The Six Most Important Things
(productivity primer)

You will never achieve what you want to achieve unless you manage your time effectively! Success depends on your ability to slice your big goals into small, easy to tackle tasks. On doing consistently what you commit yourself to do. Good time management skills prevent stress, procrastination and feeling overwhelmed.
        Here is one of the most effective ways to manage your time. I taught time-management courses for over ten years and this is the quickest way to double your productivity:
        Every evening write down the six most important things to do the next day. Just take a piece of paper and write "Things to do tomorrow" - 1..., 2...., 3..., 4...., 5....., 6.....
        Don't panic if you feel that you absolutely have to write at least 25 things. If so much has piled up, list all the tasks first on a separate page and then pick only the six most important. (I used to be a terrible procrastinator myself and my first list of this sort measured three pages legal size!)
        Now you need to categorize the tasks. Start from the most difficult thing to accomplish (that will be the first thing you will do tomorrow) and finish with the easiest. Our natural tendency is to start with the easiest ("to warm up" we say). But when we start easy, the hardest thing looms ahead all day and overwhelms us constantly. Our fears and feelings of guilt mount...
        It's a completely different story when you start with the most difficult thing to do. After you've done the first task, the sense of accomplishment almost carries you by itself toward the others.

Even if you don't do every single task scheduled for that day, you will have done something that really counts, something that can build your self-esteem and your sense of self-expectancy.

Keep preparing this list of 6 Most Important Things To Do every single evening. It is the fastest road to high self-esteem and better time management. Perhaps the first day you will be able to do only three things from your list. That's not bad. You will put the other three on the top with the three new things. Your life will gradually become easier. You will experience less and less stress because fewer and fewer important things remain undone. You will realize your own abilities more often. And all of the sudden, you will find that you have much more free time than ever before. Time for things your never thought your could find time!

Imagine how much you will accomplish if you keep doing this every day. Six most important things to do every day means 180 most important things to do every month. Multiply that by twelve to see how much you can accomplish in one year!