Better You Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Family Trips’

Benjamin Franklin, who knew how to conquer procrastination as well as anyone, said that “by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.” How do you plan your work? And if you don’t plan, how do you know if you’re reaching your goals? It’s time to find out.

Make a list of everything you’ve been putting off at work. Not just the big things, but all the little things, too. Make another list of everything you’ve been putting off at home-large tasks and small ones. If you can’t think of anything right away, walk around the house. Walk through the yard. It won’t be hard to fill a page with projects that have been talked about, but not carried out.

Make another list of things you’ve neglected to do in the area of your personal relationships. That includes letters, emails, phone calls, visits, family trips, and vacations. Then make a list of all the things you’ve put off doing for yourself-a class you want to take, an exercise program you know you should start, or a bad habit you know you should eliminate.

Don’t worry about priorities. Just get the juices flowing and write down everything that comes into your head. It may be hard to get started, but once you start the ideas will come more easily. Keep writing them down; you’ll be amazed at how one thought triggers the next. Words will start to flow onto your paper or computer screen.

Now let me explain why I asked you to do this exercise. First, you’ve probably been putting off more things than you realized. That’s the first step toward defeating procrastination-recognizing it as a problem. Procrastinators go to ridiculous extremes to explain their inability to take action. Accepting the truth that procrastination is a problem is the first step toward overcoming it.

Second, I hope this exercise has taught you the importance of getting started. The failure to take action breeds doubt, doubt gnaws at your self-confidence and your diminished selfconfidence increases your indecision. The result is paralysis-and the vicious circle of inactivity keeps turning.

After you recognize that procrastination is a problem, the next step is to focus on one thing you’ve been postponing. Take one thing you’ve been putting off and make something happen. You started your list with one thing; it led to another. Take one action and that action will trigger another.

Ask yourself how much time you waste in a day. Keep a log of how you spend your time. How do you plan your work to ensure that deadlines are met? Always ask yourself if the work needs to be done at all.

According to research findings, we spend as much as 80% of our time on tasks that do not contribute to the success of our projects-many people load themselves down with work that is unnecessary, or that could be justifiably postponed. Learn what all successful people know: If you’re failing to plan, you’re planning to fail.

• How To Overcome Procrastination: It All Depends On You Procrastinators put off all the hard jobs. But they get stuck in a vicious circle of postponing the easy jobs, too. And the longer they put them off, the harder the jobs are when they finally get around to them. Successful people fight the same war against procrastination that we......
• Self Improvement HandBook Everything that happens to us happens in purpose. And sometimes, one thing leads to another. Instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over past heartaches, embarrassment and failures, treat them as your teachers and they will become your tools in both self-improvement and success. Remember......
• Focus on your mental and emotional side to gain self improvement Not everyone believes this but the emotional and mental aspects of a person, when combined, leads to better self improvement. Emotions love to dominate our actions and reactions, even though we do not want it to happen sometimes. The society often see emotions as a sign of weakness, so people......
• Build Your Self Esteem So how do you stay calm, composed and maintain self esteem in a tough environment? Here are some tips you may to consider as a starter guide to self improvement. Imagine yourself as a Dart Board. Everything and everyone else around you may become Dart Pins, at one point or......
• Unlocking Your Self Improvement Power When we look at a certain object, a painting for example – we won’t be able to appreciate what’s in it, what is painted and what else goes with it if the painting is just an inch away from our face. But if we try to take it a little......

• Big Book of Home How To By Better Homes and Gardens When it comes to dealing with the authority on home improvement, you can’t much better than Better Homes and Gardens. For decades they have been helping and inspiring home owners throughout the world. Let’s see if their latest book is worth the money and if it can help you with......
• Overcoming Mañana Mentality “Someday is not a day of the week.” ~Author Unknown Procrastination – I am as guilty of it as the next person. We look for distractions, even if subconsciously. Just since starting this blog, I have checked my email, updated my Facebook, sent out a few tweets, stopped to eat......
• Is Self Improvement Getting You Down? Image by Mel B. via Flickr There's a dark side to the self-improvement industry. If you're into any form of self-improvement (self-help, personal-development, personal-empowerment, etc.), there's a good chance that you've been affected by it. What is it? Working on improving yourself can actually affect your self-esteem in a......
• Do You Have The Skills To Make Money Online? I think one of the things that surprised me most about Internet marketing was how many skills it took. Of course when I started out I was barely able to send email so I had a very steep learning curve. I guess I am living proof that if I can......
• Finding Active Adult Communities Baby boomers and developers are trying to keep up with explosive growth in the demand for active adult communities.  It is hard to do.  A Google search turns up thousands of hits, most of which are ads promoting one community or another. I have decided to develop (and try to......