Image courtesy of carf

Firstly, welcome to Time Saving Tuesday. Today I'll be talking about that famous saying from Brian Tracy and how it profoundly alters procrastination.

Even though at times, procrastination may seem completely overwhelming, understand that you have complete control over how you procrastinate and when. If you tend to procrastinate before big tasks or when you know you have to do something important, then you definitely need to read this post.

Just accept it as the way it is, you must eat a frog every day. When would you eat it? Eating a frog would understandably be something you wouldn't look forward to, so you'd naturally procrastinate heavily in order to, at least delay the inevitable frog eating. Hours pass and you've delayed it long enough through wasting time and energy that it's now your bedtime snack. Would you enjoy going to sleep with the taste of frog lingering? Of course you wouldn't, therefore eating it for breakfast would be the sensible thing to do.

As an example, let's say your to-do list for today was -

1. Clean the house
2. Arrange a meeting
3. Cancel some subscription
4. Write an important report
5. Go food shopping

Most people would prefer to do these tasks as they are, in order. Why? Because that is the easiest way to get through and complete the list.

Let's fast forward 8 hours, it's now say, 5pm. You've known all day that the most important task is the report writing, yet you haven't got around to it yet. You've cleaned the house, arranged the meeting, cancelled the subscription and are thinking about going food shopping before your favourite TV programme comes on, all to avoid doing the most important and therefore hardest task for today.

Once you've sat down in the morning and started writing your important report you have destroyed your procrastination by starting to take bites out of your frog. Back to the earlier reasoning of the general -

You'll soon realise that once you've completed your important report, the entire day just got 100 times easier since every task you have to-do after your frog (important report) will be completed with ease.

To answer this question I'd like to point you to an earlier post I've written on creating priorities. This post will help you prioritise all your days tasks into categories of A, B, C and D. I won't go over this system again in this post since that would be a distraction from the main emphasis.

If you do the majority of your work from a desk, I suggest you go out and by yourself a toy frog. Once you've purchased your little priority reminding frog friend, place him somewhere you'll notice him constantly through your day. Place him where you know he'll get your attention. This will remind you that you have to eat your frog.

This is the end of Time Saving Tuesday this week, I hope you go ahead and give the frog eating a try (not literally) and leave some comments on how your productivity soars in return. Check back tomorrow at 6pm for Why is that?! Wednesday and find out why you are 100% in control of your life.

Craig is a 22-year-old student currently studying psychology at Bournemouth University. He runs a self improvement blog and community filled with useful advice. His main aim is to help people exceed their expectations and reach their true potential. If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via RSS or E-mail.

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Today's Thought Throwing Thursday shall be dedicated to a very handy little program called Samurize.

It may not sound like much but this simple little program has changed my productivity, time management and computer use in a complete different direction. It's almost succeeding to kill of my use of paper and pen regarding note taking and goal planning. Got an idea what it is yet?

Samurize is an advanced system monitoring and desktop enhancement engine for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista. IT professionals, over-clocker's, gamers and desktop Modder's alike use Samurize for system information, weather reports, news headlines and much, much more.  The best thing being though, that it is completely free.

Samurize has a bunch of handy features and they include -

• a set of built-in meters (Disk utilization, CPU usage, network traffic, system temperatures...)
• ultimate customizing possibilities with no programming knowledge required
• monitoring your own computer or others over a network
• tiny memory footprint and CPU usage
• the first system monitoring tool with a true WYSIWYG editor
• full extensibility via scripts and plugins with a powerful plugin SDK/API
• minimal software requirements (no .NET or Service Packs necessary)
• multi-monitor support
• many usage options (desktop, taskbar and clock clients, server outputting to XML or image formats, screensaver)

Ok now it sounds like I'm trying to sell you the program. Well don't be alarmed, I'm not. I just generally like the little program and I'll help you visualise its potential with what I use it for.

Here's a screenshot of my desktop -

All the writing you see on the screen (most anyway, as some I've smudged) is produced by Samurize through little TXT documents handily named something like TO-DO.TXT. These are my goal lists. They are in front of me most of the time as I work, so I can see them and are more likely to get them done. I've also got a main goal across the top; this highlights its importance for me to get it done as a priority.

There is much more potential with the program than I give it credit for, it has quite an unlimited usage since it's based on imagination and requirements and therefore could be used for almost anything. I find it the most useful being used as an organiser, something I can see to remind me what I have to do and since I'm aiming to increase people's productivity, I'll suggest you should use it at least for that very reason too!

You can download it here -

You can also visit the home website of the program and check out the news or pick up some handy plugins -

http://www.samurize.com/modules/news/

Have fun trying out Samurize and check back tomorrow at 6pm for Link Finding Friday, I've got some more useful programs for you just waiting to be downloaded and put to good use.

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Craig is a 22-year-old student currently studying psychology at Bournemouth University. He runs a self improvement blog and community filled with useful advice. His main aim is to help people exceed their expectations and reach their true potential. If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via RSS or E-mail.

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Image courtesy of mathmandan

As mentioned in previous posts including yesterdays I explained that I use a specific priority system aimed at making me more productive while saving time in the long run. I'll dedicate this post to explaining it completely.

By the time you've finished reading this post you'll know how to set goals, prioritise them and set deadlines to save time and make yourself more productive.

Some things you simply shouldn't do.

That's right, sometimes you simply need to get rid of something rather than attempt to fit it in. That's the main purpose of this priority system, you only do things that are urgent and/or important. The priority system I use I've assembled myself through various other peoples work such as Brian Tracy, Napoleon Hill, Edwin Bliss and Steven Covey.

I simply use the letters A, B, C and D. These are placed into to what I call a ‘priority square'. I've quickly designed a priority square below to show you what I mean -

As you can see there are four quadrants, A, B, C and D. You can also see the writing under each letter; this is what the quadrant is for. The square works alphabetically, meaning if you decide a task is both urgent and important it should be classed an A priority and therefore completed before any B, C or D priority. Normally your A priorities will be incredibly important to anything you are currently doing in your life and require concentration and attention to get them completed. Having these tasks listed in this fashion will allow you to complete them faster, since you are not distracted by B, C or D priorities.

The C priority you will more than likely use the most often. This is just for tasks that are important to a project but are not urgent. This will normally be your longest list but because it's long don't go thinking you need to start completing them if you've got any tasks in A or B. C priority tasks will most often be things you do last just before the D priorities which in more cases you can simply get rid of and save yourself time, these include watching a TV series or something you'd like to do. These are not important enough to overlap your A or B priorities, so delete them. Deleting them will enable you to gain much more time, which can be spent on things more important.

Here's an example of my site goal list, ranked in priority -

Site To-do

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Week Daily - A. Add blog posts/articles to site, A. Social network

-----------------------------------

A. Learn how to, then target planned segment

A. Start creating links for Enlightr

A. Start researching and constructing the 'list'

A. Write 3 articles

A. Write article on assignment 1

A. Write article on assignment 2

B. Blog about learning marketing and link

B. Blog about affiliate marketing

B. Add how many RSS subscribers have subscribed

B. Change simple icons to blog icons instead of content

B. Add links to day banners

B. Remove all register stuff for members

B. Look into adding idea 1 -

B. Look into idea 2 -

B. Reformat articles with new learned information when adding ideas

B. Add affiliates for all articles

B. Psychology + bio

B. Social Interaction + bio

B. Time Management + bio

C. Add RSS pictures to menu items

C. Re-do SEO plan for all content

C. Edit Remez and Leil Lowndes articles

C. Edit META on advanced series, add affiliates

D. Add how many points to CB profile via custom field

Even though most of what's written there will mean nothing to you. All you need to take away from it is the priority rankings I've assembled the list in. You can see for some big A priority goals I've also added smaller B goals that will aid in completing the A goal.

This has been a short post to give you what you need to start prioritising your goals and life as a whole. Remember if it isn't urgent and or important you could just simply get rid of it. Until next Time Saving Tuesday, have fun prioritising your work where we'll talk about eating frogs.

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Craig is a 22-year-old student currently studying psychology at Bournemouth University. He runs a self improvement blog and community filled with useful advice. His main aim is to help people exceed their expectations and reach their true potential. If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via RSS or E-mail.

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What is Time Management

"Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques utilized to accomplish specific tasks, projects and goals. This set encompasses a wide scope of activities, and these include planning, setting goals, delegation, analysis of time spent, monitoring, organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing. Initially time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include personal activities also. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools and techniques."

Excellent Time Management Skills Step-by-step

If you want to achieve excellent time management skills you need one thing, motivation. You need the ability to go and do whatever it takes to fix time management into your life and then the motivation to stick with it and use it. I'll give you firstly the benefits of a time management system then a step-by-step time management system that you can use straight away to organise your life as a whole and get that extra time you're looking for.

Benefits of Time Management

As you can probably guess, time management skills will enable you to have more time in the long run. But that isn't the only thing. It also unlocks other skills -

• Time management makes you result orientated
• You grow as a person when you master your time
• You can be and do more than ever before
• You will realise what is important to you and what is not.

If those benefits are what you desire, you will achieve them through a simple time management system.

Time management can be a complicated area and can create a complicated system that'll govern time with an iron fist, but I believe a simpler, smarter system is the way forward.

A Simple Time Management System Step-by-step

1. You need to set a goal. This goal can be anything that you desire as long as it follows a certain list of rules. The rules are -
   1. Your goal must be positive
   2. Your goal must be specific
   3. Your goal must be measurable
   4. Your goal must have a realistic deadline.
2. You need to decide the important of your goal following these rules -
   1. If your goal is important and urgent rate it an (A)
   2. If your goal is urgent but not important rate it a (B)
   3. If your goal is important but not urgent rate it a (C)
   4. If your goal is something you'd like to do rate it a (D)
   5. If you can't fit the goal in the rating system A to D then delete the goal from your list.
3. Now you've got your goals, you've ranked them, next you break them down. So if I had a big goal of buying a house, I'd break the goal into pieces which gives you smaller goals that take up less time but are much easier to do and will enable you to complete the big goal in no time. Example goal of buying a house  would be -
   1. I will buy a house by March 2009
      1. I will research how to buy houses
      2. I will look into areas where I'd like to live
      3. I will find out prices of bills per week
      4. I will check out and research landlords.
4. Once you've broke down your big goals into smaller goals you must now rank your smaller goals using the same ranking system outlined in step 2
5. This is the final step. Now you've decided your goals, followed the rules and created your goals, ranked your goals through the ranking system, broken down the big goals and then ranked mini-goals you're ready for the final step. Start working on the highest ranking goals FIRST. That means you must complete your A's before your B's and C's and defiantly before your D's. This way you efficiently hand your time and know if a certain task is worth your time. By using this simple system you will save a lot of time and find yourself getting a lot more done. So have fun with it and maybe tweak it a little to your liking, either way it's there for you to improve your timer management skills.

Simple Time Management System in Action

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Week Daily - A. Add blog posts/articles to site, A. Social network

-----------------------------------

A. Learn how to, then target planned segment

A. Start creating links for Enlightr

A. Start researching and constructing the 'list'

A. Write 3 articles

A. Write article on assignment 1

A. Write article on assignment 2

B. Blog about learning marketing and link

B. Blog about affiliate marketing

B. Add how many RSS subscribers have subscribed

B. Change simple icons to blog icons instead of content

B. Add links to day banners

B. Remove all register stuff for members

B. Look into adding idea 1 -

B. Look into idea 2 -

B. Reformat articles with new learned information when adding ideas

B. Add affiliates for all articles

B. Psychology + bio

B. Social Interaction + bio

B. Time Management + bio

C. Add RSS pictures to menu items

C. Re-do SEO plan for all content

C. Edit Remez and Leil Lowndes articles

C. Edit META on advanced series, add affiliates

D. Add how many points to CB profile via custom field

Conclusion

The example above is my current to-do list for this site. You'll notice I've not given a deadline for most of the goals, that's acceptable but to have a more efficient system I should use dates for every goal.

The main thing you need to conclude from this post is that time management is important and offers many benefits. You also need to know that the time management system works and is used daily by many successful people and that you should at least give it a try.

Related Posts

Craig is a 22-year-old student currently studying psychology at Bournemouth University. He runs a self improvement blog and community filled with useful advice. His main aim is to help people exceed their expectations and reach their true potential. If you enjoyed this post, get free updates via RSS or E-mail.

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