I’ve learned it’s not lack of time, it’s not knowing what your priorities are.

When we don’t get things done, whether it’s a list of 10 or 50, we usually say it’s due to lack of time.

The famous “LIST.” We have have one and sometimes hate it. I hate it often  It should be updated daily and should never take 8 hours to complete. Don’t add too much cause you’ll never get it done. That will result into you feeling like crap. Not good. There should only be 2 major tasks, other little to-do’s aren’t in dire need of immediate attention.

The work force consists of 8 hours and the truth is, we can get a lot of what’s needed to be done in half the time. If there was better planing, better time management, we’d spend 3 hours at work and the rest of our day doing what we really want. But, time is money when you trade hours for dollars. You can’t really do anything about that besides find a job that fits your needs better or become an entrepreneur.

Let’s get back to our to do list. We always have tons of things to do. But the beauty of a list is- you can number them. From most important to least important. If you stuck to this list daily, you’d get so much done. It should be like brushing your teeth 🙂

Cut out the fat. Doing things like checking email, Facebook, etc…is pure fat. If you have articles to write, know exactly how much you want to write. 2 articles a day, or 1 article a day with a minimum of 1500 words. Make sure it’s something sustainable. You want quality content but aiming too high may lead you to stop all together. Fine the medium. You need to set rules for yourself in order to achieve the reason behind it.

You have a house to clean, grrr…I hate cleaning the house. I don’t find it therapeutic, I just find filth unnecessary. I have to tell myself NO CLEANING today, work on other things…but I find myself cleaning something anyways. In order to trim down the fat, I had to create a routine. Come home, make dinner, watch Ellen and spend about 45 minutes picking up. At least this way, I don’t get overwhelmed. There are only a couple of things I limit myself to per day.

How about time…with family and friends? You really can’t say you don’t have time. Just just have more important things to do. We hear the saying over and over again, life is short. You don’t know how long anyone will be on earth, think about that.

Again it all comes down to priorities. It’s not lack of time, just lack of awareness.

Never again say I don’t have time, just say I have other things of more importance.

If you’re a person with a schedule, (who sticks to it) you probably manage your time well and in return you are more productive. There are some things that you have to NOT do in order to accomplish the bigger tasks. Should you wash your car by hand when you still have a report that’s due  tomorrow? Probably not. Take your car to the car wash instead. Skip phone calls, emails, going out…all these things are considered fat when it comes to getting what may be difficult DONE. You don’t always want to do what you should, but you should. So get your priorities straight, it’s not lack of time. We have 24hrs in one day. That’s 1,440 minutes you have to get things done. 86,400 seconds. Sleep is important. Our bodies are different. I personally need 7 to be productive. I’ve done the testing 🙂 Anything less than 7 makes me crumpy and foggy minded.  But when something needs to be done, I don’t sleep and just load up on caffeine. Eating healthy helps with this as well but that’s a later post I’ll dive into with you. When you’ve completed your task, REST.  Find your balance.

Daily to do list….do not sleep until you do them. (should be two major ones)

1)

2)

Track what you do.

There are sites that actually monitor exactly what you do online. But the truth is- you already know what’s a waste of time. How much time do you watch TV? I think you know if it’s too much. How many useless conversations do you have? How much cleaning do you do? How many night outs of doing nothing do you have?

You need to keep a log of your daily activities. Make sure it’s detailed. From what site you went on, how many times and how long. Do this for everything you do for the entire day. Even how much sleep you got. Be honest! When you look back on it, you’ll see exactly how much time you’ve wasted. All the “I didn’t have enough time,” was merely less important than everything else you got done.

Entrepreneurs, if it’s not making you money, stop it. Students, if it’s not adding to straight A’s, stop it. Parent’s, if it doesn’t bring you and your family to a happier place, stop it. Work smarter, not harder. You have objectives in all areas of your life, focus and stop wasting time.

Happy productivity 🙂 Happy heart 🙂 Happy all around 🙂