11 Essential Habits for Success

Written by David Loker

We all want to succeed. Whether its in losing weight, learning the guitar, speed reading, or starting our own business. For those of us who have tried and failed, success seems elusive. Why is it one person succeeds where another person fails? First and foremost, I believe it is in their mindset. But secondly, I believe that successful people have developed certain habits, either naturally or through research, that the rest of us havent stumbled upon yet. Though I want each of you to succeed in everything you do, I cant guarantee success. Only you can do that. It starts in your mind, and from there your thoughts take physical form through your actions. Believing in yourself is a necessity! Beyond that, Ive made a list of some habits to help you set goals and achieve them.

1. Identify your core values

What is important to you? Finding your core values may seem a bit off-topic when it comes to success, but creating goals that are in line with your values is key to creating intrinsic motivation. Sit and reflect on what you value most. Pick a handful of things and actually write them down. Remind yourself of your values every day, and reflect on whether you are honoring those values through your work.

2. Pick a goal (Focus)

Choose one goal to start. Something large enough that will give you a sense of accomplishment, while aligning well with your core values. Focus is key here. The more focused you are on one goal, the higher chance you have of success. If you spread yourself too thin, you might never complete your projects because they will take far too long. Believe me, multitasking isnt all its cracked up to be.

3. Set a deadline for success

Set a date for success. Identify when your hope to achieve your goal. Keep it realistic, while not giving yourself too much time. By setting a time limit, you are making the process more real. You also now have something to visualize in the next point.

4. Build the right mindset

Believe fully in your ability to achieve your goal. Visualize yourself having completed your goal in the exact time-frame you have chosen, although finishing early is also acceptable. You dont need to consider the failures that will happen along the way. Success is inevitable. Others may think you will fail, dont let yourself be one of them! (If you have trouble visualizing success, perhaps a fear of success is limiting you) Whether you think that you can, or that you cant, you are usually right. - Henry Ford

5. Consequences for missing your deadline

Set up negative consequences for missing the deadline. Necessity is the mother of all invention. If you can manage to keep yourself intrinsically motivated, thats great. If not, this will help kick you into gear and keep your eye on the prize.

6. Weekly and Daily Goals (Plan)

Break down goals by week and by day, setting up a plan to reach your overall objective. Keep the number of tasks per day as low as you can, and focus on completing only your planned tasks for each day. If you find yourself done, pick the next thing from your weekly list. Do the hardest things during your peak energy level, which usually means doing them first!

7. Prioritize
Prioritize the tasks you have in front of you. Dont always do the most urgent thing first. Pick the task thats the most important. Sometimes these overlap, which is nice. By always accomplishing whats most important, you are making clear progress toward your goal. Also keep in mind that completing the hardest task first is a sure-fire way of increasing your productivity. If you put it off until later in the day, your energy level is bound to drop, and finishing the hard task will seem daunting and maybe even impossible. But, if you start off with the hardest task, when your energy level is high, you will have the focus and energy required to finish it off.

8. Take risks
Push yourself. Go out of your comfort zone. This is the best way to learn, and the best way to make progress quickly. If youre looking for new ideas, being risk averse will not help. This takes a lot of self-awareness. Try and be conscious of when you are holding yourself back out of fear. Push yourself to be courageous, and take that next step.

9. Perseverance
Failure is inevitable when you take risks, which is what youll be doing if you want to succeed. By its very definition, the desire to succeed at something means you are risking failure. Many people tend to give up far too early. Dont fall into this trap! Remember your mindset earlier, and visualize your success. Know it will happen. A failure is merely you working out the details, and learning what works and what doesnt. Use failure. Treat it as a good thing, and march on!

10. Reflect
Take time every day to sit quietly and reflect on your values, goals, and progress made so far. Where have you excelled, and where can you do better. Is everything you are doing still lining up with your core values? Always look for ways to improve.

11. Learn
Never stop learning. Know what everyone else is doing, and what everyone else has done, and how they did it. Search wide for knowledge that might help you, and any inspiration that may do the same. Never think you have nothing to learn from others.

5 Ways to Improve Your Life Right Now

Written by Farouk Radwan

All wise people know that it takes sometime before a person can reach their goals and improve their life. And while this is a an unquestionable fact still this doesnt mean that you cant make small changes to your life to make it better in few weeks if not in few days! While you cant reach your life goals overnight you still can take small actions that can help you live a better life almost instantly. Here is what you can do: 1) Start waking up earlier : one of the main causes of stress is finding yourself out of time while being loaded with lots of tasks. When you wake up earlier you wont only become more productive but you will also reduce the amount of stress in your life to a great extent. 2) Get organized and write a plan: the main reasons we worry and become anxious is that we dont trust our actions or current plans. When you write down a plan your subconscious mind starts feeling more comfortable about your future and as a result you will reduce the amount of worrying in your life. Writing down a plan using a pen and a paper will make the plan settle in your subconscious mind and as a result you will feel much safer than if you didnt have a plan. 3) Break a simple bad habit: I know that some habits take a lot of time to break but what about simple habits that can be broken immediately? When you break a habit that you have been doing for a long time your mood will improve and your life will become better almost instantly. 4) Adjust your eating habits: do you drink enough water? Do you know that you might be feeling tired because your body needs more water? Do you know that unhealthy food can make you feel unhappy? Do you know that your mood is in many cases a reflection of your overall health? Once you start eating healthy foods and a balanced diet your health will become way better and so will your life 5) Apologize to someone: did you fight with someone lately? Is there someone out there who is sad right now because of what you did to him? call that person and say sorry, not only you will make another person happy but you will also feel better as a result of the disappearance of guilt from the back of your mind. Improving your life Just as you saw simple actions such as the ones mentioned can help you live a better life. Use these simple actions to improve your mood and to give yourself a mood boost so that you can pursue your bigger goals. Do this and you will live a happier life.

The 10-Minute Exercise That Will Help You Achieve Your Goals
Written by Kaihan Krippendorff

Six months ago, I wrote a post about setting your strategic goals for 2012. Whatever process you used to set your annual goals, in January you probably felt pretty good about your potential. You were energized. You saw you could realize your vision. But six months later, as we approach mid-year, you may now be less sure. You are wondering if you should change (or even abandon) the goals you set out for yourself. You are thinking, Im never going to learn Chinese or Ill get that promotion next year instead. You are approaching a critical mark, the mid-step, that separates people who make it happen from those who only dream. And what I have found by interviewing people who have achieved great things is interesting. At this critical mid-point, they dont do what I would expect them to do. They dont just push on, relentlessly pursuing their vision. Instead, they adjust, reset their strategy, and recreate strategic clarity in a way that reenergizes them. If you do that now, you will be like the marathon runner who rediscovers his legs at mile 13, who starts sliding past the pack as his fellow runners look on exhausted. Call it your second wind, reboot, refresh, whatever you want. But take 10 minutes now to do it. You can download a simple form I created to help you through this process here and see a short video blog about how to do this by going to kaihan.net (click on "Insight and Ideas," then "Video Blog" to watch "Refresh and Reenergize"). First, orient. Review your annual goals and for each assess whether you are on track, ahead, or behind. This helps suck out that distracting chatter from your mind. You stop justifying, explaining, avoiding the truth. You are where you are and there is nothing wrong with that. John Boyd, a famous fighter pilot who I consider the Sun Tzu of modern times, identified that this ability to orient ourselves to what is going on quickly, honestly, and coldly is essential to winning. Second: assess. There are two reasons why you might want to change your plan-either your goal is wrong or your strategy for achieving the goal is wrong. Youve learned something new over the last six months, so now is the time to incorporate that knowledge into your plan. For each goal answer two questions: 1. Is this the wrong goal? When you look at the end goal, does it still excite and inspire you? When I did this for myself I realized that my goal of having my own TV show still makes my heart race, so Im keeping it, but my goal of teaching at a top school (after I earn my PhD) is not exactly right. By December 2012, I probably wont already be teaching. Its enough for me just to have secured a teaching position and to know Ill be starting soon. 2. Is this the wrong strategy? Maybe your goal is still a good one, but how you achieve the goal is wrong. For example, I am behind in my goals of building my speaking business, but I think the strategy is still right (get more training, get a speakers bureau). I dont need to change my strategy; I just need to invest more time there. In the area of building a private equity fund, what Ive come to realize is that I was thinking too narrowly. What I want is access to $100 million so that I can invest in some of these great Outthinkers that I come across. My strategy of building a traditional private equity fund is one way to achieve this, but its not the only way. Ive learned of other structures I could pursue. Third: reset and recommit. Now you step back and look at your goals. Some you want to change because they are no longer inspiring. Some you want to raise. Some you

want to lower. Probably you will find many that you want to keep. For example, I changed raise $100 million to gain access to $100 million for my fund. I changed teach at top school to sign on to teach at top school under my PhD line. Finally, recommit to your new goals and start passing up those tired souls huffing and puffing into July. See you at the finish at line!

How to Achieve Your Goals with Healthy Habits

Written by Leo Babauta

Weve all faced the disappointment and guilt that comes from setting a goal and giving up on it after a couple of weeks. Sustaining motivation for a long-term goal is hard to achieve, and yet the best goals can usually only be accomplished in a few months or even years. Heres the solution: Focus instead on creating a new habit that will lead to achieving your goal. Want to run a marathon? First create the habit of running every day. Want to get out of debt and start saving? Create the habit of brown bagging it to work, or watching DVDs instead of going to the movies, or whatever change will lead to saving money for you. By focusing not on what you have to achieve over the course of the next year, but instead on what you are doing each day, you are focusing on something achievable. That little daily change will add up to a huge change, over time and youll be surprised at how far youve come in no time. Little grains of sand can add up to a mountain over time. I used this philosophy of habit changes to run a marathon, to change my diet and lose weight, to write a novel, to quit smoking, to become organized and productive, to double my income, reduce my debt and start saving, and to begin training for an Olympic triathlon this year. It works, if you focus on changing habits. Now, changing your habits isnt easy I wont lie to you but its achievable, especially if you start small. Dont try to change the world with your first habit change take baby steps at first. I started by just trying to run a mile and by the end of the year, I could run more than 20 miles. How do you change your habits? Focus on one habit at a time, and follow these steps: 1. Positive changes. If youre trying to change a negative habit (quit smoking), replace it with a positive habit (running for stress relief, for example). 2. Take on a 30-day challenge. Tell yourself that youre going to do this habit every day, at the same time every day, for 30 straight days without fail. Once youre past that 30-day mark, the habit will become much easier. If you fail, do not beat yourself up. Start again on a new 30-day challenge. Practice until you succeed. 3. Commit yourself completely. Dont just tell yourself that you might or should do this. Tell the world that DEFINITELY will do this. Put yourself into this 100 percent. Tell everyone you know. Email them. Put it on your blog. Post it up at your home and work place. This positive public pressure will help motivate you.

4. Set up rewards. Its best to reward yourself often the first week, and then reward yourself every week for that first month. Make sure these are good rewards, that will help motivate you to stay on track. 5. Plan to beat your urges. Its best to start out by monitoring your urges, so you become more aware of them. Track them for a couple days, putting a tally mark in a small notebook every time you get an urge. Write out a plan, before you get the urges, with strategies to beat them. We all have urges to quit how will you overcome it? What helps me most are deep breathing and drinking water. You can get through an urge it will pass. 6. Track and report your progress. Keep a log or journal or chart so that you can see your progress over time. I used a running log for my marathon training, and a quit meter when I quit smoking. Its very motivating to see how far youve come. Also, if you can join an online group and report your progress each day, or email family and friends on your progress, that will help motivate you. Most important of all: Always stay positive. I learned the habit of monitoring my thoughts, and if I saw any negative thoughts (I want to stop!) I would squash it like a little bug, and replace it with a positive thought (I can do this!). It works amazingly. This is the best tip ever. If you think negative thoughts, you will definitely fail. But if you always think positive, you will definitely succeed.

The Ultimate Productivity Habit

Written by Scott Young

I believe if something is important enough to remember, its important enough to write down. This doesnt just apply to random to-do tasks or events to put on your calendar. I write down goals, ideas, what I spend money on and useful thinking points from books. The reason to write isnt to keep records, but to be more aware. In the popular productivity bible, Getting Things Done, Dave Allen suggests writing everything down on a notepad so you wont forget. The purpose, according to Allen, is to take the burden off your memory. While I think this is important, it only touches on one of the reasons to write things down. Writing Keeps You Aware Writing focuses your thinking. When you write something down, you arent just creating a paper record, youre changing the way you think about it. Writing down a goal changes a whim into a conviction. Writing down your expenses changes excessive spending from a bad habit to a conscious choice. Writing down your idea turns a vague suggestion into a clear concept. Writing is like an upgrade to your thinking. In the normal flow of thought, you cant edit typos and make adjustments. If you get distracted, it can be hard to return to your place. And since your short term memory is only about 5-9 items long, you cant think over more complex ideas. When you start writing things down, you have an upgraded level of thinking about them. Writing things down makes you more aware of opportunities and problems, like a temporary boost to your IQ. The Virtue Isnt in a Record Over half the things I write down, I never look at again. For the other half, about three

quarters of those, Ill only look at once or twice, usually briefly. Only a small amount of the things I write down are needed for keeping records Ill look at repeatedly. If youre stuck in the record-keeping mindset, writing everything down wont make sense. It just doesnt seem practical to write down every idea, expense, meal or to-do item. But, if you appreciate the role writing plays in keeping you focused, you can see why it is valuable, even if you throw away the writing soon afterwards. What Should I Write Down? Obviously you cant write down everything. You cant write down everything said in a conversation. Writing down everything you eat or everything you do can eat up a lot of time. Writing is valuable because it forces you to focus, so writing down everything would ruin the purpose. You should write down anything you feel needs more clarity. If your finances arent doing well and you want more clarity, start writing down everything you spend money on and all of your income. If your studying habits need work, start writing down when you study, what you studied and for how long. If you keep getting distracted on important goals, write them down too. Writing is sort of a universal productivity tool. It can focus your thinking in just about anything, so using it frequently is a good way to stay focused. Even something as simple as writing down when you procrastinate can be enough to stop it. Where Do You Need to Focus? If something is important and worth getting done, it is probably worth writing down. Ask yourself what things could use more focus in your life. Writing isnt an instant cure that will immediately make you more productive. But it makes you far more aware of what needs to be done and how well you are doing it. The first time I started writing out exactly what I needed to do, I finished three times as much work. When I started writing out my goals, I was able to focus on them far more than when they were just in my head. Ive also found writing down my expenses, how I use my time or what I eat to increase my awareness of any problems. If there is a part of your life that is unknown, inconsistent or in poor shape, you should consider writing more down about it. Write down ideas and make records while youre working on it, and spend time writing your thoughts when youre taking a break. If you can keep writing for a few weeks, it can reveal solutions to problems you didnt even realize you had before. I suggest committing yourself to writing something down for at least a month. Writing isnt a natural habit, we werent born with the skill and its one of the first pieces of technology we had developed. As a result, if you dont commit to continuing it for a few weeks, you probably will return to relying only on your short-term memory. Thinking is good, but writing plus thinking is even better. Dont try to write down everything. Pick just a handful of things you want to keep your focus on. And if youre planning on making a commitment to write, you will probably want to write that down too.

Boost Your Time Management Skills With These 9 Techniques

By Ciara Conlon

Having problems fitting it all in? Is a 24 hour day no longer enough? If this is the case, here are 9 useful techniques that you can use to boost your time management skills: 1. Be Clear about Goals and Objectives A sure way to delay in getting started or to make a job last longer than it needs to is being unsure about the objectives. You will often waste time doing work that doesnt need to be done or spend too much time on other work. Before you set out get clarity on your goals and objectives. 2. Schedule your Time If you want to have good time management skills, the first thing you will need is a calendar. Stuff has to get scheduled. If you dont use a calendar then the dreaded jobs like doing your taxes and cleaning the bathroom will never get done. Start by scheduling the essential jobs, the appointments, meetings and any other responsibilities you are committed to. Then you will see how much time you have left over to populate. 3. Delegate When Possible If you find after doing up your schedule that there isnt much time left over, then think about delegating work. If you work alone, get a virtual assistant. Remember what David Allen says: Only do what only you can do. 4. Monitor How you Spend Your Time If getting a virtual assistant or anybody else to assist you isnt an option, then you should start to monitor your time and see how you are spending it daily. You can use a monitoring program for this like Officemetrics or RescueTime. These programs can monitor all that you do on your computer and give you reports to show you how much time you spend on social media, email, Internet or any other work files. You may not like what you seebut it is always better to know. 5. Avoid Multitasking Human beings cant multitask (no, not even women). Our brains have become good at task switching, but cannot actually focus on two things at once. If we try to do more than one thing at the same time we lose time refocusing on the new task. If at all possible, focus on one job at a time and complete it before moving on to something else. 6. Do a Regular Mind Sweep Do a regular mind sweep where you get a piece of paper and write down everything you need to do. Dont categorize it. Just dump it all onto a piece of paper. Dont separate work and home; they dont have different compartments in the brain. Once you have done this schedule, work on any jobs that need to get done and put the rest into your task management system. 7. Exercise Remember if Branson thinks its important you dont argue. Branson reckons working

out every day gives him 4 extra hours of productivity a day. Get regular exercise to give you energy, reduce your stress and help you to focus. 8. Eat Healthily Nutrition is also very important. During the day it is important to eat the right foods to keep you energized and focused. Regular small bites rather than a large meal will keep your brain more alert during the day. Dont go large periods of time without eating. This will result in fatigue and poor mental abilities. Drinking water will also keep dehydration at bay and keep your body and mind happy. 9. Slow Down and Breathe Lastly, dont forget to slow down and breathe deeply as often as possible. Lack of oxygen will make you slow and sluggish, which will affect your performance. The more you rush about from task to task the less you will achieve. Take your time, focus on the right things, and your time management skills will be top of the class before you know it.

Achieving Your Dream: How to Take the First Step

By Donald Latumahina Do you have a dream deep in your heart that you want to pursue? If you do, have you taken the first step necessary to achieve it? Taking the first step is perhaps the most difficult thing to do in achieving a dream. There are a lot of mental obstacles that make it difficult to take that first step. Here are some donts to help you solve the mental obstacles: Dont wait until the situation is perfect. You should not wait until the situation is perfect because the situation will never be perfect. No matter how or when you see it, there will always be something that make you think again. Dont wait until other people agree with you. Just like you shouldnt wait for the situation to be perfect, you shouldnt wait until everybody agrees with your idea. There will always be opposition, and that is perfectly normal. If you wait until there is a consensus, you will never start. Dont wait until your skill is good. We might think that we need to have good skill before we start doing something. But the truth is, you will learn much more by doing than by waiting. Doing allows you to hone your skill much faster than just learning the theory.

As you can see, the three points above have dont wait in them. So here is the bottom line: the best time to start is now. I learned this in blogging. When I started my blog, I didnt have the skill to create good content nor to market it properly. But I started blogging anyway. The first months were really tough. After blogging for four months, I got only ten subscribers. Thankfully, the experience taught me a lot. While there is still a lot of room for improvement, Im now amazed to see what Ive learned along the way. Here are some more things you should do to successfully take the first step:

1. Believe in your dream. Believing in your dream is essential to get the motivation you need to achieve it. You simply cant fool your own heart. Deep down inside you know whether or not you can believe in your dream. Is the dream worth pursuing? Is it something that you want to pour your heart into? 2. Visualize your dream. Can you imagine in detail how the world will look like when your dream comes true? Visualizing your dream will energize you because you can then see how the world changes for the better and how people live a happier life because of your dream. The energy and excitement is there for you to feel. 3. Expect a hard way ahead. While its not impossible, achieving your dream is definitely not easy. Dont expect an easy way; expect a hard one instead. Having the right expectations from the beginning will make the journey much easier for you. That way, you wont be surprised and lose heart when you encounter obstacles along the way. 4. Take one bite at a time. Your dream may be big (it should be!) and that might make it seem overwhelming. But, like the saying says, When eating an elephant take one bite at a time. So take a small portion of it that you can handle. Think about something that you can do within one week, and then think about what you can do today. It could be as simple as calling a more experienced friend to ask some questions.

There is no doubt that you can eat the elephant. But the key is to take the bites early and often.

5 Simple Ways to Increase Your Intelligence

By John Wesley Your brain needs exercise just like a muscle. If you use it often and in the right ways, you will become a more skilled thinker and increase your ability to focus. But if you never use your brain, or abuse it with harmful chemicals, your ability to think and learn will deteriorate. Here are 5 simple ways anyone can squeeze a bit more productivity out of the old gray matter. 1. Minimize Television Watching - This is a hard sell. People love vegetating in front of the television, myself included more often than I'd like. The problem is watching television doesn't use your mental capacity OR allow it to recharge. It's like having the energy sapped out of a muscle without the health benefits of exercise. Don't you feel drained after a couple hours of TV? Your eyes are sore and tired from being focused on the light box for so long. You don't even have the energy to read a book. When you feel like relaxing, try reading a book instead. If you're too tired, listen to some music. When you're with your friends or family, leave the tube off and have a conversation. All of these things use your mind more than television and allow you to relax. 2. Exercise - I used to think that I'd learn more by not exercising and using the time to read a book instead. But I realized that time spent exercising always leads to greater learning because it improves productivity during the time afterwards. Using your body clears your head and creates a wave of energy. Afterwards, you feel invigorated and can

concentrate more easily. 3. Read Challenging Books - Many people like to read popular suspense fiction, but generally these books aren't mentally stimulating. If you want to improve your thinking and writing ability you should read books that make you focus. Reading a classic novel can change your view of the world and will make you think in more precise, elegant English. Don't be afraid to look up a word if you don't know it, and don't be afraid of dense passages. Take your time, re-read when necessary, and you'll soon grow accustomed to the author's style. Once you get used to reading challenging books, I think you'll find that you aren't tempted to go back to page-turners. The challenge of learning new ideas is far more exciting than any tacky suspense-thriller. 4. Early to Bed, Early to Rise - Nothing makes it harder to concentrate than sleep deprivation. You'll be most rejuvenated if you go to bed early and don't sleep more than 8 hours. If you stay up late and compensate by sleeping late, you'll wake up lethargic and have trouble focusing. In my experience the early morning hours are the most tranquil and productive. Waking up early gives you more productive hours and maximizes your mental acuity all day. If you have the opportunity, take 10-20 minute naps when you are hit with a wave of drowsiness. Anything longer will make you lethargic, but a short nap will refresh you. 5. Take Time to Reflect - Often our lives get so hectic that we become overwhelmed without even realizing it. It becomes difficult to concentrate because nagging thoughts keep interrupting. Spending some time alone in reflection gives you a chance organize your thoughts and prioritize your responsibilities. Afterwards, you'll have a better understanding of what's important and what isn't. The unimportant stuff won't bother you anymore and your mind will feel less encumbered. I'm not saying you need to sit on the floor cross-legged and chant 'ommm'. Anything that allows a bit of prolonged solitude will do. One of my personal favorites is taking a solitary walk. Someone famous said, "All the best ideas occur while walking." I think he was on to something. Experiment to find the activity that works best for you. Conclusion - I hope you aren't disappointed that none of the techniques I've proposed are revolutionary. But simple, unexciting answers are often the most valid. The challenge is having the will to adhere to them. If you succeed in following these 5 tips, you'll be rewarded with increased mental acuity and retention of knowledge.

How to Get Everything Done by Doing 1 Thing

By Craig Jarrow How do you eat an elephant? How do you move a mountain? How you do begin a journey of 1000 miles? The answers are all the same... you do it bit by bit... One bite at a time. One spoonful of dirt at a time. With a single step.

You cannot do the whole thing at once. The same is true of life. You cannot do everything at once. But, it is through incremental progress that success is achieved. How do you get everything done? The answer to this question is the same too. You get it all done... one piece at a time. If you keep your todo list visible, you are aware that you have many things to do. Very few us ever get our lists to zero. (If you do...I might reason you are not living up to your potential...) So how do you get it all done? You cannot do your whole todo list at once. You have to chip away at it. Effective productivity is not done in one fell swoop. Yes, there are bursts of rapid productivity. However, small incremental steps is how life gets done. To get everything done, you have to start with one item. The 1 thing you weren't going to do today We all have things that sit on our todo list for days. Weeks. Months in cases. Some of these items may turn out to be things we never really needed to do in the first place. That is good, we can cross those off. But, there are other items that have to be done and will not go away. Leaving tasks undone can create more work for us and cause more life friction and stress. Ever try to do your taxes at the last moment? Or do a project the day before it is due? The strategy is to pick one thing you were not going to do today. And make that item a top priority today. Maybe it is to track down the one tax document that you know you will need before mid-April. Maybe it is start the research on a project you have been putting off. Or perhaps that expense report that is rotting on your desk. Do it today. It is not an option. How to get that 1 thing done OK, so we have spotlighted one thing that has not been getting done and we are committing to doing it today. Here are some tactics to ensure success: Keep it top of mind - You may have many top priorities today, but ensure you put your one incremental task on top of your list. If you keep a "today" list, it goes there. If you rank or prioritize your todos, it has a top ranking for today. Make it non-negotiatible - Doing 1 extra thing today that you wouldn't have otherwise is a choice. Make that choice. For you, it is non-neogtiable even if you have to make sacrifices in other areas. You skip that social lunch or you work just a little later. Announce it to others - We tend to let ourselves off easy. But, we don't like to let others down. So, tell your friends, spouse, co-workers that you intend to do this task today. Just mentioning it to them will raise your internal obligation to get it done.

Do it to done - It feels good to finish things. Make sure you don't fall into the trap of starting a dozen things and not finishing any of them. Take care to start and finish your important 1 thing. Celebrate it! - You did it. Now take a moment to be happy that you completed something important to you. That feel good moment will serve to continue to boost your productivity.