Having routinary days for months on end will eventually make time feel like it&#39;s slipping through our fingers.
As Marc Wittman, psychologist and time researcher said, &quot;routine kills our memory for respective intervals&quot;. New experiences make indents in our memories thus giving us the perception of lengthened time.
When nothing meaningful happens to us our brains don&#39;t have anything for it to record.

Time Going Too Fast

<ol><li>Switch up your daily routine! Any small changes can make time "feel" longer. It doesn't have to be expensive or time intensive.</li><li>Go out and do something safely. Maybe visit your friends, talk to your neighbor, or even travel.</li><li>If you have goals, make small steps to achieve them. Break them down into actionable pieces.</li><li>Actively notice new things.</li><li>Being present makes time feel slower, so try meditating!</li><li>Keep track of the passing days with a diary or a journal, you can even take photos and stick them in there.</li><li>Cut yourself some slack and be kind to yourself.</li></ol>

Making Time "Slow Down"

After a lost year in the pandemic, you might be feeling like time is slipping through your fingers. Here's how to stop it.

Stashed ideas

How to Make Time Slow Down

Many motivational speakers have mentioned the three to four hour biological limit of creative work that can be accomplished in a day.
Great polymaths and thinkers highlight this short amount of working hours when the creative juices flow.
Manual labour, which is mostly assembly line work, or mindless administrative chores like creating reports can be done for far longer.

Four-Hour Creativity Limit

Time Management

Instead of managing our work schedule for the entire day, it is best to earmark a time block for three to four hours of undisturbed focus work every day, preferably when the energy levels are optimal.We need to understand the hard limit of four hours and not try to produce meaningful work by pushing ourselves all the time.

Set Aside Four Hours

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Simplify Your Time Management With the 'Rule of 4'

There are hard limits to what your brain can manage in a day. Ignore them at your peril.

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Simon Sinek has spoken about how much value he's gotten from studying the work of his longtime <a href="https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/simon-sinek-heres-why-everyone-should-have-a-work-rival.html">professional rival </a>Adam Grant. Watching another person do very similar work but with his own unique strengths on display, Sinek claims, both frustrated him and helped him grow. For me, the person who very often makes me feel that way is Oliver Burkeman.

A former Guardian columnist and author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374159122/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;%3Bcamp=1789&amp;%3Bcreative=9325&amp;%3BcreativeASIN=0374159122&amp;%3BlinkCode=as2&amp;%3Btag=inccom05-20&amp;%3BlinkId=c3c8866d3b09d73028f69260d6106ffa&amp;tag=wwwinccom-20">several books </a>, Burkeman is not only obviously more accomplished than me, he also covers similar topics around psychology, success, and productivity. That means very often I read something he's written and realize we've seen the same studies or referenced the same author. Burkeman just frequently manages to boil that wisdom down in a more compelling and cohesive way than I do.

The most recent example is the latest edition of his excellent newsletter, <a href="https://www.oliverburkeman.com/">The Imperfectionist </a>, that offers an incredibly powerful approach to time management.

In it, Burkeman writes about one of the few hard-and-fast rules of time management he's discovered. "You almost certainly can't consistently do the kind of work that demands serious mental focus for more than about three or four hours a day," he declares. "It's positively spooky how frequently this three-to-four-hour range crops up in accounts of the habits of the famously creative."

He goes on to mention a distinguished list of thinkers, from Charles Darwin to Ingmar Bergman, who put in around this many hours of work a day. This might sound like a shockingly short workday, but it was no surprise to me. I have also previously covered the huge range of evidence from science, the biographies of geniuses, and even anthropology that pretty much proves <a href="https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/this-is-the-ideal-number-of-hours-to-work-a-day-ac.html">our brains only have around four hours a day of work in them </a>.

Sure, you can work your way through mindless admin or assembly-line manual labor for far longer, but when it comes to concentrated intellectual effort, humans face a hard biological limit. White-collar professionals generally reach it <a href="https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/star-wharton-professor-adam-grant-work-should-finish-at-3-pm.html">way before the workday ends </a>.

So far, so familiar (to me at least), but as usual, the best part about Burkeman's writing isn't the information he uncovers, but the conclusions he draws from it.

"The real lesson," Burkeman writes, "is that it pays to use whatever freedom you do have over your schedule not to 'maximize your time' or 'optimize your day', in some vague way, but specifically to ringfence three or four hours of undisturbed focus (ideally when your energy levels are highest)."

You're going to get the vast majority of your important work done in the four most productive hours of your day no matter what you do. That's just how human brains work. Even Jeff Bezos only expects to manage <a href="https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/jeff-bezos-morning-routine-is-opposite-of-most-productivity-advice-maybe-yours-should-be-too.html">three high-quality decisions each day </a>.

So build your time management decisions around this "Rule of 4." Don't try to extend your core working time; you can't. And don't try to stretch it over eight (or more) distracted hours; that won't work either. Instead, pick your four golden hours and protect them like a mama grizzly bear.

Focusing on your four core hours should help you get more done with less aggravation. It should also help you stop beating yourself up when your brain just won't produce any meaningful insights at four p.m. even though there are dozens more items on your to-do list. Laying down your intellectual labors and puttering through whatever more mindless work you can manage isn't a failure. It's a wise recognition of the <a href="https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/your-post-pandemic-life-should-follow-80-percent-energy-rule.html">basic need for rest and recuperation </a>built into our brains. Working with those limits isn't lazy; it's the basis of sensible time management.

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Simplify Your Time Management With the 'Rule of 4' | Inc.com

“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

Quote

Self Improvement

Momentum is created or destroyed every day with the first few decisions you make.
If you learn to master your day, you’ll learn how to master your weeks, months, years, and life.

Become very good at living each day

<ol>
<li>Nutrition: Quality of food you put into your body matters.
</li>
<li>Oxygen: The amount of oxygen your brain gets determines how well it functions.
</li>
<li>Information: If the brain isn’t firing, it’s not wiring, and this ages it.
</li>
<li>Love: The brain thrives on physical touch and emotional connection.
</li>
</ol>

The things your brain needs in order to thrive

Your brain is more creative in the morning and more analytical at night.
Use your analytical evening strength to provide a simple plan and starting-point so your creative morning brain can run wild when you first wake up.

We are creative in the morning and analytical at night

You live your life in 24 hour periods. How you use those 24 hour periods determines who you become and how successful you'll be. If you learn to master your day, you'll learn how to master your weeks, months, years, and life. All you need to do is become very, very good at living each day.

"Each day is a day of decision, and our decisions determine our destiny." - Russell Nelson

You live your life in 24 hour periods. How you use those 24 hour periods determines who you become and how successful you'll be. If you learn to master your day, you'll learn how to master your weeks, months, years, and life. All you need to do is become very, very good at living each day. The problem most people face is that they start their day off wrong, which puts them on a downward spiral throughout their whole day. Momentum is created or destroyed every day with the first few decisions you make.

Additionally, few people spend time planning and imagining the life they want to have and the person they want to become. Very few people live intentionally each day toward a higher vision. Most people are solely living day-to-day, rather than maximizing each day to make enormous progress toward a bigger and better future.

How is your day going, today? Seriously. Look back on all the things you've done so far. Did you act like the person you wish to become? If you repeated today every day for the next year, realistically, where would you end up? If you are to really accomplish your goals and dreams, how much differently would your regular day need to be than today was? Did you interact with people who remind you more of your future, or more of your past?

In this article, I'm going to show you: <ul><li>How you can consistently live better and better days </li><li>How you can set-up your days the night before in order to make success inevitable </li><li>How to consistently make more progress each day than most people make in a month or year </li><li>How to create the life you can only imagine </li> </ul>Let's start:

4 Things Your Brain Needs Daily To Thrive

Before diving into how to create an optimal day, it's important to take a look at your brain, and what makes your brain happy. At the most basic level, your brain needs 4 things in order to thrive: The quality of food you put into your body matters. You become what you consume, literally. <ul><li>Nuts and seeds - particularly almonds, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24500933">walnuts </a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4276978/">sunflower seeds </a>, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16969711">pumpkin seeds </a> </li><li>Vegetables - particularly <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/9/9/919">avocados </a>, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/140/10/1892/4600364">carrots </a>, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20951824">beets </a> </li><li>Leafy greens - particularly spinach, <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2016.00297/full">broccoli </a>, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/140/10/1892/4600364">celery </a>, and <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00183/full">kale </a> </li><li>Fish - particularly salmon, sardines, and tuna </li><li><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ana.23594">Berries </a> - particularly blueberries, strawberries, and acai berries </li><li>Spices - particularly cinnamon, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12895685">sage </a>, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/arb.v2.29244">thyme </a>, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781139/">turmeric </a> </li><li>Healthy fats - particularly coconut oil and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/acn3.431">olive oil </a> </li><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3575938/">Dark chocolate </a> - one of the only foods shown to acutely boost mood, focus, and alertness, according to a University of Nottingham <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070221101326.htm">study </a> </li><li>Healthy grains - University of Toronto researchers recently determined that eating carbohydrate-rich foods like oatmeal is equivalent to a shot of glucose, a.k.a. blood sugar, injected into your brain </li> </ul>

<ul><li>Anything with artificial sugar - particularly fruit juices, soda, candy </li><li>Anything that has artificial and white flour </li><li>Alchohol </li><li>Most dairy </li> </ul>The amount of oxygen your brain gets determines how well it functions. Just because you breath air doesn't mean your brain is getting the quantity and quality of oxygen it needs to thrive. <ul><li>The brain uses about three times as much oxygen as muscles in the body do </li><li>Brain cells are very sensitive to decreases in oxygen levels and don't survive or function well very long without it </li> </ul>

Daily fitness is essential to brain health and having a body that can provide maximal oxygen to your brain. Specifically: <ul><li><a href="http://time.com/4833348/exercise-genetic-risk-alzheimers-disease/?xid=newsletter-health/">One study </a>found that daily fitness is good for memory and decreases chances of Alzheimer's </li><li>Okonkwo's research has shown that people who exercise have <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28293467">greater brain volume </a>in areas of the brain associated with reasoning and executive function. <a href="http://time.com/4841790/exercise-brain/">In an interview with TIME </a>, he stated, "We've done a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25319359">series of studies </a>showing that increased aerobic capacity boosts brain structure, function and cognition," he says, "Other people have found exercise can <a href="http://time.com/4352177/exercise-benefits-brain-and-mood/">improve mood </a>." </li> </ul>

Aerobic exercise, like <a href="http://time.com/4825495/is-running-good-for-you/?iid=sr-link1">running </a>and <a href="http://time.com/4688623/swimming-pool-health-benefits/?iid=sr-link1">swimming </a>, appears to be best for brain health since these increase your heart rate, "which means the body pumps more blood to the brain," says Okonkwo. But strength training, like <a href="http://time.com/4803697/bodybuilding-strength-training/?iid=sr-link1">weight lifting </a>, may also bring benefits to the brain by increasing heart rate.

Your brain needs information to process in order to continually develop new connections. If the brain isn't firing, it's not wiring, and this ages it. If you don't use your brain, you lose it very quickly. Memory fades and reality becomes less clear and compelling. The problem with most of the information people consume is that it is repetitive and low quality - like putting junk in your car, it doesn't help your brain function well, but actually damages it long-term. For example, scanning Facebook or passively scanning articles like this one don't challenge the brain enough.

In order for your brain to thrive, you need to continually give it higher quality information, which is often above your cognitive level. You also want to learn actively, which means you're taking notes and linking what you're learning in your memory through visualization. Your memory is entirely based on connection and imagination. So when you're learning something new, you want to be very active and imaginative with that information. You want to link what you're learning with as many other things as possible. The more visual and exaggerated you are with how you approach new information, the more memorable it will be. As you change your memory, you change yourself. Thus, learning is not about retaining or storing information, but rather, it is about reframing your entire paradigm.

Thus, the purpose of information is not simply to put more information into the existing mental model you currently have. True learning is emotional and imaginative - thus, it is intended to reframe your entire mental model. If you don't see and operate differently in the world, you didn't change.

Change is very, very good for the brain. It's one of the best ways to anti-age your brain and keep it healthy. Doing the same things over and over and not continually pushing and expanding your mindset and mental model is very bad for the brain. It trains your brain to be lazy. It keeps you stuck in a limiting identity and with an aging and decaying brain.

See the world differently every day. Learn something new that changes how you view the world every day. This is how you heal your brain, keep it young, and keep it healthy. Research has shown that babies who don't receive love can die. Oxygen and nutrition aren't enough. The brain thrives on physical touch and emotional connection. For over 75 years, Harvard's <a href="http://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/grantandglueckstudy">Grant and Glueck study </a>has tracked the physical and emotional health of two groups:

<ul><li>456 poor people in Boston from 1939 to 2014 (the Grant Study) </li><li>268 graduates from Harvard's classes of 1939-1944 (the Glueck study) </li> </ul>After following these groups and testing them (e.g., blood samples, brain scans) for several decades, the findings have been compiled. Here's the conclusion: <a href="https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/want-a-life-of-fulfillment-a-75-year-harvard-study-says-to-prioritize-this-one-t.html">As Melanie Curtin reported on Inc. </a>, "The biggest predictor of your happiness and fulfillment overall in life is, basically, love."

Although the Harvard study lays the foundation, there is other compelling research on the importance of human relationships. <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316">This meta analysis showed a 50% increased likelihood of survival for participants with stronger social relationships </a>. Put simply, if you have healthy relationships, your chances of survival increase by 50%. The most loving and deep relationships are built on a very simple foundation: giving and gratitude.

Every single day, you need: Without these, your brain and soul will not thrive, but instead will shrivel and die. These are the basics that you should build your day around. The rest of this article focuses on prioritization and productivity . If you are intentional and strategic, you can achieve more in one day than most people achieve in a week. Even more, if you're clear about what you want, you can make enormous progress, daily, toward important goals. Making clear and powerful progress daily is more than many people can say they've done in years.

Many if not most people are not pointing their life in a desired direction. They are in jobs and relationships they hate. Put simply, they are climbing a ladder that is facing the wrong wall. As bestselling author, Ryan Holiday has said, "This is a fundamental irony of most people's lives. They don't quite know what they want to do with their lives. Yet they are very active."

Thus, if you can make tangible progress in a desired direction every single day, you'll be living far more powerfully and intentionally than most of the population. If you can add productivity and courage to your day, you can radically transform your whole life in a matter of a few short years. For the remainder of this article, I'll cover:

Use Ernest Hemingway's Evening Routine For Maximized Creativity And Productivity

Apparently, Ernest Hemingway would stop his writing sessions mid-sentence. He did this for a few reasons: <ul><li>So that his subconscious would continue chewing-on the idea </li><li>So that when he started writing again the next day, he didn't have to start from scratch, but could continue where he left off (already with a sense of momentum...) </li> </ul>Your evening routine doesn't need to be long. But like Hemingway, it's good to know exactly what you're going to do when you wake up. It's good to have done even just a little bit of work so that you have somewhere to pick-up when you first get started.

Facing a blank slate first thing in the morning can be difficult. If you take just a few minutes to consider what you're first going to do, and even give a minute or two of thought as to what that will involve, then you don't have to start from scratch. Pull out your journal just before bed and write down the first few things you're going to do the next morning. Then, as it relates to the first task or project, write down a few ideas related to that thing. Your brain is far more creative in the morning and far more analytical at night. Use your analytical evening strength to provide a simple plan and starting-point so your creative morning brain can run wild when you first wake up.

There's one more side-benefit to creating a runway for your next morning. As Hemingway stated, your subconscious will then be able to focus on and make important connections while you sleep. Thomas Edison did this himself, which is why he was such a prolific and productive creative person (something rare, indeed). He actually had a process. In his own words, "Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious."

This Morning Routine Will Save You 20+ Hours Per Week

According to psychologist Ron Friedman, the first three hours of your day are your most precious for maximized productivity. This makes sense on several levels. Let's start with sleep. Research confirms the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex, is most active and readily <a href="http://jn.physiology.org/content/109/5/1444.abstract">creative </a>immediately following sleep. Your subconscious mind has been loosely mind-wandering while you slept, making contextual and temporal connections.

So, immediately following sleep, your mind is most readily active to do thoughtful work. On a different level, the science of <a href="http://psr.sagepub.com/content/11/4/303.short">willpower and self-control </a>confirm that your willpower - or energy levels - are strongest immediately following sleep. The longer you go throughout your day, the less willpower you have. In other words, you experience decision fatigue throughout your day.

So, your brain is most attuned first thing in the morning, and so are your energy levels. Consequently, the best time to do your best work is during the first three hours of your day. During your morning time, you want to do a few important things: <ul><li>Super-hydration - drink 20-40 ounces of water - this will wake you up, making you more alert (your brain needs oxygen to function well) </li><li>Pull out your journal and begin writing </li><li>Create a mind-map of your ideal self </li><li>Write about the top 1-3 things you want to achieve that day </li> </ul>The purpose of this 10-30 minute morning journal session is to reframe yourself as the person you want to become. You want to put yourself into a peak and heightened state where you can live with intention.

Creating a mind-map and also writing down your future goals is very powerful because it reshapes your mindset and memory. Mind-maps when done right work both your right and left brains because they are intended to be visual and emotionally stimulating. In other words, you don't want to simply write down your goals. You want images and pictures of your future self and dreams to be in your face. The more imaginative, emotional, and exaggerated, the more they will become real to you; the more they'll shape your memory and identity.

Every day, you should write down and visualize your future self and dreams. Then, you want to be results-oriented throughout your day in order to achieve those dreams as fast as possible. When you begin your day right, you start with confidence and momentum. Little wins in the morning lead to big wins throughout your day and throughout your life. Start right, end right.

Start with vision and focus and you'll be moving in a clear direction, rather than aimlessly moving without direction. After you've put yourself into a peak and intentional state, it's good to begin working on the project you left undone or created a simple plan for the night before. If you work on your most important work first thing in the morning and without distraction, you'll make progress daily. Over enough time, you'll have made HUGE progress. This is what Darren Hardy calls The Compound Effect . As he stated, "It's not the big things that add up in the end; it's the hundreds, thousands, or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary."

After you've emotionally and imaginatively created and experienced your future vision, and after you've done your most important and creative work, then it's time to get the body moving. It's time to workout and give your brain a little bit of a break! But also, as you exercise, you're also giving your brain a HUGE boost, which will provide you with tons of energy and cognitive ability for the rest of your day!

Use "Forcing Functions" To Become Results-Focused

"Wherever you are, make sure you're there." -  Dan Sullivan If you're like most people, your workday is a blend of low-velocity work mixed with continual distraction (e.g., social media and email). Most people's "working time" is not done at peak performance levels. When most people are working, they do so in a relaxed fashion. Makes sense, they have plenty of time to get it done. However, when you are <a href="http://blog.strategiccoach.com/time-effort-arent-enough/">results-oriented </a>, rather than "being busy," you're 100 percent on when you're working and 100 percent off when you're not. Why do anything half-way? If you're going to work, you're going to work.

To get the best results in your fitness, research has found that <a href="http://www.acsm.org/about-acsm/media-room/acsm-in-the-news/2011/08/01/high-intensity-exercise-best-for-improving-body-composition">shorter but more intensive exercise </a>is more effective than longer drawn-out exercise. The concept is simple: Intensive activity followed by high quality rest and recovery. Most of the growth actually comes during the recovery process. However, the only way to truly recover is by actually pushing yourself to exhaustion during the workout. The same concept applies to work. The best work happens in short intensive spurts. By short, I'm talking 1-3 hours. But this must be <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692">"Deep Work," </a>with no distractions, just like an intensive workout is non-stop. Interestingly, your best work - which for most people is thinking - will actually happen while you're away from your work, "recovering."

In one study, <a href="https://www.designsociety.org/publication/30692/characterizing_reflective_practice_in_design_%E2%80%93_what_about_those_ideas_you_get_in_the_shower">only 16 percent </a>of respondents reported getting creative insight while at work . Ideas generally came while the person was at home, in transportation, or during recreational activity. "The most creative ideas aren't going to come while sitting in front of your monitor," says Scott Birnbaum, a vice president of Samsung Semiconductor.

The reason for this is simple. When you're working directly on a task, your mind is tightly focused on the problem at hand (i.e., direct reflection). Conversely, when you're not working, your mind loosely wanders (i.e., indirect reflection). While driving or doing some other form of recreation, the external stimuli in your environment (like the buildings or other landscapes around you) subconsciously prompt memories and other thoughts. Because your mind is wandering both contextually (on different subjects) and temporally between past, present, and future, your brain will make distant and distinct connections related to the problem you're trying to solve (eureka!)

Case in point: when you're working, be at work. When you're not working, stop working. By taking your mind off work and actually recovering, you'll get creative breakthroughs related to your work. You can ensure that you're fully present in what you're doing by applying a concept known as "forcing functions." According to entrepreneur, Dan Martell: Forcing functions are situational factors you put into place to ensure you succeed. In other words, you want to set up your environment so that your default and subconscious behavior is what you want it to be. You also want to set things up so that self-sabotage is difficult.

Here are a few examples: <ul><li>When you're done with work, leave your phone at your office (this will force you to be present when you're home) </li><li>Remove all unhealthy food from your house (make one decision that frees your mind from having to consciously control or suppress your behavior) </li><li>Work at a library and leave your laptop charger at home (so you only have a few hours to work until your computer dies) </li><li>Set short timelines ("To achieve great things you need 1) a plan, and 2) not enough time"  - <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20">Meg Jay TED talk </a>) </li><li>High investment - when you begin investing money into a goal, you immediately become emotionally committed </li> </ul>

Do At Least One Thing Daily That Terrifies You

But you don't have to constantly be battling your fears. Actually, <a href="http://darrenhardy.success.com/2013/06/20-seconds-of-courage/">Darren Hardy </a>has said that you can be a coward 99.9305556% of the time (to be exact). You only need to be courageous for 20 seconds at a time. Twenty seconds of fear is all you need. If you courageously confront fear for 20 seconds every single day, before you know it, you'll be in a different socio-economic and social situation. According to Wayne Gretzky, the best hockey player of all time, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

Make that call. Ask that question. Pitch that idea. Post that video. Reach out to that potential mentor. If you do one or even a few things daily that are outside of your comfort zone, eventually you'll be living a different life. Although most of your courageous attempts may not be successful, some of them will succeed. Sometimes, you'll catch a "lucky" break. And these breaks are what separate you from the masses.

Even more important though is that you'll become more confident in yourself. You cannot have confidence without positive and goal-directed behavior. You also cannot get motivation and momentum without being active and moving. Your network is your net worth. Do whatever you can to get access to the people you want to work with and work for. Be bold.

How you spend each day matters. If you optimize for brain health, priority, and productivity, you can live a masterful life. You can make enormous progress in all that you do. You can create and achieve enormous visions. Every day, your brain will change because you'll be learning new things and becoming a new person. Enjoy this beautiful life. It's yours for the taking.

Tell Me What You Did Today, And I'll Tell You Who You Are

Procrastination is more about our emotions than our tendencies for laziness or just being “bad at deadlines”. At its core, we procrastinate to keep ourselves happy in the moment.We procrastinate because our brains are wired to care more about our present comfort than our future happiness.

Why we procrastinate

We have two ways of dealing with our procrastination:<ol><li>Make whatever we’re procrastinating on feel less uncomfortable, and</li><li>Convince&nbsp;our present selves into caring about our future selves.</li></ol>

How to overcome your procrastination habit

Often starting a task is the biggest hurdle. Research shows that progress—no matter how small—can be a huge motivator to help us keep going.Set the timer for just 5 or 10 minutes. While the timer’s running, you don’t have to work, but you can’t do anything else. You have to sit with your work, even if you don’t get started.

Make getting started ridiculously easy

Since negative emotions are the cause of our procrastination, what if we could manage our negative emotions while working?Behavioral economist Dan Ariely calls this method reward substitution. It&nbsp;is essentially getting yourself to do the right thing for the wrong reason.&nbsp;

The right thing for the wrong reason

When my work directly affects others, I find it much harder to accept the consequences of procrastinating.You could ask a friend or colleague to help you get started on something you’ve been putting off.

Ask for help

Encouraging people to imagine the future can help them make better decisions now.<ul><li>Looking at a digitally aged photograph can help us more effectively imagine ourselves in the future, thus helping us make better decisions.</li><li>Realistically imagine how you’ll feel tomorrow if you’re trying the old “I’ll feel like doing this tomorrow” excuse.&nbsp;</li></ul><h3></h3>

Imagine the future

<ul><li>Reframe your task into a challenge.&nbsp; “What if you got this work done before lunchtime?&nbsp;</li><li>Challenge yourself to stay focused on a single task for as long as possible:&nbsp;… try a count-up timer. See how long you can remain on task. See if you can beat your last record…</li><li>Work away from your desk. " it’s a lot harder to believe I’m doing “real work”.</li><li>C<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/201310/i-have-do-it-or-i-want-do-it" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hanging your attitude</a> toward the task. Think of your task as something you want to get done, to help adjust your motivation to be more internal.</li></ul>

Reframe your task and its deadline

“Structured procrastination” is a clever way to stay productive even while you procrastinate. Procrastinating doesn't mean you are doing absolutely nothing.Next time you feel the urge to procrastinate, go for it.&nbsp;Avoid that Big Scary Task that makes you feel really uncomfortable. Instead, work on more important things than what you’re avoiding.

Let yourself avoid uncomfortable tasks

Set a timer for 30 minutes. During that time stay focused on your work. When the timer goes off, set it again for 10 minutes, and rewards yourself with a fun activity like YouTube videos, chatting with friends, or reading a book.&nbsp;After 10 minutes, reset the 30-minute timer and get back to work.

Use a timer

Forgiving yourself for procrastinating can help you overcome negative feelings about the work you’ve put off in the past, so you can more easily approach future tasks.

Forgive yourself

I've read all the articles and listened to all the podcasts about procrastination. I've tried all the tricks-including literally trying to trick myself. Sometimes hacks work. Sometimes an article about how bad a habit procrastination is will kick me into gear and help me get things done early for a change.

Beyond Time Management: Why We Really Procrastinate and How to Finally Stop - Ambition & Balance

A dream is the root of all success, for having a dream does not limit you on what you can do. Successful people allow themselves to lean back and imagine the kind of life that is possible for them.

Make Dream a Reality

Productivity

Clarity. Have a clear vision of your desires and future to help you stay focused on your goals. Competence. Commit yourself to doing something that enables you to become better at doing the most important things in your field. Concentration.&nbsp;Persevere, without diversion or distraction, in a straight line toward accomplishing your goals.

Keys to Living Without Limits

What restraints you from achieving your goals? Are they learned feelings of helplessness? Or are they just simply excuses?&nbsp;Remember, whatever you have learned, you can unlearn.&nbsp;If your real goal is to dream big dreams and to live without limits, you can set this as your standard and compare everything that you do against it.

Identifying Productivity Constraints

“When your goals are clear, you will come up with exactly the right answer at exactly the right time”

<ul><li>Assess your goals. Work on the most valuable all the time.</li><li>Work on the tasks with the greatest impact.</li><li>Think like a wealthy person. Do what one does.</li></ul>

Applying the 80/20 Rule in Goal Setting

The 80 20 rule is one of the most helpful concepts for life and time management. Also known as the Pareto Principle, this rule suggests that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results . This being the case, you should change the way you set goals forever.

The 80 20 rule is one of the most helpful concepts for life and time management.

Also known as the Pareto Principle , this rule suggests that 20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results .

This being the case, you should change the way you set goals forever.

As I just mentioned, the 80 20 rule is also called the "Pareto Principle." It was named after it's founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, back in 1895. He noticed that people in society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the "vital few," or the top 20 percent in terms of money and influence, and the "trivial many," or the bottom 80 percent.

Later, he discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this principle, in that 80 percent of the wealth of Italy during that time was controlled by 20 percent of the population.

We can take Pareto's 80 20 rule and apply it to almost any situation. Understanding the principle is essential to learning how to prioritize your tasks, days, weeks, and months.

In business, it's essential to strategic planning, which is one of the <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/blog/leadership-success/the-seven-leadership-qualities-of-great-leaders-strategic-planning/">leadership qualities </a>shared by the world's most important leaders.

For the purpose of this article, we will discuss applying it specifically to goal setting and productivity.

<a href="https://www.briantracy.com/success/personal/op/14-step-goal-setting-guide.html">Download my 14-Step Goal-Setting Guide </a>to put the 80 20 Rule into action!

The Pareto Principle is a concept that suggests two out of ten items, on any general to-do list, will turn out to be worth more than the other eight items put together.

The sad fact is that most people procrastinate on the top 10 or 20 percent of items that are the most valuable and important, the "vital few," and busy themselves instead with the least important 80 percent, the "trivial many," that contribute very little to their success.

How to Apply the 80 20 Rule to Goal Setting

Here's what you should do in order to effectively apply the 80/20 rule to <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/smart-goals/">setting SMART goals </a>which will boost your overall productivity.

First, take a piece of paper and write down ten goals. Then ask yourself: If you could only accomplish one of the goals on that list today, which one goal would have the greatest positive impact on your life?

Then pick the second most important goal. What you'll find is, after you complete this exercise, you will have determined the most important 20 percent of your goals that will help you more than anything else.

You should continue to work at those goals that you've chosen as the most valuable all the time.

You often see people who appear to be busy all day long but seem to accomplish very little. This is almost always because they are busy working on tasks that are of low value while they are procrastinating on the one or two activities that could make a real difference to their companies and to their careers.

The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex, but the payoff and rewards for completing them can be tremendous.

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

The rule for this is: resist the temptation to clear up small things first.

If you choose to start your day working on low-value tasks, you will soon develop the habit of always starting and working on low-value tasks.

Finally, I want to tell you about a study that has just been done about the attitudes of rich people versus poor people in regard to goal setting. What they found is that 85% of rich people have one big goal that they work on all the time.

So, if you want to be wealthy, do what wealthy people do. Pick one big goal and work on it all the time, and if you do, it will change your life.

Before we wrap up, I'd like to leave you with a thought to share with your friends and followers:

"When your goals are clear, you will come up with exactly the right answer at exactly the right time" @BrianTracy <a href="http://ctt.ec/93ph9">Click here to Tweet This </a><a href="http://ctt.ec/93ph9"><img src="https://www.briantracy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/tweet-graphic-trans.png"/> </a>

Those are my strategies for applying the 80 20 Rule.

My question today is: "Do you use the 80 20 Rule for goal setting, and if you do, what changes have you noticed in your life?

Leave a comment below, and I'll be sure to follow up with you.

To learn more about goal setting and time management, <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/success/personal/op/14-step-goal-setting-guide.html">download my free 14-Step Goal-Setting Guide PDF here. </a>

Using the Pareto Rule to Achieve Success in Life

The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same.

It begins with you dreaming big dreams.

There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do.

As a wise man once said, "You must dream big dreams, for only big dreams have the power to move the minds of men." When you begin to dream big dreams, your levels of self-esteem and self-confidence will go up immediately. You will feel more powerful about yourself and your ability to deal with what happens to you. The reason so many people accomplish so little is because they never allow themselves to lean back and imagine the kind of life that is possible for them.

A powerful principle that you can use to dream big dreams and live without limits is contained in what Elihu Goldratt calls the "Theory of Constraints." This is one of the greatest breakthroughs in modern thinking. What Goldratt has found is that in every process, in accomplishing any goal, there is a bottleneck or choke cord that serves as a constraint on the process. This constraint then sets the speed at which you achieve any particular goal.

What Goldratt found is that if you concentrate all of your creative energies and attention on alleviating the constraint, you can speed up the process faster than by doing any other single thing.

Let me give you an example. Let us say that you want to double your income. What is the critical constraint or the limiting factor that holds you back? Well, you know that your income is a direct reward for the quality and quantity of the services you render to your world. Whatever field you are in, if you want to double your income, you simply have to double the quality and quantity of what you do for that income. Or you have to change activities and occupations so that what you are doing is worth twice as much. But you must always ask yourself, "What is the critical constraint that holds me back or sets the speed on how fast I double my income?"

A friend of mine is one of the highest-paid commission professionals in the United States. One of his goals was to double his income over the next three to five years.

He applied the 80 20 rule to his client base.

What he found was that 20 percent of his clients contributed 80 percent of his profits. He also found that the amount of time spent on a high-profit client was pretty much the same amount of time spent on a low-profit client.

In other words, he was dividing his time equally over the number of tasks that he does while only 20 percent of those items contributed to 80 percent of his results.

So he drew a line on his list of clients under those who represented the top 20 percent and then called in other professionals in his industry and very carefully, politely, and strategically handed off the 80 percent of his clients that only represented 20 percent of his business.

He then put together a profile of his top clients and began looking in the marketplace exclusively for the type of client who fit the profile; in other words, one who could become a major profit contributor to his organization, and whom he in turn could serve with the level of excellence that his clients were accustomed to. And instead of doubling his income in three to five years, he doubled it in the first year with that one simple <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/time_management/">time management </a>technique!

Most people can typically identify a few things that stand between their time and their goals. Sometimes they are learned feelings of helplessness. Sometimes they are simply excuses.

So what's holding you back? Is it your level of education or skill?

If you're goal is to be a published author and you <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/blog/writing/how-to-write-a-book/">learn how to write a book </a>with a proven system, then what else is in your way?

Is it your current occupation or job? Is it your current environment or level of health? Is it the situations that you are in today? What is setting the speed for you achieving your goal?

Remember, whatever you have learned, you can unlearn. Whatever situation you have gotten yourself into, you can probably get yourself out of. If your real goal is to dream big dreams and to live without limits, you can set this as your standard and compare everything that you do against it.

The three keys to living without limits have always been the same. They are clarity, competence, and concentration.

#1: Clarity of Your Desires, Goals, and Vision

<a href="https://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/what-is-your-true-calling-in-life/">Clarity </a>means that you are absolutely clear about who you are, what you want, and where you're going. You write down your goals and you make plans to accomplish them. You set very careful priorities and you do something every day to move you toward your goals. And the more progress you make toward accomplishing things that are important to you, the greater self-confidence and self-belief you have, and the more convinced you become that there are no limits on what you can achieve.

Having clarity of your desires and a clear vision for your future will help you stay focused on your goals everyday. Focusing on your goals daily is actually one of the most important <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/seven-good-habits-of-highly-successful-people-goal-oriented/">habits of successful people </a>in my opinion.

Goal-oriented people tend to have more clarity and more success in life than those who do not set goals regularly. They are also most likely to be mindful of their time management and tend to be interested in productivity techniques, such as the Pareto Principle.

Competence means that you begin to become very, very good in the key result areas of your chosen field. You apply the 80/20 rule to everything you do and you focus on becoming outstanding in the 20 percent of tasks that contribute to 80 percent of your results. You dedicate yourself to continuous learning. You never stop growing. You realize that excellence is a moving target. And you commit yourself to doing something every day that enables you to become better and better at doing the most important things in your field.

Concentration is having the <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/blog/leadership-success/self-discipline-self-confidence-leadership-styles/">self-discipline </a>to force yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and stay with it until it's complete.

The two key words for success have always been focus and concentration.

Focus is knowing exactly what you want to be, have, and do. Concentration is persevering, without diversion or distraction, in a straight line toward accomplishing the things that can make a real difference in your life.

When you allow yourself to begin to dream big dreams, creatively abandon the activities that are taking up too much of your time, and focus your inward energies on alleviating your main constraints, you start to feel an incredible sense of power and confidence. As you focus on doing what you love to do and becoming excellent in those few areas that can make a real difference in your life, you begin to think in terms of possibilities rather than impossibilities, and you move ever closer toward the realization of your full <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/catalog/unlock-your-potential">potential </a>.

Motivational Quotes About the 80 20 Rule (Please Share with Your Friends)

"Resist the urge to clear up small things first." - Brian Tracy

"20 percent of your activities will account for 80 percent of your results" - 80/20 Rule Quote by Brian Tracy

Bonus Tip: Read <a href="https://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/26-motivational-quotes-for-success/">inspirational quotes and motivational sayings </a>every day to stay focused and productive.

The 80 20 Rule Explained (a.k.a. Pareto Principle) | Brian Tracy

It&#39;s a bad habit to have when it&#39;s the end of the workday yet you still feel guilty that maybe you haven&#39;t done enough, so you continue working even though it isn&#39;t the time to do so anymore.
Keeping up with this practice will only lead our bodies to be exhausted, overworked, and burnt out.

Working with guilt and fear

<ol>
<li>Recognize when you&#39;re feeling guilty and afraid that you didn&#39;t do enough. Take note of the feeling and slowly let the feeling go, with no judgments.</li>
<li>Let yourself pause and breathe. Be kind to yourself.</li>
<li>Remind yourself that you&#39;re allowed to do other things aside from work. Being able to rest is important so that you&#39;ll be able to give your best the next time you go to work.</li>
<li>Take the rest. Enjoy the space you have for yourself.</li>
</ol>

Moving on from the work guilt

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The Guilt of Not Working More, When We’re Done for the Day

At the end of a day of work, there can be a simple practice of wrapping things up and shutting down for the day.

But so many of us feel guilty at simply stopping, and this feeling that we should be doing more … it drives some of us to keep going as long as we can.

This can lead to overwork, burnout, tiredness, and never letting ourselves enjoy a moment of rest.

Do you relate to this guilt of simply stopping and resting?

The thing about this guilt is that it doesn’t have to be rational — it’s simply fear, that we’re not doing enough, that we’re not on top of things, that we’re not going to be OK if we don’t get everything done.

I know this fear well. I still have it, on a daily basis. It’s not rational, but then fear never is.

This fear will control us if we don’t bring a kind awareness to it, and start to work with us. It will own us, and we’ll always be checking our phones, replying to messages, stuck in perpetual motion. Rest becomes difficult, joy becomes mostly inaccessible.

Here’s how I work with this guilt and fear:

<ol><li>Recognize it when it’s happening . When it’s late in the day, and we could be wrapping things up and closing our work day … notice the urge to do more. Notice the guilt of stopping. Just bring awareness to the fear and guilt, without judging them or needing them to go away. </li><li>Breathe, and feel it . Pause, take a few deep breaths, and don’t let yourself buy into the fear. Feel the physical sensation of the fear, but don’t believe it. Give yourself some kindness. </li><li>Remind yourself of a bigger truth . The idea that you should be on top of everything and working harder and checking emails and messages … it feels really true in the moment. But it is very rarely true. What’s a bigger truth? That you need rest to be able to serve others. That you are allowed to do other things, to spend time with others, to take care of yourself, to feel joy at spaciousness in your life. And this is a model for how others might live too. Taking rest serves the world. Remind yourself of this truth. </li><li>Then take the rest . Feel in your heart how this is worthwhile. And let yourself enjoy the space. You don’t need to fill every moment with more work, more messages, more email. </li> </ol>

How would you like to practice with this for yourself?

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