization is key for management.

Focus and Commit to Priorites

"We don't hire smart people to tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."

OKRs give transparency and transparency seeds collaboration. They are the vehicle of choice for vertical alignment.Fulfilling KRs = Achieving Objective.Adverse effects of top-down OKRs:<ol><li>Loss of agility</li><li>Lack of flexibility</li><li>Marginalized contributors</li><li>One-dimensional linkages</li></ol>Solution: bottom-up OKRs!"People who choose their destination will own a deeper awareness of what it takes to get there."When leaders are attuned to the fluctuating needs of both the company and its employees, a mix of top-down and bottom-up OKRs is often optimal: "Connected companies are quicker companies."

Align and Connect for Teamwork

"Transparency creates very clear signals for everyone."

"In God we trust; all others must bring data."

OKRs can be tracked and then be revised and adapted.Its life cycle consists of three phases: <ol><li>Setup: process of OKRs creation.</li><li>Tracking: "The single greatest motivator is making progress in one's work." While tracking OKRs you can either continue, update, start or stop.</li><li>Wrap-up: consists of objective scoring, subjective self-assessment and reflection.</li></ol>Our goals are servants to our purpose, not the other way around.

Track for Accountability

"Without an action plan, the executive becomes a prisoner of events. And without check-ins to reexamine the plan as events unfold, the executive has no way of knowing which events really matter and which are only noise."

"The biggest risk of all is not taking one."

OKRs push us far beyond our comfort zones. They lead us to achievements on the border between abilities and dreams.Distinguish between:<ul><li>Committed OKRs: goals that must be attained 100 percent.</li><li>Aspirational OKRs: and those that are stretching for a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.</li></ul>Create an environment where individuals are free to fail without judgment. Replace incremental OKRs with exponential ones to reach 10x growth.Design stretch OKRs to fit the organization's culture. A company's optimal "stretch" may vary over time, depending on the operating needs of the coming cycle.

Stretch for Amazing

CFRs stands for Conversation, Feedback & Recognition. They give OKRs their human voice.By having regular conversations with your employees, you gain context for goal-analysis. Conversation consists of:<ul><li>Goal setting and reflection</li><li>Two-way coaching</li><li>Career growth</li><li>Lightweight performance reviews</li></ul>Feedback is key nowadays, by giving positive feedback you directly fulfill the need of empowerment of your employees and help them aim higher.

Continuous Performance Management: OKRs and CFRs

Closely related to Feedback, we find Recognition, which can be implemented through:<ul><li>Peer-to-peer recognition, by this culture of gratitude is born.</li><li>Establishing clear criteria, recognize people for actions and results.</li><li>Sharing recognition stories, like newsletters or company blogs.</li><li>Frequent and attainable recognition, hailing smaller accomplishments too.</li><li>Tying recognition to company goals and strategies, any organizational priority can be supported by a timely shout-out.</li></ul>

"You need a culture that high-fives small and innovative ideas."

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast [...], it's what makes meaning of work." Any organization peak performance is the product of collaboration and accountability."Culture is a set of value and beliefs, as well as familiarity with the way things are done and should be done in a company. The point is that a strong and positive corporate culture is absolutely essential."High-motivation cultures rely on a mix of two elements:<ul><li>Catalysts, actions that support work.</li><li>Nourishers, acts of interpersonal support.</li></ul>Companies that "out-behave" their competition will also outperform them.

Culture

"What keeps me going is goals."

Explore John Doerr's brilliant work on OKRs, defined by himself as: "A management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization”. 

#1 New York Times Bestseller Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth—and how it can help any organization thrive. In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered. Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked. In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization. The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention. In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

business

Business

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

#1 New York Times Bestseller Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr reveals how the goal-setting system of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has helped tech giants from Intel to Google achieve explosive growth—and how it can help any organization thrive. In the fall of 1999, John Doerr met with the founders of a start-up whom he'd just given $12.5 million, the biggest investment of his career. Larry Page and Sergey Brin had amazing technology, entrepreneurial energy, and sky-high ambitions, but no real business plan. For Google to change the world (or even to survive), Page and Brin had to learn how to make tough choices on priorities while keeping their team on track. They'd have to know when to pull the plug on losing propositions, to fail fast. And they needed timely, relevant data to track their progress—to measure what mattered. Doerr taught them about a proven approach to operating excellence: Objectives and Key Results. He had first discovered OKRs in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where the legendary Andy Grove ("the greatest manager of his or any era") drove the best-run company Doerr had ever seen. Later, as a venture capitalist, Doerr shared Grove's brainchild with more than fifty companies. Wherever the process was faithfully practiced, it worked. In this goal-setting system, objectives define what we seek to achieve; key results are how those top-priority goals will be attained with specific, measurable actions within a set time frame. Everyone's goals, from entry level to CEO, are transparent to the entire organization. The benefits are profound. OKRs surface an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination. They keep employees on track. They link objectives across silos to unify and strengthen the entire company. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction and boost retention. In Measure What Matters, Doerr shares a broad range of first-person, behind-the-scenes case studies, with narrators including Bono and Bill Gates, to demonstrate the focus, agility, and explosive growth that OKRs have spurred at so many great organizations. This book will help a new generation of leaders capture the same magic.

John Doerr

Measure What Matters

Concentrating on things you keep under control helps transform your attitude towards uncontrolled situations and cope with things you can’t change.

Focus on things you can control

To listen with empathy, rephrase what the other person has said and ask them to confirm whether you have represented their intention correctly.

Practice empathic listening

Question your habits, hobbies, addictions, and beliefs to ensure that they move you toward your goal in life.

Rethink your lifestyle

Paying more attention to developing qualities like humility, integrity, courage, and empathy will affect how you relatewith others and how they perceive you.

Develop your character

Ask yourself: “What do I want in life? Where do I see myself in 5-15 years?”Your answers will help you in making life decisions.

Craft a personal mission statement

Do not give unsolicited advice. Wait for the conversation to lead to the point where the other party asks for your advice.

Never give advice unless asked

You bring more power into your life when you learn to take responsibility and work to achieve better outcomes.

Take responsibility

Make sure your dream is big enough to inspire you to take action. Remove self-doubt from your life.

Eliminate doubts

Be proactive: respond to external circumstancesFocus on result: visualize your outcome before taking actionPut first things first: schedule your priorities

Habits to develop character ethic

Think Win-Win: pursue profitable outcomes for you and your partnersListen first, then speak: pay attention to emotions, verbal and nonverbal communicationSynergize: build teams where the whole is more than the sum of separate parts

Habits to improve the quality of relationships

<ol><li>Determine your wishes, goals and tools to achieve them</li><li>Create a mind map of where you see yourself at a set time in the future</li><li>In your relationships, seek outcomes that allow you and others to win</li></ol>

Techniques to achieve your goals

A leading management consultant outlines seven organizational rules for improving effectiveness and increasing productivity at work and at home.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

communication

Communication

The 7 habits of highly effective people is recognised as one of the most influential books ever written. In this seminal work, Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centred approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, honesty and human dignity -- principles that give us the security to adapt to change, and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates. The 7 Habits have become so famous because they work. From Habit 1: Be Proactive and Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind, millions of People have worked their way through the 7 and found in them a key to transforming their lives. This book has been the key to the success of legions of business leaders and individuals the world over.

Stephen R. Covey is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Stephen R. Covey has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Stephen R. Covey's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Stephen R. Covey

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

A mindset that can take you far in life:What I want doesn’t exist, so I’ll create it.

You don’t always get to choose the load, but you can choose how to carry it.

Look for situations where the energy is already flowing downhill. Invest in relationships where there is already mutual respect. Create products that tap into a desire people already have. Work on projects that play to your strengths.And then, once the potential of the situation is already working for you, add fuel to the fire. Pour yourself into the craft. Act as if you have to outwork everyone else—even though the wind is at your back.The idea is to sprint downhill, not grind uphill.

The goal of life is to die young — as late as possible!

I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing — their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives.To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative. I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall, but not if I switch on the lights — then I start thinking about projects, deadlines, demands, and the shadows and shapes of the house become objects, not suggestions, things that need to done, not a background to thought.

writing

Reading & Writing

3-2-1 Thursday: A Mindset That Can Take You Far In Life, Aging Well, and The Value Of Darkness

There are those times — those days, those weeks — when it seems like you have so much to do that you can’t actually get any of it done. You start on one thing, but you’re thinking about three other things you also have to do. Pretty soon, you’ve made no progress on any of them because you can’t seem to quiet your mind and focus.

This problem is always present, but it’s worse now that so many of us are working from home, says <a href="https://profiles.mountsinai.org/shannon-oneill">Dr. Shannon O’Neill </a>, a psychologist in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital. Working from home blurs the boundaries between work and personal life, and the mixup of the duties of each can lead to mental chaos — specifically, the inability to focus caused by a variety of external and physical factors including sedentary behavior, poor diet, lack of sleep, and stress.

So, how do you insulate yourself and give your brain the space it needs? It’s all about getting yourself back to basics. Here are a few recommendation.

This is the classic recommendation for helping kids do their homework, and the same goes for adults: Create a space away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of your house where you can sit down and get to work. Noise levels affect concentration, and that actually doesn’t just mean loud noise, because some people have a hard time focusing when it’s too quiet or when the noise level fluctuates, says <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/profiles/details/oscar-bienvenu">Dr. Joe Bienvenu </a>, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. A space where you can control the noise and ideally close a door is what you’re looking for, and white noise makers that drown out noise from your environment can also help, he says.

1. Create A Sound-Safe Space

A space where you can control the noise and ideally close a door is what you’re looking for, and white noise makers that drown out noise from your environment can also help, he says.

This can be a difficult ask, but it’s necessary. When it comes time to really focus, pick the one task you are going to work on. Having other tasks that demand our attention is a common cause of struggling to focus, Bienvenu says, so it’s important to select on keep the others you have crowding your headspace from pulling you in nine different directions.

2. Choose One Task, And One Task Only

There’s a famous quote attributed to Desmond Tutu that asks: How do you eat an elephant? The answer: One bite at a time. In other words, piecing out one enormous task into smaller pieces is one of the simplest ways to make it seem less daunting. “This can be helpful in tackling big tasks that feel as though need to be done all at once, but struggle to initiate starting,” says O’Neill.

3. Break Big Projects Into Small Chunks

“Pacing can also be helpful for those who struggle with procrastination, due to feeling overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, or depressed,” O’Neill says. Decide how long you can devote to this task, and set an alarm for that amount of time. “Have the alarm signal you to stop rather than your body or lack of focus telling you to stop,” she says.

4. Work In Blocks Of Time

You know this already, but it’s worth repeating: It’s hard to be productive when you’re checking your email or leaving yourself open to other digital distractions. “Turning off notifications on electronic devices and keeping email checking to a minimum can make a huge difference, to the extent it is feasible,” Bienvenu says.

5. Disconnect From Devices

You can’t focus if you’re dog-tired, so make sure you’re getting enough sleep at night. O’Neill points out that not everybody needs a full 8 hours, but you should <a href="https://www.sleepfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/NSF_sleep_duration_recommendations_chart.png?x10861">shoot for 7-9 </a>, depending on what works for you.

6. Prioritize Your Sleep

One surefire way to make your brain struggle is to starve it of the good stuff. O’Neill recommends all the standard things here — <a href="https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/diet-plans-fad-dads-men">eating a balanced diet </a>, drinking plenty of water, not drinking too much alcohol, and avoiding caffeine late in the afternoon so it doesn’t sabotage your sleep.

7. Don’t Neglect Your Diet

Go to the gym, go for a run, do some <a href="https://www.fatherly.com/health/best-damn-bodyweight-workout">bodyweight exercises </a>for 15 minutes in the morning — make time for whatever you can in your schedule. Exercise <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/features/physical-activity-brain-health/index.html">goes hand-in-hand </a>with good brain health. Even on the days you aren’t getting to the gym, try to get outside and walk around enough to raise your heart rate. The goal, O’Neill says, is to get your body enough exercise that it is tired enough to sleep deeply at night. Healthy habits create a healthy mind.

8. Fit Exercise Into Your Day

How To Get Your Brain To Shut Up: 8 Ways to Quiet Your Mind

When it comes to improving your focus, the best approach is one that takes you back-to-basics. Healthy habits lead to a more focused mind.

health

Health

How to Get Your Brain To Shut Up: 8 Ways to Quiet Your Mind

If you want to improve or increase your focus, you need to learn to deal with the distractions in your life, and here’s how:<ol><li>Keep Your Vision and Goals in Mind</li><li>Clarify Your Day Before You Start</li><li>Reduce the Chaos of Your Day</li><li>Do Those Tasks as Soon as Possible</li><li>Focus on the Smallest Part of Your Work at a Time</li><li>Visualize Yourself Working</li><li>Control Your Internal Distractions</li><li>Remove External Distractions</li><li>Skip What You Don’t Know</li><li>Improve Your Discipline With Focus Practice</li><li>Manage Your Momentum</li></ol>

Distractions have a huge cost on our focus and productivity

It’s important to start with a good base for your focus as you learn how to avoid distraction. This means figuring out exactly why you need to focus in the first place.<ul><li>Do you have a big presentation at work next week that you need to prepare for?</li><li>Do you have a dream of learning to play the guitar and need to focus for an hour each day while you practice?</li></ul>Deciding what your ultimate goal is will help you dedicate yourself to learning how to focus.

1. Keep Your Vision and Goals in Mind

In the morning, before your workday begins, dedicate a few minutes to managing your schedule.<ul><li>Have a moment to set your priorities and determine which tasks are truly vital and urgent that day;</li><li>Which are not so urgent but still very important;</li><li>And which you should avoid, either by delegating or eliminating them altogether.</li></ul>

2. Clarify Your Day Before You Start

If you have 20 tasks you need done every day, how effective do you think your focus ability will be?
<ul>
<li>You need to break it down to the essentials if you want to learn how to not get distracted.</li>
<li>Focus on only doing 2-3 important tasks a day, but no more than that. It’s all you need to take steps towards accomplishing your goals.</li>
</ul>
Slower is much better than giving up early because you took on too much, too soon.

3. Reduce the Chaos of Your Day

In order to make sure you get those 2 to 3 tasks done, you need to do them early in order to stay focused on the task without feeling overwhelmed. It’s tough, but waiting to do them later only invites distraction to take over. Those distractions will inevitably come in the form of unexpected emails, social media, a child that needs your attention, or coworkers who need a helping hand on their projects.

4. Do Those Tasks as Soon as Possible

Most goals will at least take a few weeks to months to accomplish, and knowing that can make it feel like it’ll take too long to do.This will cause you to do one of two things:<ul><li>You become discouraged because the goal is too big.</li><li>You fantasize about what it’ll feel like to achieve the goal.</li></ul>Either is terrible for your focus and always a potential problem when focusing on the big picture or using visualization. Instead, focus on doing a very small, minimum amount of work.

5. Focus on the Smallest Part of Your Work at a Time

There is a proper way of using visualization, and it’s by visualizing yourself actually working.Champion runners use this technique to great effect, usually by working backwards. They imagine themselves winning at first, and then they act out the whole process in reverse, feeling and visualizing each step all the way to the beginning.A quicker and more relevant way to apply this would be to imagine yourself doing a small part of the task at hand.All you need to do is apply this process to whatever it is you need to focus on.

6. Visualize Yourself Working

Internal distractions are one of those problems you can’t really run away from. You need to find ways to prepare your mind for work, and find simple ways to keep it from straying to non-essential thoughts in order to learn how to not get distracted.There are a few types of internal distractions:<ul><li>Priority Chaos. One of the most common distractions we encounter is that we have too many options on hand. This can cause priority chaos.</li><li>Short & Long Term Mismatch. Our brains are not good at evaluating and comparing short term and long term benefits.</li></ul>

7. Control Your Internal Distractions

This tip is a bit more straightforward as it requires you to simply distance yourself physically from things that are causing distractions:<ul><li>If the television is disrupting, turn it off or work in another room.</li><li>If your kids are playing and yelling, try getting up to work before they wake up.</li><li>If you keep checking your phone, put your phone on silent while you’re working.</li><li>Empty the wall in front of you to keep your mind on track. Photos, prints and various knick-knacks you like to display may be cute, but they will make your mind wander.</li></ul>

8. Remove External Distractions

Focus your attention on what you can do to keep working “mindlessly” at all costs. All this means is that you should focus on the easy parts first.Eventually, you can come back to the more difficult parts, and hopefully by then it’ll have come to you or you’ll have built up enough momentum that it won’t break your focus if you work on it.

9. Skip What You Don’t Know

There are a few focus exercises you can do to improve your overall discipline.<ol><li>The first one is meditation, which is basically the definition of focus in practice. It’s a great method for building focus ability, de-stressing, and giving you greater control over your emotions.</li><li>The second exercise is the Pomodoro method, which asks you to set a timer to track the time you spend on a task. These are basically “focus sprints,” and each one is followed by a solid break. Like real sprints, you’ll get better and better at doing them over time.</li></ol>

10. Improve Your Discipline With Focus Practice

Momentum is like a discipline lubricant‒it helps ease the process of sticking with goals.This means each and every day, we need to do something to further our goals (yes, even weekends and holidays). I don’t necessarily mean a big task, but rather, any task that brings us closer to our goals.For instance:<ul><li>If your goal is to be a freelance writer, then write one single pitch on a weekend. </li><li>If your goal is to get healthy, then go for a short, 5-minute walk, even on Christmas day.</li></ul>

11. Manage Your Momentum

Don’t get distracted. Instead, use some of the tips below to win back your focus and overcome distractions. Your productivity will thank you.

11 Tips on How to Not Get Distracted

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

"How do I get tougher?" Be tougher. "How can I wake up early in the morning?" Wake up early. "How can I work out every day?" Work out every day.

You don't set out to build a wall. You don't start by saying "I'm going to build the biggest, baddest wall that's ever been built". You don't start there. You say "I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid." If you do that every day, soon you will have a wall.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can't — you're right.

Good Morning

We’ve all made them. In fact, they’re a part of life. But what would you do differently if you had the chance? Ask someone about their regrets and you will learn a lot. That’s because everyone can think of at least one thing they wish they had done another way.But the guilt over past mistakes can become paralyzing if it consumes us.Take a look at these steps for reframing your regrets and doubts of the past, and turn them into the possibilities of today.As our good friend, Bob Ross, used to say, “There are no mistakes – only happy accidents.”

Why it’s Important to Get Over Past Mistakes

Occasionally we go through life unhappily and not truly knowing why. Regret over a past mistake you committed could be causing you to feel this way. Being regretful involves feeling bad about something you wish you had done differently. You may regret things you did do (regret of action), or regret things you didn’t do (regret of inaction). It’s important to understand the source of your remorse and to acknowledge your rationale for doing, or not doing, whatever happened at the time.

Understanding Your Mistakes

If you feel you mistakenly missed out on an opportunity because of past decisions – such as not having children or not being closer with a family member, then take the time to grieve that loss. If it’s not too late to alter the feeling of regret by taking some kind of action like reconciling with that family member, then take advantage of the opportunity now. Sometimes we have the opportunity to apologize if we regret how we handled a situation with another person. If there is something you can do now, do it!

Take Time To Grieve

Write your feelings out – if only just for yourself. Bring these swarming, remorseful feelings out of your head and onto paper. Write them in a journal, or write them on a piece of paper to destroy in a way that makes you feel more fulfilled – like burning it.Furthermore, while you’re in the process of writing, remove the words, “If only…then” from your vocabulary. Understand that worrying about the past is a potent prescription for stress and health problems. Do not make the guilty feelings more powerful by your fixation with them.

Express Your Feelings

Remember that line from Bob Ross we mentioned earlier? “There are no mistakes – only happy accidents.” We have no choice but to accept what has happened and to think of the current options we do have. And, while you may not be able to get over the consequences of prior decisions, you can let go of obsessing over them.

Accept Your Past Mistakes

Stop “beating yourself up” emotionally because of yesterday’s decisions and instead assess what choices you do have! It is never too late for many life opportunities – to go back to school or to learn a new skill, to connect with others in meaningful relationships, or to change your negative self-perception or attitude. Grow past the pain of mistakes. Grow past the shame. Be involved in things that will bring you gladness, not guilt, for today and for the future.

Learn From Your Mistakes

Learn five tips to help you forgive yourself and get over the past mistakes that are keeping you from moving forward.

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Getting Over Past Mistakes | Centerstone

Improved decision-makingWhen you have a better understanding of yourself, you're able to make more informed decisions. You know your triggers and what causes you to react in certain ways, so you can avoid those situations or be prepared for them.Write down a list of your own strengths and weaknesses, so you can play to your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

Six Benefits of Self-Awareness and How You Can Apply Them

When you know yourself better, you're more likely to trust your own instincts and abilities. This can lead to increased self-confidence, which is essential in all areas of life. Whether you're applying for a new job or going on a first date, having confidence in yourself will help you to succeed.Start putting yourself in situations that will push you outside of your comfort zone, but where you are likely to succeed. This will boost your self-confidence and give you the motivation to keep pushing forward.

Greater self-confidence

Self-awareness also leads to improved relationships. When you understand your own emotions and triggers, you're less likely to take things personally or react in an emotional way.Think about how you can communicate more effectively, listen more and empathize with others. As a result, you're likely to have healthier and more fulfilling relationships.

 Improved relationships

When you have greater self-awareness, you're better able to manage your thoughts and emotions. This can lead to increased happiness and satisfaction with life in general.You're less likely to dwell on negative thoughts or experience anxiety or depression when you have a good understanding of yourself. Think about the things you can be grateful for and appreciate in your life.

Self-awareness can also help with stress management. When you know your triggers and how to deal with them, you're less likely to feel overwhelmed by stress.You're also more likely to have healthy coping mechanisms in place for when stressful situations do arise. Become more aware of what causes you stress, so you can plan how to destress ahead of time.

Better stress management

There's evidence that self-awareness can lead to improved physical health as well. When you have a better understanding of your body and how it works, you're more likely to make healthy choices that lead to improved physical health

Improved physical health

Increasing self-awareness has many benefits and can help us achieve goals and our potential.

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