No one really knows what the future holds yet we all have concocted fantasies of the future that we convince ourselves will come true. Unfortunately, many of these scenarios are tragedies. Procrastination is the way you avoid that negative future.

What are you afraid will happen if you finish painting the bedroom, writing a report, sending thank you notes, or getting the car repaired? The immediate reply is usually, “Nothing. I will feel wonderful.” You realize that the thing you are putting off or not finishing is so simple or easy to do that you are stumped about why you are procrastinating.

You may be surprised to discover that it is not the present project that is the problem. This problem is simply a smoke screen that hides the real problem… what comes next. Consider these examples.

In one of my workshops a woman declared that her goal was to clean out her desk by the end of the month. Nothing could be easier. Once she uncovered her fears of the future she announced, “If I clean out my desk I will have to clean up my life. And I might have to divorce my husband!” No wonder she wasn’t able to get her desk in order. What was waiting for her after that was too scary to contemplate. What does a desk have to do with a marriage?

Another participant, a young man who had graduated college a year before, kept putting off taking the exam for graduate school. He was at a loss to motivate himself even though he knew that he needed and wanted a graduate degree to get ahead in his career. He got in touch with the fear that if he went to graduate school he would be around others who shared his interests and might find someone more exciting than his wife. Once he named his fear he was able to challenge his twisted thinking and realized that he could be around interesting people and still choose to come home to his loving spouse.

A young mother in my class was frantic because she was moving to a new home in two weeks and couldn’t make herself pack up all the things in her garage. She was paralyzed and puzzled. What came to light was that she and her husband had been discussing having more children. She wanted another baby but her husband did not. In the garage were boxes with her son’s baby clothes, ready for the next infant. She told herself that if she gave away his clothes it meant that she would never have another child. She unconsciously stopped herself from clearing the garage so that bleak future would not happen. After confronting her fear she realized that she could still have a baby in the future, even if she no longer had the baby clothes.

You have no crystal ball that can predict the future! Your dreaded fears may not materialize. Therefore, acting as if you were 100% sure of disaster and creating stress by trying to avoid your fantasy of unhappiness will surely lead to pain and misery. What are you afraid will happen in the future if you tackle the project you have been putting off? Write down your worst fear and face it now.

How’s your productivity lately?

Information overload is a real problem that we have to deal with. We check our emails every five seconds. Our mobile phones beep like sirens every five minutes. The internet calls out to us like the sea and meetings are called almost every week. Whew! How can we ever catch up with everything?

The result? Backlogs pile up at the office. Bosses shouting orders at us to finish things ASAP! Don’t you ever wish we are still living in the pre-mobile phone era?

Productivity suffers as a result of too much information that we have to deal with. Here are five tips on increasing productivity in this age of information overload.

1. Wake up early. Mornings are magical. When you see the darkness rolled away by the light, you can almost smell the dew. If you’re not the sentimental type, you can always start your day right away and start banging away at your keyboard or do your morning rituals briefly before working.

2. Write down the tasks for the day. Go get your Smartphone or your old fashioned organizer and list down the things you need to do for the day. It doesn’t have to be very elaborate as long as you can list down everything. I usually write down everything because if I don’t, I risk forgetting about them.

3. Prioritize your to-do list. When you have listed down your tasks, arrange them according to significance. Put routine tasks at the bottom of the list because they are the ones requiring less thinking and attention. Prioritize urgent matters, followed by the important ones, and the routine tasks come last.

4. Work on one task after another. Whoever popularized multi-tasking should be punished. Just kidding. There’s a limit to what you can do effectively. To maximize your attention span and your work flow. Do one thing after another. This way, you are less likely to be distracted by other work.

5. Keep your mobile phone away from you and do not sign on to online Instant Messengers. Unless you are on call, keep your mobile away from you. Likewise, if instant messengers are not really necessary in doing your job, you might as well not sign in. SMS and instant messengers are two of the top distractions at work. If you don’t want to be disturbed by them. Just keep them off your desk.

Your job is important to you. Delivering your work output everyday is crucial. By increasing your productivity, you are contributing to the success of your company.

How much time do you need for a day? Do you wish to have more time for a day? If you do not have enough time, what would be the best possible problem?

If you want to know a revelation about time, it is this. Everyone, it does not matter if you are a CEO of a listed company or the fellow sweeping the floor, has 24 hours a day.

If a CEO of a listed company has the ability to get so many things done within 24 hours, why can’t you? Someone even said, the busiest person on earth actually has time to do everything.

It is all about time management.

Time is very valuable to all of us. It is even more valuable than money. Ask yourself this question. Would it be easier for you to give money or give time? If you need to save the time, you would not mind paying extra for time.

Since time is so valuable to everyone of us, what are the best ways to manage your time? Here are a few things you can do.

Do It Now 
Procrastination is the number one killer of success. You know you should do it, you know you need to do it but you keep putting it off. “I’ll do it later”.

When you need to write a 200-page report, you get yourself prepared like cleaning the table, getting a hot coffee, wear the most comfortable shirt, have the best working environment and finally said, “I’ll do it tomorrow!”.

Does that sound familiar to you? Why is this happening? It is because human being rarely think by logic. They are often driven by emotion.

The difference that makes the successful people to get so many things done is that, they choose to do it anyway. They do feel overwhelmed too but they choose to bring down the great wall and once they have done that, their motivation comes.

Plan Ahead 
Often when you do not have a plan, you will be driven by unnecessary tasks. This means you will be wasting a lot more time doing things that are not related to the final outcome you desire.

It is like building a house without having a floor plan. You can simply build a house without planning on how you want to have it built. If you do, the chances are you will find a lot of errors and eventually you will spend a lot more time correcting your mistakes.

It is the same in everything that you do in life. Before you start a business, before you market a product or even before you go for a holiday. If it is not planned, the chances are your journey can be adventurous yet time wasting.

Consequence of Not Having Time Management 
This works really well and this only happens to people who realize that they need more time and improvement. Some people just do not think they need more time.

What did it cost you in the past when you did not plan your time well? Maybe you kept putting an assignment off until the very last minute of the submission date. Maybe you could be thinking there is still a plenty of time left and you do not see the need of starting to work on the project yet.

As a result of it, you did not score in your assignment or your manager rejected the project you have done because it was not of the quality one.

When you know what it has cost you to lose, you will begin to use your time more effectively and eventually you will waste no time in everything that you do.

Congratulation for reading this article as you are one of the top ten percent of the population who are taking action to improve their time management skills. Why do you what to improve your time management skills? Is it because of you are overwhelm with your study, your office works or your household works or others? Anthony Robbins said the reason for doing something is much stronger than whatever methods or skills that you are going to learn. Therefore, list down as many reasons as possible before you continue.

Know Your Goals and Objectives

Just imagine you are blindfolded and are required to hit a target with a set of arrows. Do you able to hit the target? Without able to see the target, you have to play with guessing. You have to try many times and are considered very lucky if you ever able hit the target. This is the same in real life if you do not set any goals. You will be wasting your time, trying to figure out your destination. You must set goals in every aspect of your life, such as careers, family, financial, health and extra, as time management is actually life management. Once you have set the goals, visualize the most interesting scenery, the sound or the feeling of the end result when you have achieved them.

Planning and Prioritizing

You need to list down all the steps, plan and prioritize them. If the goals are very huge, break them down into smaller and manageable pieces. This skill is important as you do not want to de-motivate or overwhelm yourself by seeing big goals. Put these steps in your to-do-list. Allow at least 30 percent to 50 percent of buffer time to cater for any emergency or any unexpected events which are unavoidable. Work according to the items in your to-do list as closely as possible till completion. You will feel great satisfaction once you have completed the tasks as per your to-do list. You should be able to complete your tasks much faster in a less stressful way.

Review and Reinvest Your Extra Time

Create a time log and record down your activities on hourly basis. Set one hour at the end of the day to review it. Ask yourself have you making the best use of your allocated time for the day? Is there any activity that you can improve or eliminate or delegate it to others? You should be able to identify any time wasters from it. By regularly reviewing and improving your time usage, you should be able to save at least one hour per day. Reinvest the extra one hour in life long learning, which can further improve your productivity, career, financial, health, family relationship or any other aspects of your life.

Once you have mastered these skills, try to further improve your personal time management skill by picking up another time management tactic from books or seminars and practice it. Always allow certain time period to test the effectiveness of the new skill before making conclusion on the skill. Since time is so valuable, it is worthwhile to invest some time to improve the usage of it.

First of all, let’s talk about your two important aspects of your life.

The work aspect - Now, work is an important part of our life, and there is no point arguing about it. Traditional time management books talk about taking your life to the next level, but a lot of them ignore the fact that most us spend about eight hours of our time in the workplace. Eight hours is a lot of time. And that’s exactly why it is so important to talk about work and time management together.

Now, you do spend eight hours a day at work, but work is not everything that you have. You have your family and your relationships. And Let’s face it, no matter no big the paycheck is, if your relationships are falling apart, it robs you from feeling good or happy.

So let’s talk about balancing work and your personal life to live the life of your dreams. Let’s get started.

One of the skills that you can apply right now is to start scheduling your day. I am not just talking about making a to-do list of everything you’re going to do at work. I’m talking about making a to-do list and scheduling fun stuff with your family.

Now, it’s going to be a little hard to get started, but I would recommend that you start by looking at your family’s schedules. Sit down and have a talk and come up with a time that works for everybody. Don’t just take your schedule and try to force it on others.

One of the things that happens when people find out they need a better work/life management is they start forcing their schedule on others, and that is a sure way to annoy them. If you want better relationships with your kids, you have to make sure that you can find a time that works for them and you have to find a way to make sure you can reward them for it. Make it worth their time.

Another thing you can start right now is taking really short breaks at about 90 minute intervals for about five minutes or ten minutes to take a breath and reduce your stress level. When we focus at work our stress level rises up. It’s something very natural. It’s just like working out. Your muscles stress up. All you need to do is take a few minutes to relax. Try it for a week, you will be pleasantly surprised by what this little tip can do for you.

Psychologist Eda LeShan said that middle-age occurs when you realize that you won’t live long enough to read all the books you want to read. According to LeShan’s definition, some of us were born middle-aged.

Finding the time to read isn’t just a problem of our busy, modern world. Back in the 14th Century, Italian poet Francesco Petrarca faced the same dilemma and solved his conflict this way: “Whether I am being shaved, or having my hair cut, whether I am riding on horseback or taking my meals, I either read myself or get someone to read to me.”

Doubling up on activities is, of course, one way of squeezing in more reading time. Here are several other tips gleaned from voracious readers.

1. Carry a book with you at all times. Paperbacks are wonderfully portable and make it easy to tuck a favorite into your purse or briefcase and use those unexpected free moments while your waiting to read a chapter or two. Some readers finish a number of books every year in those odd moments waiting for the dentist or lunch companion.

2. Eliminate something else that takes your time. What habitual time-users fill your days? Mind-numbing reality shows? Adjusting your schedule ever so slightly could open up reading space. Take a look.

3. Listen to audiobooks. Authors and actors now narrate both fiction and nonfiction titles-and the list of titles keeps growing. I’ve finished several books just running errands around town. I find them indispensable for longer road trips. Audiobooks are also great when housework is being done.

4. Travel by public transportation. If it’s possible to take a bus or train, rather than drive yourself, you can get lots of reading done in transit. My idea of a perfect vacation is a 3-day train trip with a stack of books.

5. Wear your iPod. Just don’t turn it on. If your reading time takes place in a noisy lunchroom or airplane, don a headset or earbuds. It will block outside noises and deter others from chatting with you when you’d rather be reading.

6. Don’t finish books that you don’t enjoy. Sounds obvious to me, but many folks think there’s something wrong with stopping midway through a book. Nonsense. Get on to another that brings more pleasure.

7. Learn to skim. Time expert Alan Lakein suggests, “When you pick up a book, start by reading the headlines on the book jacket. Then glance through the book quickly, looking for something of interest to you…Your job in reading a book is to find the key ideas and understand their application to your situation.” That only works for nonfiction, of course.

8. Have a regular reading time daily. Even reading for 15 minutes every day will yield big results over time. Tune into your own special body clock and discover the times when you feel less energetic, less creative. Take advantage of these lower energy times to schedule your reading. For many people, bedtime is still their favorite time to enjoy a good book.

9. Make reading a high priority. Books should feed your imagination as well as provide information. Be eclectic in your reading and clear about why it matters to you. Even in this high tech world, booklovers continue to delight at the smell and feel of a book in their hands telling a story that transports. Devoted readers smile in agreement at Anna Quindlen’s observation: “I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people whose idea of decorating is to add more bookshelves.”

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

Procrastination is one of the most common pitfalls many find themselves stumbling into. There are many factors in our lives that can contribute to putting things off until the last minute, despite the best of intentions. Even the most well organized person can fall into the trappings of letting things pile up-not by choice, but by being pulled in way too many directions.

Obviously the thought of completing a mundane or unpleasant task makes us want to hit the pause button and turn to more exciting and promising ventures. Which of these do you most relate to?

Out of sight, out of mind: You find yourself putting major projects aside until you can fully devote your attention to it, and instead it gets lost in the shuffle.

“I’ll get around to it”: You keep telling yourself you are going to carve out a chunk of time, but that time never arrives and when it does, you simply don’t feel like doing it.

Adrenaline junkie: You love an adventure, and thrive on self-created chaos, and even if you get tired of it, can’t seem to find a way out of always being in a whirlwind.

Overload mode: It is hard to know exactly where to begin and there are simply way too many steps involved to carry out the project so you have trouble even getting started.

Disruptions: Every time you set out to something, you are interrupted, distracted or something more pressing comes up.

As life becomes more demanding and our schedules more complex, it takes a lot to overcome the cycle of being frantic and not keeping up. Being a procrastinator can lead to unnecessary stress. See which of these ideas work best for you:

Map it out: Use a large dry erase board to chart out short and long-term goals and projects. Color code them and put dates of completion in clear sight. Calendars, planners and lists work well too. Find a way to use visual means to see what you have to do in nearby site.

Don’t let it pile up: Avoid the temptation to put everything into piles. Most of it stays buried and you may miss important deadlines. Too much clutter can add fuel to the procrastination fire.

Don’t delay: If you get something done right away do so-try and handle things only once or the least possible amounts of time. If you have to keep pulling something out, you waste time retracing your steps.

Divide and Conquer: Break things into smaller chunks and tackle step by step. It is often very difficult to start something, but once you do, you can take it more systematically, building momentum as you go.

Delegate: If there are things you are not good at or simply do not have time to accomplish, don’t be afraid to enlist the support of someone who has the resources to help you along.

Whether you are a procrastinator or just a super-busy person, try and work out a system that suits you best. Don’t wait for tomorrow to try! It’s never too late to stop being a procrastinator.

Overcoming procrastination is one of the most important things you can do to get things done and increase your life’s prosperity, income and potential. Most people think they don’t need to fix it, or that they don’t have it… But it’s extremely important to get over procrastination as soon as possible. This article features several quick tips you can use to overcome your procrastination more easily.

Step 1: Accepting that you are procrastinating and learning how to handle it.

You’ll never stop procrastinating until you realize you are doing it. So take a quick look at yourself and see what you are doing with your life. What areas are you putting things off in and how is that affecting your lifestyle?

If there are any negative consequences from you not being able to fulfill certain tasks, how much is this loss worth to you? If you overcome procrastination would you be able to skyrocket your success, make more money or have more loving relationships?

Step 2: Getting the help you need.

Now you know that there’s a problem with your procrastination. It’s just a bad habit and can be changed really, really easily. There are many products that can help you out. Hypnosis to overcome procrastination, tips and tricks, cheap ebooks and even free articles that will help you break free of procrastination and fight it with all you’ve got.

Step 3: Fighting procrastination with all you’ve got!

After you’ve established a way for yourself to overcome procrastination it’s time to take action and fight procrastination at all costs!

* Set up that meeting even if you don’t want to.

* Go to the gym even if you don’t feel like it!

* Start that business that you’ve wanted to start.

* Take a vacation if you have been putting that off.

There are just so many beautiful things you are missing out on in life, if you don’t pursue your dreams. So, start taking the action you need to overcome procrastination! You’ll thank yourself and you’ll feel a lot more happy when you start to achieve what you have always wanted to do with your life.

You know you need to take that exam, call that person, go out and meet that special someone… What’s stopping you? Overcome the procrastination now and fulfill your life to the fullest!