Little Things You Can Change For A Happier And Fulfilled Life

Sometimes, the cause of our unhappiness is our very own nature. We are naturally inclined with certain characteristics which needs to be changed in order for us to live a happier and fulfilled life. To hold on to these natural characteristics and still aspire to be happy and live a fulfilled life is impossible. The only thing that stands between you and happiness is you. Change these natural characteristics of you and find your way to a happier destination.

1. Selfishness

It is very easy to think of other people as selfish but the truth is we are all naturally selfish. Of course, some people may be more selfish than others but we all have a dose of selfishness in our genes. Whose face do you first look at in a group picture? You! And so does everyone else.

If all the people in the world remained selfish, then the world will be such a horrible place to live. Selfishness must be replaced with empathy and selflessness. We must realize that, others are important in the world too. We are not the only important people, we need to look out for others the same way we would want them to look out for us. We might not be homeless, but if we were the homeless person on the street, will we expect others to help us or walk by.

When you trade selfishness for selflessness, you will realize that nothing is more fulfilling and joyful like helping and looking out for others. Help the homeless man get on his feet again, sponsor an orphan in Africa, with sites like this you can donate as little as $50 a month which will go a long way to change the future of others and give you the happiness and joy for making a difference.

2. Jealousy

If you are never truly happy at other people’s success, then you need to give it up for a fulfilled life. Jealousy rips away joy and happiness. Jealousy makes you angry, causes stress and can lead to depression. Jealousy blinds you of the great things in your life to be happy for and makes you miserable for the few things you don’t have that others have.

Be genuinely happy about other people’s success and not only when you will benefit from it. Being happy for others and giving up on jealousy will make you happier and successful, instead of being depressed and miserable by jealousy, your will be excited and more open to opportunities which will help you succeed.

3. Use your brains and not emotions

It is very easy to be led by emotions and not the mind. But being led by emotions all the time will only lead to disaster. It is common sense to exercise daily, but not all of us do. It is common sense to save and invest, but not all of us do. It is common sense not to procrastinate, but most of us do. Common sense is not common action. This is as a result of the battle between emotions and mind. The mind knows it is right to exercise instead of watching TV, but our emotions ‘feels’ like watching TV instead. The mind knows it is a good thing to log out of social media and do something worthwhile with your time but your emotions ‘feels’ like spending more time on social media instead of attending to the business.

The mind road is very narrow and difficult and only few people take that road, the emotional road is very broad and easy and many people take that road. No wonder there are more unsuccessful people than successful people in the world.

4. Lack of self control/discipline

If you want to live a happier and fulfilled life. You need to have discipline. Knowledge is power but if you lack the discipline to do that which you know to do, knowledge becomes futile. In other words, knowledge is useless without discipline. If you know you do not have to eat junk food but lack the discipline and self control to actually not junk food, you will still be obese and unhealthy regardless the knowledge you have.

5. Don’t dwell on negative comments

Isn’t it strange that one hundred people can tell us we look beautiful and compliment our personality and we soon forget but if one person tells us we look ugly it takes forever to forget, making us sad and bitter. Instead of dwelling on negative comments and letting positive comments die fast, rather let negative comments die fast and dwell on positive comments.

6. Judgemental

Ironically, we hate to be judged but find pleasure in judging others. We hate to hear mean things about us but never think twice in saying mean things about someone else. This is because naturally we are insensitive to other people’s feeling. We think others deserve our hurtful words and judgement but be mindful that to every one else in the world, you are the ‘other person’. Let us be less judgemental and correct others in love if need be. Every behaviour no matter how bizarre has meaning to the one performing it. Let’s be open-minded rather, there are more than enough judgemental people in the world already.

7. Unforgiveness

You pick up your husband’s phone and see naked pictures of other women on his phone. Your girlfriend whom you loved so much and invested your money, resources, love and time just left you for another person. You become the victim. Think of betrayal, hurt, pain, heartbreak, disappointment, you are a perfect definition. They don’t deserve forgiveness. You have cried and sobbed amidst the emotional trauma. You have two options; To hate them forever after all they are heartless, wicked and insensitive and to hold on to the scenes of their actions and tread on a bitterness lane-where you will always hurt inside and see them as the horrible beast they are or to put yourself together and say ‘you know what, they don’t deserve it, they are mean, wicked, betrayed me, disappointed me, defrauded me’ but I will forgive them not because I want to, but because I have to. Choosing the latter is the best decision.

Forgiveness is hard to do initially but it’s worth it. Taking the bitterness lane is such a horrible way to live. We need to forgive and let go after all, we all have one thing in common, we are human beings and none of us are perfect. It’s true we may be hurt because someone has hurt us and find it hard to forgive but think of all the people you have hurt yourself in the past. To err is human, once you are human, you have hurt someone before too so forgive.

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What Highly Successful People Were Doing When Facing Their Quarter-Life Crises

Ranging between the period from late teens to early thirties, the quarter-life crisis is the phase during which a person is transitioning to adult life but feels doubtful about their life. The term is comparable to midlife crisis.

The core crisis of the problem that is quarter-life crisis, is the problem of fitting in. Researchers have found that this is the time around which people have the strongest desire to fit in, the time during which they are hoping to give a direction to their life.

Quarter-life crises are common among young adults — about two-thirds of young adults are believed to have experienced this crisis in some form. The experiences of people vary significantly, but eventually people get through it.

The crisis isn’t faced just by average Joe or plain Jane out there. Even the most famous folks in the world today have gone through this crisis in one way or another. Some have made smooth transitions through this period, while for some, paths have been rather tricky.

Here below, we present to you what some famous people were doing around the time when they were facing their own quarter-life crisis at the age of 25.

1. Hillary Rodham Clinton was a recent law school graduate.

Hillary Clinton began dating former US president Bill Clinton, who was also a fellow law student at Yale, at the age of 23. Just before she turned 25, she received her JD degree, which was in the year 1973. That same year, she also began working at the Yale Child Study Center.

2. Donald Trump was given control of his father’s real estate company.

At 25, the young real estate developer took over his father’s real estate development company, Elizabeth Trump & Son, which has since been renamed to The Trump Organization. This was in 1971, when he also moved to Manhattan to be involved in larger building projects, through which he came to public recognition.

3. Richard Branson was running Virgin Labels successfully.

Branson started a record shop in London at the age of 20, four years after he had dropped out of school due to dyslexia. He went on to launch the record label Virgin Records in 1972 at the age of 22. Mike Oldfield’s debut album Tubular Bells became the label’s first release in 1973, which became a chart-topping best-seller. The label later signed the likes of Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, and Genesis.

4. Warren Buffett was working as an analyst.

Buffett earned his master’s degree in economics from the Columbia Business School in 1951 at the age of 21. He then worked as an investment salesman at Buffet-Falk & Co. for three years and later as an analyst at Graham-Newman Corp. for two years. In 1956, he went on to start his firm, Buffett Partnership Ltd., In Omaha.

5. Arianna Huffington was travelling to music festivals around the world.

In 1971, when she was Arianna Stassinopolous, she met British journalist Henry Bernard Levin and the two began a relationship. They travelled to music festivals around the world for BBC for several of the ensuing years. In the meantime, in 1973, at the age of 23, she also published her book The Female Woman.

6. J.K. Rowling had just come up with the idea for Harry Potter.

Rowling was 25 in 1990. She had just moved to Portugal to teach English. It was also the same year that she first came up with the idea for her Harry Potter series while on train from Manchester to London. She immediately started the first book, but it took her years to finish it.

7. Stephen King was working as an English teacher.

King graduated with a B.A. in English from the University of Maine in 1970. A year later, he married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow student at Maine. That same year, he was hired as an English educator at Hampden Academy in Maine. He was 26 when his first novel, Carrie, was accepted by the publishing house Doubleday in 1973.

8. Mark Zuckerberg had worked for five years at Facebook.

Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his dormitory room at Harvard in 2004. It had already changed the world, from changing the notion of reaching out to the masses to creating the need for social media management. It was in 2009 however, when Zuckerberg was 25, that Facebook finally turned cash-positive for the first time. In the same year, it also hit 300 million users.

9. Elon Musk was running his first company, Zip2.

In 1995, when he was 24, Musk dropped out of a PhD in applied physics at Stanford to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions. He then started the web software company Zip2, along with his brother Kimbal Musk, using $28,000 of his father’s money. The company was purchased four years later by Compaq for $307 million.

10. Jeff Bezos was working on Wall Street.

Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 at the age of 22. He then went on to work in the computer science field on Wall Street. He worked at Fitel, Banker’s Trust, and D.E. Shaw & Co. He became D.E. Shaw’s youngest ever vice president in 1990 when he was just 26.

11. Steve Jobs had just made Apple a publicly traded company.

Steve Jobs, along with Steve Wozniak, started Apple Computer in 1976, when he was just 21, in the Jobs family garage. Apple I was released in 1976, which was followed by Apple II in 1977. Jobs took Apple Computer public in December 1980. At the end of the first day of trading itself, it had a market value of $1.2 billion.

12. Larry Ellison was working as a programmer.

Ellison dropped out of the University of Illinois, Champaign after the second year and University of Chicago after just one semester. In 1966, aged 22, he moved to Berkeley, California with little money. He went on to switch technical jobs between different places for about a decade. His final job before Oracle was at Amdahl Corporation.

13. Eric Schmidt was doing his PhD at UC Berkley.

Schmidt was doing his graduate coursework at UC Berkley from 1976 to 1982. He earned his PhD in computer engineering from Berkley in 1982, at the age of 27. His focus was on distributed software development and computer networking. He later joined Sun Microsystems as its first software engineer in 1983.

14. Bill Gates made a deal that earned Microsoft its first real success.

Gates was just 20 when he founded Microsoft along with Paul Allen in 1975. In 1980, IBM approached Microsoft for an operating system for their upcoming personal computer. This was when he made that famous deal — offering IBM the software although Microsoft didn’t actually have it. It was purchased only later from Seattle Computer Products.

15. Oprah Winfrey was hosting a TV show in Baltimore.

In 1976, at the age of 22, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, Maryland to co-anchor WJZ-TV’s six o’clock news. She then joined Richard Sher as co-host of local talk show People Are Talking in 1978. The show became an instant hit and she stayed there until 1983 when she moved to Chicago to host AM Chicago, through which she truly made her name.

Featured photo credit: OnInnovation Interview: Elon Musk via flickr.com

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Small Things You Can Do Every Day To Be Much Smarter

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Most Common Regrets People Have In Life

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Things That We Have Too Many/Few In Our Lives…

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Small Things You Can Do Every Day To Largely Improve Your Life

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When School Rules Are Turned Into Rules Of Life…

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Wrong Equations About Life That Many People Believe In

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The Harsh Truth About Why You Aren’t More Successful

The road to success isn’t always as easy as it sometimes appears when judging from the success stories of people living their dreams. Most successful people don’t have the luxury of getting ‘lucky’ and actually have to work hard and put a lot of effort into their goals. So what sets the goal achievers apart from the rest? The answer to this question may not be what you want to hear…

If you’re wondering why you just can’t seem to make it big, the harsh truth is that YOU may be  standing in the way of your own success! Most people want success but don’t actually do anything to make it happen. Everyone has the opportunity to be successful (we’ve all heard hundreds of rags-to-riches stories), it’s what you make of your opportunities that really matters.

Here are the top five ways in which you may be hindering your own success.

1. You don’t do what it takes

It’s one thing wanting to achieve a goal and quite another doing what it takes to achieve it. Many people start out with very real intentions of becoming more successful but don’t actually have the commitment to do what it takes. You may start strongly and then give up at the first hurdle and make up convenient excuses for either postponing or quitting the task all together.

Successful people don’t make excuses, they stick to their word and commit themselves wholly to their tasks – if something needs to be done, it gets done. If you’re not willing to take massive action and work for your goals, how do you expect to ever achieve them?

Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. – Jeff Olson

2. You procrastinate and don’t challenge yourself

If you spend more time thinking about tasks than actually doing them, it’s time to make some changes. Instead of making things complicated, put theory into practice and bring your plans to life – you know what needs to be done, so go out there and do it!

What’s stopping you? Don’t let yourself succumb to fears of resistance, failure and challenges. It takes real strength and courage to do what we know we need to do in order to have what we want. If it’s any comfort, we often paint things out to be a lot more difficult than they actually are, but you’ll never know what you’re really capable of unless you give the task an honest try!

Courage is looking fear right in the eye and saying, “Get the hell out of my way, I’ve got things to do.”- Author Unknown.

3. You’re in self-denial

Denial is a coping strategy that allows us to maintain a preferable image of ourselves. While this may initially keep us emotionally safe from painful truths, in the end it does us no favors – it prevents us from dealing with the real issues. It takes guts to look at yourself and to honestly identify why you haven’t been able to get the results that you want.

Having a bit of self-awareness can go a long way – instead of blaming external forces around you (a convenient cop-out), identify your strengths, as well as your weaknesses (and work to improve them). If you’re unable to achieve a task, don’t just quit. Think about what aspects of your attitude and approach held you back.

Giving up on your goal because of one setback is like slashing your other three tires because you got one flat. – Unknown

4. You don’t have the right attitude

No one is completely negative or positive about everything. Because most of us have a mixture of attitudes towards different things, we become so used to our own way of thinking that we’re prone to developing blind spots – it becomes difficult to pin-point our self-destructive attitudes. This is why having a coach as an unbiased, external observer, can help to shed some light on areas you may not have thought of before, as well as to guide you towards making the changes that will help you achieve better results.

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome. -William James

5. You don’t take the right actions

You may have the best attitude in the world, but if you’re not taking the right steps towards your goals, you’re not likely to achieve them – the wrong actions with the right attitude won’t get you very far!

Becoming more familiar with the trial-and-error method can help you to use your failures as stepping stones to take you further toward success; one wrong stepping stone towards the wrong direction isn’t the end of the world, it’s just one step less to think about!

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps. -Confucius

Unfortunately, the truth does sometimes hurt, but if you’re unable to handle it, are you really cut out for the field you’re hoping to succeed in? Instead of letting the above truths hurt your feelings, use them to empower you! While it may sting a little to think about yourself not being as successful as you want to be, you have the power to change things, as long as you can just be honest with yourself! So think about how bad you really want success and whether you’re really willing to do what other successful people have done to be in the positions they’re in.

Remember, no one is going to achieve your dreams for you – you only have one life to make things happen, so get to it!

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This Is Why Some People Make Deeper Connections With Others

Throughout your life, you’ve undoubtedly met a handful of people with whom you feel an unending, genuine attachment to. Some people are just able to connect on an entirely different level with their fellow man. But it’s all in the way they act each and every day of their lives. If you’ve ever found yourself attracted to someone on a much deeper level, it’s likely because:

They treat everyone with respect

When I say “everyone,” I mean that. Those who are emotionally inviting never look down on anybody, and are always willing to lend a helping hand to those in need. They give everyone “the time of day” regardless of how busy they are. Because they are so eager to give respect to everyone they come into contact with, they end up receiving it back wherever they go.

They follow the “Platinum Rule”

You’ve likely heard of the Golden Rule, which states that you should treat others as you’d like to be treated. Those who seek a deeper connection with those around them follow the Platinum Rule: Treat others as they want to be treated. While the Golden Rule is a good start, it insinuates that everyone likes to be treated the same way you do. Living by the Platinum Rule allows you to empathize with your fellow man and see the world from their perspective. By doing so, you form a much deeper connection with them.

They have unique, personable interactions

You won’t catch this type of person asking “How about this weather?” Those who seek deeper connections do so at all times. If they strike up a conversation with someone while waiting for a bus, they’ll likely probe into that person’s interests, asking questions that show their genuine interest in what their new friend has to say. They don’t use communication as a way to pass time; they use it as a way to truly experience life.

They have integrity

Like I mentioned in the last point, those who connect well with others are genuinely interested in other people. While some people might make polite conversation only to turn around and roll their eyes, these people actually want to be involved in communication and connection. They never feel “stuck” in a conversation. They’re not simply polite for the sake of being polite; it’s how they really are. When they leave a conversation, even if it’s with a perfect stranger, they never think “Thank God I got out of that!” Instead, they feel as if their lives have improved even the slightest bit due to having the experience they just had.

They exhibit inviting body language

Those looking for deeper connections and friendships present themselves in such a way that invites others to engage in conversation with them. They always have a friendly smile on their face, look others in the eye, and never shrug someone off. Since they know that each connection they make could potentially end up being a life-changing experience, they always appear ready to meet and greet anyone they come into contact with.

They genuinely enjoy life

This sums up some of the other points I’ve already made, but it bears repeating. Like I said, those who thrive off of forming emotional attachments truly do enjoy even the smallest interactions between themselves and others. They live for these moments rather than seeing them as a waste of time. They never think of any moment as insignificant, and are always eager to get up and out to enjoy every single day of their life. Not only do they live to enjoy their life, but they also live to spread this joy to everyone they meet, no matter who that may be.

Featured photo credit: I’ve Got You / Toni Blay via farm1.staticflickr.com

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Latest Scientific Research Shows That Coffee Is Actually Good For Your Brain

There’s been a lot of coffee-related news floating around the Internet lately. Most of the studies cited in news articles attempt to highlight the benefits or risks of consuming caffeine on a regular basis. Is too much harmful to our health? Can just the right amount of it significantly improve the quality of our lives as we age?

We’ve read about evidence of how drinking coffee affects blood pressure, energy, our risk of developing diabetes and even our risk of death. Most experts agree that, like many commonly consumed substances, coffee is pretty good to us in moderation. A new study out of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease now shows us evidence that drinking coffee in moderate amounts is even better for us, our brains specifically, than we originally thought.

What is mild cognitive impairment, and what does coffee have to do with it?

We have all heard of the ageing population or perhaps our own loved ones developing debilitating diseases that affect the way they think and behave. Before developing more severe conditions, however, some develop a cognitive decline called mild cognitive impairment slightly more severe than what is associated with normal ageing, but much less severe than diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Mild cognitive impairment develops as a precursor to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. According to Mayo Clinic, developing mild cognitive impairment actually increases a person’s risk of developing more severe cognitive disorders.

It turns out drinking a few daily doses of coffee can actually reduce a person’s risk of developing these mild problems related to memory, language and thinking.

How do we know? Let’s take a closer look at the evidence.

The study

Researchers studied the relationship between average amount of coffee consumed, either changing or constant, and incidence, or occurrence, of mild cognitive impairment in 1,445 “cognitively normal” subjects aged 65-84 years.

Some participants started out consuming a low amount of coffee per day, one cup or fewer, and increased their consumption to one to two cups per day. Other participants consumed a constant amount of one to two daily cups of coffee for the duration of the study.

Results implied that participants who had a constant habit of consuming one to two cups of coffee per day, or a daily moderate amount, had a reduced risk of developing mild cognitive impairment compared to those who either increased or decreased their consumption.

What’s the science behind this relationship?

There’s a reason many of us can’t function in the morning without a cup or two of coffee pulsing through our systems. When caffeine enters our bodies, it prevents us from absorbing a certain chemical that normally blocks other excitatory brain chemicals. In much simpler terms, drinking coffee gives us more energy and has the potential to, over time in consistent, moderate amounts, slow age-related mental decline as we get older. With those excitatory brain chemicals free to roam on a regular basis, our brains will most likely remain in much better shape longer than they would if those chemicals remained blocked.

Here’s the key takeaway

The study described above found no association between high or low levels of coffee consumption and reduced risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, which means consuming only moderate amounts of coffee per day, one to two cups, had this effect. So if you’re planning to rely on coffee alone to keep your mind sharp as you age moderation, as always, is the best strategy.

Many studies have managed to show us coffee in the morning isn’t the worst possible habit to uphold. What’s important to remember is that too much of a good thing isn’t so good after all – but just the right amount, in this case, can earn you a healthier, clearer mind the older you get.

Featured photo credit: David Joyce via flickr.com

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20 Tech Hacks That’ll Make You Feel Like a Boss

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Bookmark These Websites and You’ll Get Rich Easily

You want to get rich and you are tired of reading through websites that are offering you stale practices of becoming successful? Do not get frustrated. The thing about becoming rich is that you need to have an in-depth financial education to guide you through the process. Education can be expensive though.

There are several websites that can help you through your journey of becoming the wealthy person you want to be. You do not have to pay a dime for the wealth of information these websites can offer you if you want to become rich. And yes, you should bookmark these ten websites if you are really serious about your intentions of being the next Bill Gates!

1. I Will Teach You to Be Rich

It is difficult to ignore Ramit Sethi’s website which name emanates from the New York Times bestselling book he wrote I Will Teach You to Be Rich. What this website offers is a whole kit with an idea generator tool. He lets you understand how you can negotiate your salary and apply techniques that have worked not only for himself but also for his students who have gone further to make thousands of dollars.

2. Frugal Rules

When making tough financial decisions, you sometimes need an expert to guide you. Created by John, he explains how you can become more successful by taking the frugal approach of living within your means.

3. Good Financial Cents

What you need to become wealthy may not be hard work after all but productivity. Getting more done, retiring early, and paying off your debts are some of the topics Jeff covers on his website. There is also the podcast category and more that can help you reprogram your life and get you the results you want.

4. Kiplinger

Sometimes what you need in a website is the financial knowledge of how to invest. And Kiplinger supplies you with a range of topics from investing to real estate.

5. Wise Bread

Wisebread is all about frugal living and personal finance. Through its forums you will be able to learn how to save money from everyday people through their experiences and tips.

6. FI Journey

The founder of the website, FI Pilgrim makes his content comprehensive and supplies regular and valuable insights on how you can reach financial independence.

7. Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy shares his journey to becoming a millionaire. He supplies tools for your personal development, whether it is time management or sales and business training you will gain a lot of insights on how to become rich from visiting his website regularly.

8. Rockstar Finance

Money, the creator of the website curates the best money articles from a wide web of personal finance writers and bloggers. What you could gain from this website are personal experiences and reflections from several money bloggers and writers.

9. The Simple Dollar

What Trent Hamm, founder of this website does is provide you a lot of details on how to fight debts. He purports that it is possible to build good habits while you build a financially secure future. Who says you cannot afford a latte or two even while you journey to becoming the next millionaire?

10. LearnVest

You may not have enough money to get a financial planner since such services are expensive. However there are free articles on LearnVest that can help you structure your finances to becoming successful. There are personal stories from financial planners. Also available on the website are tools such as calculators, checklists for reaching major life milestones, a budgeting tool, videos, and more. If you are looking insights from certified planners on subjects such as spending, saving, budgeting and more then you need to visit LearnVest.

Featured photo credit: New Years Eve by Kent Wang via Flickr via flickr.com

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Before You Grumble About Not Having Enough Time, Check If You Have These 8 Time-Wasting Habits

For many of us these days it seems like we have thousands of things to do and never enough time to get to them all. No matter how many things we get done the list just keeps getting longer.

The reality is that we’re likely wasting time on many things that are not accomplishing our main goals. Here are 8 ways you’re probably wasting your time in the day.

1. Doing what others think is important for you means you don’t really get your top tasks done

How often do you start the day by checking your email only to find 10 new things people want you to do? Or maybe you check it in the midst of a deadline instead of actually pushing the project forward.

Instead of starting the day by seeing what everyone else thinks is important for you decide what your top task is before you leave the office or go to bed. When you start the day start on that top task. Only look at what others think is important once you’ve finished the most important task.

2. Saying ‘yes’ to everything so you have no margin

Of course we want to keep those close to us happy. It’s something that we’re taught from a young age, to just say yes when people need help. The fact is that if you always say yes you really have no margin in your life. Without that margin you end up running from thing to thing without actually having time to do one thing right.

Don’t always say yes. Evaluate each request based on what’s important to you and only say yes to items that match. Only by saying no regularly do you have room to take advantage of the great opportunities when they come along.

3. Letting perfection get in the way of finishing things

I know you want to do things the right way but the problem is that right so often turns in to perfect and that’s a recipe to never get things finished.

Perfect isn’t ever going to happen, it’s an entirely unattainable moving target. You’ll always think of something more that can be done to make it ‘just right’.

Alternatively finish the project and launch it. Then go back and make some changes. It needs to be out where others can see it to have any impact.

4. Letting busy work hide procrastination

How many times do you finish a day feeling like you’ve worked hard only to realize that you really can’t remember what you accomplished. You probably just did busy work like cleaning your desk or checking email or social media. You never put any concentrated effort in on the important tasks.

Start scheduling your email and social time during the day and put a time limit on them. Schedule office cleaning every few weeks. Focus on moving things forward instead of just making yourself look busy.

5. Finishing a book just because you started it

Yes it feels bad to not finish things, especially books but if you really don’t like a book you need to put it away and move on.

All you’re going to get out of a book you’re not enjoying is annoyed. You’ll end up reading slower and it’s going to take longer and longer as you dread digging in. Give a book a fair chance and then drop it if it’s not up your alley. Go find something worth your reading time.

6. Doing many things poorly instead of one thing well

Unfortunately many people think that multi-tasking is a great use of time. You get more done right? In reality you can only focus on one thing at a time and all multi-tasking does is force you to change your focus quickly from task to task.

Focus on one thing at a time. Work on it till it’s done or set a timer and work for an hour or 2 hours on the task. Then switch your focus and put all your attention on the next task. Giving intentional focus to each item on it’s own will yield better work.

7. Trying to remember things causes too many open loops

Having ideas is a great thing. Those ideas yield a wealth of possibilities. The problem is that so many ideas often create a bunch of open loops in your brain. Instead of being able to focus on a single task you end up expending brain power trying to remember everything.

To fight this have a notepad with you at all times and write down the title of that new book you heard about and want. If you’re not a fan of a paper notebook use a tool like Evernote and drop a quick note to reference later. Getting those open loops out of your head will allow your brain to focus on the task at hand.

8. Dwelling on the issues that may happen causes inaction

Any sane person tries to account for the unknown. You may hit traffic on the way to visit a friend so you leave early. But some people sit in a state of looking for issues figuring they can move forward when they’ve accounted for all possible issues.

You’ll never find them all. Instead give yourself and hour or maybe only 20 minutes to look for and come up with solutions to issues then take the next step. There is nothing to stop you from getting a few steps towards finishing then stopping and taking that 20 minutes again with the new knowledge you have.

Next time you feel like things are overwhelming come back to this list and make sure you’re engaged in the things that matter not wasting your time.

Featured photo credit: fischerfotos via flickr.com

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