One of the first rules for those, who want to learn how to prioritize, is to get rid of enforced things and “duties”. You should learn to say “no” in those situations, when the others try to force you to do something that is not in your plans or has nothing to do with your personal goals and values. Learn to set personal boundaries and protect your own sanity, otherwise you will soon feel exhausted and overloaded with your own issues and your “obligations” to help, to be there, to listen, to look after, and so on. Be selective and choose only the battles you truly want to fight for other people. Do not go with the flow, and only in such case you will be able to achieve your personal and professional goals.

Now, you can say “Wait! You want me to say “no” to my friends and people who really need my help in order to save my time? You want me to ignore their needs and earn a fame of a hard-hearted and ill-mannered person?” And I will say - “No!“This is the last idea I would like to promote, because in our daily life we do really need to help and support our friends and close people a lot. All I want you to understand is that saying “yes“to never ending non-critical daily demands that are re-placed onto your shoulders can take your attention off your own priorities, affect your chances to achieve success and limit your personal freedom to a great extent!

Certainly, reliable people who are always ready to assist and support are of a great value in any society, however, there must be limits. Moreover, frequently your friends do not seem to appreciate your readiness to help at any time. That is why you must learn compromise. Certainly, when it is really necessary and does not ruin your plans, you can babysit your niece one day or talk to your boss about your friend as a new potential employee. This way you will demonstrate your love and concern about your close people. However, if you can not do this by some reason, do not be afraid to say “no“, politely but assertively.

Our society is stricken with “a disease to please“, that is why saying “no” is strictly connected with certain fears of breaking down the people we love by refusing to help them, as well as fears of hurting someone’s feelings or being rejected for such behavior. The only way to prevent all these negative effects of saying “no” is to deliver the message in the most effective way. There are some tips for those, who want to master this effective technique:

• Do not accompany your “no” with weak and unrealistic excuses. Ask for some time to think over the request and find the most rational and clear supportive arguments for your negative answer.
• In some situations it makes sense not to say “no” directly, but use some verbal signs to demonstrate your negative response. However, if you know that the person you are dealing with can be too very insistent and will go on bothering you all the time, it is better to say a direct and assertive “no“. Moreover, for some people only aggressive “no” will work: “Are you kidding? Me, picking your laundry on Sunday morning while you are out of town?“
• Use logical explanations for your negative answers. Make a person understand that there is something more important to you than the request. “You know, I would gladly give you a lift, but Mrs. Hauer have asked me to pick her up, and you truly hate each other, don’t you?“
• Use non-verbal signs to show the person that you do not really want to do what is requested. Speak with a firm and assertive voice and look into the person’s eyes when saying “no“. Be honest and polite. Some of the best ways to start your speech are: “I’m sorry, but I must turn down your request this time because…” or “Oh, I wish I could help you now, but…“

Do not think that a refusal to give a hand to other people with their daiy duties is something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about. Saying “no” is an honorable answer! You and only you are the master of your personal time, and nobody else has a right to trench upon your time and use it for satisfying own needs. Learn to say “no” and be ready to hear “no” from other people as well. However, the effects can be really positive: you will be valued and respected for your “yes” and for your “no“. The main idea is to make people around you understand that saying “no” does not turn a person into your enemy.

Undoubtedly, the concept of prioritizing is one of the key ideas of the whole time management theory – it is one of its foundation stones! Prioritizing means making choices, what to do right now and what not to do. Well-developed prioritizing skills and abilities to evaluate, what task is the most important in a certain period of time, are crucial for every successful person and for those, who want to achieve long-term goals. Prioritizing also can help us distinguish between urgent, the most important and the most rewarding tasks, and learn to focus on them.

In time management books and theories, there are many ways and techniques of complex prioritizing, which include various matrixes or using 5-6 criteria for evaluation of the tasks. Well, in order to save our time and not to get confused in this everything, I offer using a very simple model, which always works for me and will, certainly, work for you, my dear readers. This model is very simple and can be used at any time and for any type of tasks or activities you need to do. This is basically how it works.

1.    Make a list of everything that must be done or you want to be done for a certain period of time (a working day, a week, a year, etc.). Remember, that making a written list of the tasks or activities is very effective for the beginners, that is why write down every thing that comes to your mind!
2.    Evaluate every single task and activity in your to-do list. Ask yourself a question: “Will something terrible happen if I don’t accomplish this item as soon as possible?” “Is this really something that MUST be done no matter what?” If the answer is “Yes“, then this item is an A Priority item, the highest priority task or activity.
3.    If the task is important, rewarding and quite urgent, but still can be postponed for some time, it belongs to the second category, or B Priority.
4.    All the rest of the tasks and activities in your list have to be considered C Priorities, or not important items. Ask yourself, “Will something happen if I don’t accomplish this item at all?” If the answer is “No”, you can leave these tasks for better times.

That’s all. Everything you need to do is to learn setting the priorities on a regular basis and spending your time only for doing those tasks, which fall under your A and B categories. This model can assist you greatly in distinguishing those tasks, which will make you closer to your goals and stimulate your personal progress day by day, from the other, less useful and important duties or activities.

Unfortunately, many of us feel lazy to spend time for prioritizing. We do a great deal of things and tasks that appear in our working schedules or are a part of our daily routine and simply need to be accomplished, without asking questions about the priorities. However, prioritizing is a very important approach which effectively works for improving productivity, achieving better results and higher time efficiency, being focused only on important tasks and more oriented on long-term goals, and so on.

Step 1. Decide, what exactly do you want to achieve in this life, where do you want to be and what do you want to possess? Specifying your goals and your strategies to achieve them will help you in one important thing: to avoid doing useless, low value tasks and wasting your time and efforts. “One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not be done at all”, Tracy says.

Step 2. Think on paper. Try to write down at least 10 goals you want to achieve within the next year. Make them clear and crystallize them on paper. Now you see that by writing them down, your dreams and goals turned from fantasies into something tangible and real, didn’t they?

Step 3. Estimate an optimistic deadline and a pessimistic deadline for your goals. If your goal has no fixed time limits, it loses its relevance and urgency. You have to establish clear time frames for achieving your goals and assume the responsibilities not to procrastinate all the time, but work on this day by day.

Step 4. Think about everything you need to do, learn or accomplish in order to achieve your goals, and make a list of the findings. This will, definitely, make your goals closer to you. Also, this list will give you a picture of the most important or the largest tasks you need to accomplish on your way to every goal.

Step 5. Organize the list of the findings by priority and time sequence. You can use charts, boxes or circles. This plan will help you to increase your productivity and efficiency, so you will definitely be more successful than anyone who carries his goals in the mind.

Step 6. Take action! Find something that you can do right away in order to get closer to your goals at least for an inch. You can arrange a meeting with your future business partner, or find some important online information for your project. Do anything right away!

Step 7. Make a habit of doing something that will move you toward achieving your goals every single day. Learn something new every day, get engaged in specific activities or discussions, and involve more and more people in your projects. Keep moving forward and do not miss a day!

It is reported that only 3-5% of people have clear realistic written goals and objectives for their life. Such people are supposed to be more confident and more determined on their way to achieving those goals. They are also considered to be more reliable, more pragmatic and precise, and they usually have fewer problems with estimating the time for accomplishing their tasks. Finally, they are supposed to be more successful.

That is why time management specialists recommend to write down your specific long-term goals on a piece of paper, then write down your short-term goals, and then do all that “scheduling” thing, specify the deadlines for every step, etc. They say that this will be your roadmap to success. Well, this idea can sound useless and quite senseless to many people, especially to those who have some unclear and “standard” goals in their mind, like “I will buy a better car when I get paid for this project” or “I will start a diet and lose 10 pounds till the end of this year”. I understand those people, and I admit that they can live their life happily without any planning and scheduling on paper.

All I want to ask you now is just giving a clear answer to yourself: do you have some certain ambitions or aspirations in your life? What are you trying to achieve in this life? What is you life? Is it like going with the flow and sitting on fence, or like looking for something special and helping other people to feel comfortable in this world? Where do you want to be in 10 or 20 years? What do you need to do for that? It is not for scheduling or planning something, it is for yourself. Take a break from your daily routine for a minute, sit down and think about your future, your goals and reasons you live this life for. Also, try to understand that the clearer your goals are, the easier it will be for you to overcome your procrastination and laziness, learn being successful and find your place among the most productive people of your generation.

2. Our laziness likes the words “here” and “now”. Chronic lazy people rarely think about tomorrow and about their future, they mostly live in the present and care only about today. Also, they always give promises to themselves to start a new life, to do this and that, etc. etc… But tomorrow everything repeats again and again. If you can not do anything about your laziness, I can offer you, for example, to lay a bet with someone that you can do something special, something great and newsworthy. Maybe, this trick will open new horizons for you….

3. Do you know that our laziness needs some creephole or crawlway to sneak in on you? It can not come up at any time and any place. For example, if you are hungry for two days, you laziness will not stop you from looking for a meal. Or, if you have an exam tomorrow, you will most probably feel anxious and look through some textbooks or notes. Therefore, in order to win the fight against laziness, you need to set up very ambitious goals and give your laziness no chances to find that crawlway to approach you.

4. Many specialists tend to suppose that our laziness is an acquired individual trait that depends on the way our parents educate and bring us up.  However, if you were not lucky with proper education and training in your childhood, you can open your way to changing yourself. It is difficult, but if you really want to get better and achieve more success in your life, you must do everything possible and learn to struggle against the stream of laziness.

5. Always remember that laziness is very infectious. If you join a group or a company where everybody is lazy, there is no doubt that soon you will get buried in sloth, too. Try to do everything possible to avoid such groups and never model your conduct on lazy people.

6. If you are not an irresponsible teenager anymore, but your obscene laziness still overrules you, so you mostly do what you want and not what you need to do, you must have unconscious unpleasant impulses in your mind: hidden feelings of guilt and remorse. And, whether you want this or not, there is a certain war of motifs in your mind that results in growing feeling of uncertainty, discontent or unfulfilled opportunities. Do not let this all hang out, cos’ these things can cause certain psychological problems and traumas…

•    Lack of willpower is one of the most frequent syndromes that cause laziness. Sometimes, even when everything is well planned and considered, your laziness can take over you and keep you from coming to the point for days, or maybe for months and years. In such case, it is very important to take action and at least begin doing what you planned to do: it can make you get focused on your task.

•    Lack of motivation is another type of laziness. Sometimes a person is not sure, why he or she has to do something, or he/she expects someone else to do this job. It is possible to fight with this type of laziness by increasing motivation. Think about the reward you will receive for this task and consider all the pros and cons. Also, remember that if your task is not properly elaborated and considered, only motivation will not be enough for completing this task successfully.

•    For many people, laziness is an important part of their lifestyle. Let’s see how everything comes about: a guy receives a task and starts thinking over the ways to complete it in a rational way. It takes some time and efforts, so people around him start thinking that he is lazy because he is not doing anything else but thinking. Finally, under this influence the guy also starts thinking that he is lazy, so he tries to do everything possible to change himself. Usually, it goes from bad to worse. However, in the end of the ends, when the deadline arrived, our guy manages to complete the task successfully and on time.

•    Sometimes our laziness is a drive to avoid responsibility. The roots of this problem go back to our childhood, when our parents used to protect us from the necessity to accept full responsibility or take the consequences for our deeds. This is one of the most dangerous types of laziness, which, however, can be cured.

•    Unless I be mistaken, it was Sigmund Freud who argued that laziness takes source from the drive of all human beings to seek pleasure. When we do something, we take pleasure from what we are doing. When we are lazing, we also take pleasure from not doing anything.

•    Some lucky people have so called “intuitive laziness”. They know very well what they need to do, but they feel lazy to do that. Later on it turns out that it was actually not necessary to do that. This type of laziness can save your time and efforts from doing useless things, but in many situations it is quite deceptive.

•    There is one type of laziness that has no negative nature. For many people laziness works as a defense mechanism for overwork. What I am talking about is: some people work so much and simply get tired of working hard all the time. They slow down and immediately start thinking that they are lazy, start blaming themselves for that and go into depression. But all they actually needed was a rest.

•    Many lazy people used to justify their laziness by saying “Laziness Drives All Progress”. Just give it a thought: is it our usual bottomless laziness, or our desire to do something faster and without spending much of efforts? Only such “creative laziness” can drive all progress. What progress can you achieve by lying on the sofa doing nothing?

One thing I need to tell you before we begin. After reading several books on time management and trying all those tips they recommend, I realized that the best way to move ahead and achieve some progress is to make changes in life and introduce new rules gradually. No need to think that if you want to become more organized, you need to start the next day with 20 minutes of panning, thinking about the priorities, trying to fit the schedules and spending crazy efforts for this everything. No way! So, let’s come to action, ladies and gentlemen! Let’s see what we can do right away to save some minutes for effective work and for more effective leisure.

1. Have you ever thought that spending so much time for gathering yourself up and collecting your energies before you actually come to work in the morning is a serious waste of time? Many people have a habit of starting their working day with a cup of tea or coffee, a smoke or a little chat with the colleagues, but sometimes it takes really long, so their day begins much later than it could. Therefore, our first step will be directed on minimization of the time you need to focus and get to the point! For example, at the start of your working day you used to read the news online for 30 minutes or so. Try to decrease this time to 10 minutes and begin dealing with your tasks 20 minutes earlier than you usually do: most probably, you will notice positive changes in the end of the day.

2. It can fall into a little controversy with the previous idea, but frequently a special habit or ritual that we always practice before starting our working day, can be a good sign for our mind to get concentrated and come to work right away. A friend of mine starts her day with a cup of herbal tea, and another friend of mine always needs to listen to some hip-hop to feel refreshed in the morning. The main idea of this recommendation is to develop such a “hook” for your mind which will allow you not to delay your getting down to work (like watching news or chatting with friends), but ring the bells in your mind for immediate action. For example, if you start your day with a cup of coffee, you can drink it while you are checking out you business e-mails or cleaning your table from dozens of papers left from the day before. Make your morning ritual fit your type of work, and let it be a sign for your mind to get focused on your routine as soon as possible.

3. This is a new rule that will help us deal with small and not urgent, but very unpleasant tasks. For example, a single guy usually postpones doing such chores as ironing or taking out his garbage, a secretary can postpone writing an apology e-mail to the company’s potential client or talking to her tight-fisted boss about upgrading her computer. Sometimes we collect a plenty of such tasks on our shoulders that usually makes us nervous and increases pressure causing new stresses. Why to stand on this day by day? Make a new rule: eat a frog every day! Chose ONE task or duty that you’d really like to avoid doing, pull yourself together and accomplish this task. Make it a habit of yours and, believe me, the outcomes will be beyond your expectations. You will fell really relaxed and proud of yourself!

4. Finally, today’s last tip. Many people put off doing bulky and difficult tasks (pleasant or unpleasant) for the reasons we already know (“Don’t know where to begin!”, “No, I am unequal to this task!”, “Oh, it will take all of my time and I will get tired!”, “Hmmm, I’d better ask my boss, how to deal with this!”, “Hell, no! I will never manage with this!”, etc. etc.). First of all, stop making a mountain out of a molehill! Any huge task can turn into a simple list of activities. Break down your rock into small pieces and every day move away some of them. Than, in a week or two, your way will be clear and your formidable task will be completed without any worries and stresses.

I hope this helps.

“A man who dares waste one hour of time
has not discovered the value of life.”
Charles Darwin

Everyone knows that time management is a special technology of time optimization that helps people use their time more effectively, according to everyone’s special goals and personal values. Undoubtedly, this concept is a great organizational tool for everyone, but especially for those who always have lack of time. Those people who have developed good time management skills usually have no problem with setting up absolutely realistic objectives or goals and achieving those goals by using their time in the most effective way. However, everyone must understand that if you want to reach some progress and become more self organized, such practices as planning and controlling your time have to turn into an ineradicable habit of yours.

Certainly, you can argue that we do not always have hold on time and our life is full of surprises that frequently ruin our plans. This is right, just like a known proverb says: man proposes, God disposes. Well, every morning (or every evening before going to sleep) the majority of us usually makes some plans for coming day and schedules the things that must be done. But very frequently something unexpected or urgent comes up in our daily routine, so we have to switch our attention and efforts to doing those “unplanned” things that sometimes are quite bulky and boring. That is why in the evening we have to admit to ourselves again and again that our plans did not work due to the circumstances that are beyond our control.

However, using the approach of effective time management you can interpret this situation in a different way. If you tried really hard and spent a lot of efforts to make your plans come true (despite of any urgent things and circumstances), you do not have to regret for the planned things you could not accomplish. But if you usually spend the most of your time for coffee breaks, chatting with your colleagues and smoking, you will not be happy even with those few things that you managed to accomplish during the day. In such case, knowing basic skills of time management can be very useful for you to develop a responsible approach to everything you do.

Time management was a subject of interest of many specialists and progressive thinkers of the last century. For example, our glorious president Benjamin Franklin was one of the pioneers of modern time management. He formulated several important principles based on his famous Success Strategies. These principles must be considered to be the major postulates of classic time management and generally they can be put to the following:

1. Plan your things, or they will “plan” you. In order to achieve success, you must have a specific plan and specific goals for your future.

2. Time is the most priceless asset of yours. This resource can not be collected, stored up or extended, that is why effective organization of our time is the only way to maximize its utility.

3. Develop the skills to distinguish major things from minor things. Effective time management includes developing the abilities to prioritize the tasks and specify the ones that must be done (no matter what) and the ones that should better be done (but can be possibly postponed).

4. Set up realistic plans, try to stick to those plans and make it a habit of yours.

Remember these principles and try to keep them in mind all the time. However, do not think that time management is something related only to planning! Philosophy of time management is focused around the following idea: if a man wants to get freedom for something, he has to limit his freedom in something else. So, time management is a technique that can help you free your time for something you truly wish to spend your time for. Moreover: effective time management can help you spend your time for something really important, and the earlier you learn its secrets, the more effective and interesting every day of your life gonna be!

You can say: “No, I do not believe in this! Time management is too ideal concept that does not work in real life!” Do not give up on this, really! All you need is to set up more ambitious goals (your personal goals) and do everything possible to achieve them! Aspire to impossible things, and you will receive maximum! Therefore, you do not have to develop anything ideal: just try to be as closer to the ideal as possible. You can certainly do it by adopting the system of effective time management for your life.

As I have already stated before, knowing why we procrastinate is not the way to solve this problem. However, analyzing own addictive avoidance behavior and identifying possible reasons of your habit to escape from doing things is a must on the way to your total recovery from this disease. Certainly, our procrastination is closely linked to our inability to organize and plan our own activities in a rational way. However, the problem of procrastination always goes far beyond disorganization.

Let me list the most common reasons why we put off the tasks we have to do:

• Various fears of ours. This is the leading reason that motivates people to put off their tasks and, possibly, spend their time in looking for the ways to avoid doing those things. The fears include, first of all, fear of failure, fear of unpleasant experience and fear of frustration. Some procrastinators experience fear of success, because they do not want to assume the responsibility for their success and afraid that someone will tend to use their skills and talent, causing more and more loads and things to do.

• A tendency to perfectionism. This is a very important reason of our chronic procrastination. Many people tend to plan and think about making their work go smoothly or budgeting and doing everything possible for the projects to be done perfectly well. That usually causes huge delays in actual making the things done. Moreover, all the energy and creativity is usually spent for analyzing, therefore, sometimes there are no resources left for doing the task on time.

• Lack of motivation. Sometimes people delay doing their work because they are actually not willing to spend the efforts and resources for doing it. Maybe the work is too hard or the reward is too small. Lack of motivation is a serious factor that makes people procrastinate and fail to achieve good results.

• Inability to prioritize the tasks and structure the work that must be done. Many people procrastinate because they simply do not know where and how to start doing their tasks. They have no idea what must be done first and that’s why they always get lost. Or even worse: they misplace the priorities and start working on something really not important and usually very boring. The result is always the same: “I’ll finish doing this useless thing later on!”.

• Looking for crises. I have a friend who is certain that doing things under pressure always mobilizes and stimulates a person for achieving great results. That is why she usually does everything in the last minute.

• Failure to estimate own time and abilities. Some people underestimate the time necessary for their work that frequently causes putting this work off since it will not take much of time. Overestimating the time or other resources needed for a project also frequently leads to procrastination because of the feeling that the project will take too much of efforts or too much of time.

• Distractibility and tendency to fantasize. There are people who have problems with being concentrated on doing something for long time. Such people get distracted very easily and usually do several things in the same time, or jump from one activity to another because “something else has come up”. Moreover, very often they fantasize on doing something great and considerable, but never actually come to doing this – never in their life!

• Anger. Some procrastinators try to escape from doing their tasks because of their anger or feeling bad about the necessity to do those tasks. Undoubtedly, this does not lead to any positive results.

• Waiting for inspiration. Some people procrastinate because they are sure that for doing the work well they need to be in a good or special mood. However, sometimes such mood does not come for days…

• Laziness and seeking pleasure. Some people really do not care about the things that must be done.

Do I need to mention, in how many other ways the habit to procrastinate can affect your life? People can lose their businesses and fortunes, lose their friendships and destroy their lives because of procrastination. Unfortunately, a real danger of the problem of chronic procrastination has not been fully recognized by our society yet. Moreover, many specialists tend to connect this problem with time management and inability of a procrastinator to plan his/her time. This is a great misinterpretation of this problem, and trying to help procrastinators by giving them recommendations to improve their time management skills is a big mistake!

Some experts tend to define procrastination as “an addictive disorder”, or simply as an addiction. Yes, all procrastinators do have a strong addiction: they try to escape from doing the things they do not want or hate doing by one or another reason. Therefore, they choose to postpone doing things, like other addicts use substances to postpone dealing with mental or psychological problems they face. As a solution for the problem of putting things off all the time, many psychologists offer looking for a reason of your procrastination and trying to eliminate it. Well, do you believe that it is really going to work? No way! Chronic procrastination is something like alcoholism or drug abuse: will an alcoholic stop drinking if he finds the reason that has brought him to drinking?

As I could observe, all chronic procrastinators have a cyclic way of living with their problem. Usually, when they figure out that their life has become unmanageable and their habit of putting things off is getting out of their hand, they start feeling guilty about their helplessness or not doing anything to change their habit. They check out information on the net or look for some books and articles related to the problem, learn all those easy tips on how to get rid of chronic procrastination, and make up their mind to start a new life without procrastination. Next morning they make a list of the things thy need to do, schedule everything very precisely and feel very proud of their work! Yes, sometimes they even have enough of willpower to complete some first tasks on that list! Finally, they think: “Hey, that was a good start! I got a great progress!” And after this – everything goes on the same way as it was before: panic before the deadlines in school, doing the work in the last minute, being late and frustrated.

This example is quite an illustrative picture. Real chronic procrastination is a very hard problem – probably, the hardest one that we will have to fight with. Getting rid of this terrible habit is connected with a very responsible approach to SAYING what you are going to do and DOING what you have said. That is why a huge motivation will be necessary. But I’ll tell you what: do not wait till you have “a dentist situation”, when your delays of going to the dentist have led you to the necessity to remove all your decaying teeth and replace them with implants. Getting the job done on time is much easier and more pleasant, isn’t it?