We’re often told that hard work gets us ahead. That’s true to an extent – if you put effort and focus into something, you’re going to achieve more than if you go at it in a half-hearted way. But it’s all too easy to get sucked into working long hours, ticking tasks off a list, without being all that effective or successful.

Instead of just working hard – putting in lots of hours – look for ways to work smart.

Why?

Because smart work means you’re more likely to reach your goals. Sadly, it’s all too possible to work hard without any recognition and without achieving success. Sure, you might be up to date with all your emails … but that might not bring you any nearer to winning a promotion, or to starting your own business.

Plus, when we’re working hard, other areas of our life get neglected. Maybe you’re working long hours but eating poorly and never exercising. It might not seem like such a bad choice now, but when you run into health problems a few years down the road, you’re going to wish you’d found a better balance.

Working too hard can have a really negative effect on your quality of life, too. Long hours and the pressure to keep doing more can lead to stress, burn out, depression, or just that miserable feeling of is this all there is to life?

So how can you get away from the mindset of working hard and start working smart?

1.    Get Help

Yes, you might want to get to the top and say “I did it all myself.” The truth is, to succeed, you need to let other people help you. Read the acknowledgements in any bestselling book, and you’ll see the author giving credit to a whole host of supporters – editors, agents, friends, family.

Help can come in all sorts of forms. It might be emotional support. It might be someone taking care of the cooking or the housework so that you can focus on work. It could have a direct relation to your work – either by delegating tasks which don’t use your skills to the full, or by getting advice on an area which you’re struggling with on your own.

2.    Rest More

I’m always a bit iffy about stories of people functioning on three hours sleep while they build their business empire. Sure, they might achieve something great – but I always wonder if they’d have done even better with a full night’s rest.

If you’re doing anything remotely creative or which requires concentration, you’re not going to be at anywhere near 100% if you’re not resting enough. That doesn’t just mean getting a good night’s sleep – it also means taking time off to relax and play. This isn’t “wasting” time – it’s ensuring that you can be on top form during your working hours.

3.    First Things First

“First Things First” is one of Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits” in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It means taking care of the most important things in your life before turning to the rest.

If you tend to prioritize by urgency – dealing with whatever comes in by email or by phone – then find a way to structure your day so that your important work gets done first. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish in a single focused hour at the start of the workday, when you’re feeling fresh and motivated.

4.    Limit Your Goals

Of course, if you’re going to put first things first, that means knowing what’s really important. Chasing multiple goals at once isn’t usually a good strategy. You might be able to manage it if your goals support one another (e.g. “eat more healthily” might give you the energy for “launch my business”), but having lots of goals generally diffuses your attention.

Rather than trying to do everything at once, pick one or two key goals for each year, and focus wholeheartedly on those. It’s much better to actually accomplish a dream than to have a vague stab at lots of different things … only to end up making very little progress.

Have you got any tips to add on working smart, not hard? Let us know in the comments…

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Have you ever been surprised at how much you can fit in when you’re at a conference? When we have a schedule provided for us, we manage to get from one event to the next at the right time; the imposition of external timings means that even if we’d like to stick with one task a little longer, we move on quickly. We deal with emails in brief breaks, sending shorter replies than usual, ditching any junk without even opening it.

In day to day working life, though, we tend to find ourselves struggling to stick to self-imposed schedules. One or two things overrun; emails and phone calls come in; our boss dumps an urgent task on us.

However beautiful your schedule looks, just writing it out isn’t going to help you.

Don’t Over-Plan

The biggest mistake which most of us make when it comes to scheduling is to over-plan. We’re optimistic, even unrealistic, about how much work we can really fit into a day. We look at a blank seven or eight hours and think we can cram them full – when the reality is that we never can.

Whatever your job, you’re almost certainly going to have to face all sorts of little interruptions and hold-ups. You’ll probably also find that some tasks invariably take more time than you realize. Try timing how long it takes you to clear your inbox each day – perhaps you’re budgeting half an hour when it’s actually more like a whole hour.

Build in Margins

Often, when we write out a schedule it looks like this:

• 8am – 9am: Write report section 1
• 9am – 9.30am: Clear inbox
• 9.30am – 10.30am: Conference call with Jo

…and so on. Rather than letting each item run right up against the next, allow a buffer of ten minutes or so. This covers the time which it takes for you to mentally task-switch, and any preparation time for the next item. (For example, that conference call will end up eating into your “clear inbox” time if you need to take ten minutes to dig out the relevant papers and to refill your coffee before the call.)

Margins also apply at a larger scale. If your boss needs the report on his desk by Friday at 5pm, then set yourself a target of having everything complete by Thursday at 5pm. This means you won’t end up rushing things at the last minute, you’ll have considerably more peace of mind on Friday, and you can cope with any sudden problems or other urgent tasks that come in.

Plan for Interruptions

Of course, you can’t literally plan on being interrupted at a convenient moment. But you can plan for the fact that you will have interruptions during the week. Don’t schedule every single minute – allow a “spare” hour or so each day as a bucket for any tasks which have to be delayed or deferred.

When you’re giving an estimate to your boss or to a client on how long a piece of work will take, allow for the interruptions to that piece of work which will inevitably arise. If writing that piece of sales copy will take fourteen full hours, don’t say that it’ll be done in two days – there’ll inevitably be something which comes up to derail you.

Give Yourself Regular Breaks

Your schedule should not look like an endurance test. If you’re focusing single-mindedly on each item and putting in full effort, you will need to take breaks at regular intervals. No one can focus at full capacity for hours on end.

When you come to the end of one task, give yourself a short break. Obviously, this is easier to do if you work for yourself: even though playing Grand Theft Auto for half an hour every morning and afternoon may well make you more productive overall, your boss probably won’t see it that way. But you can at least get up, walk to the water cooler, get a coffee, or do something which requires little mental energy (like tidying your desk or sorting out your filing) while you’re mentally recharging from a high-focus task.

What does your schedule look like? Do you have any tips for success to share?

“Daydreamer” courtesy of Nelsonius

We all have times when we’re just not in the mood to get on with work. Perhaps we’re feeling tired or apathetic, or weeks of stress have finally caught up with us. Maybe we’re just having a hard time staying on task – Facebook, Twitter, webcomics and other distractions seem, well, more distracting than usual.

So how can you stay on-task and on-track when you don’t feel like working?

1.    Do Something Else!

Okay, it’s not always possible – but how about doing something else instead? If you’re trying to force yourself to work on your small biz at the weekend and you’re feeling fed up, then the best solution may well be to simply take a break.

You can end up wasting a lot of energy by pushing yourself on by sheer willpower … when, in fact, it may be the case that your brain and body really need a break.

Of course, this isn’t an option in your average job (no boss wants to hear “sorry, I wasn’t in the mood to work today”) but if you have flexible hours or work for yourself, pay attention to early signs of fatigue or burnout.

2.    Make a (Short) List of Tasks

A sense of overwhelm is often at the root of our work problems. If you’re struggling to work because you don’t know where to begin, sit down and write a short list of things which you want to get done today. Try to keep it to just three or four items.

Once you have a list in front of you, you may well find your resistance to work melts away. It’s easy to knock off the tasks on a list; it’s hard to cope with that sense of having far too much work and nowhere near enough time.

3.    Focus on How You’ll Feel Later

Often, we end up procrastinating because it’s easier to play a flash game rather than get on with work. The problem is, procrastination inevitably leads to feelings of frustration, guilt or irritation – we know we’ve wasted time.

Instead of thinking about how you feel right at this moment (bored or fed-up with work) think about how you’ll feel in a few hours time if you get that work done. You’ll probably be relieved, satisfied, proud of yourself. Focus on getting through your work so that you can end the day on a high note.

4.    Just Open the Document

Our resistance to work is a funny thing … it can feel huge, but it starts to vanish as soon as we take the tiniest action towards getting something done. One really simple tip is to open the document which relates to the work you’re putting off. Just open up that report, or that email.

Once it’s on the screen in front of you, you’re already getting yourself into the mood to work on it. If you’re still struggling, tell yourself that you’ll spend five minutes working. Set a timer if you have to. As soon as you get going, it’ll get easier.

5.    Do the Very Best You Can

When you don’t feel like working, it’s easy to tackle everything half-heartedly, doing the bare minimum to scrape by. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t do much for your motivation; you end up feeling vaguely dissatisfied with what you’ve done.

Instead, resolve to do the very best on the piece of work you’re tackling, however mundane or unimportant it seems. Even if no-one else ever notices, you will know that you gave it your best shot, and you’ll be proud of yourself for that.

6.    Promise Yourself a Reward

Finally, if nothing about your work itself can motivate you, then try a bribe! Promise yourself a treat if you get through those three tasks on your list, or if you finish this one piece of work which has been hanging over you.

You might decide to take the rest of the day off (which encourages you to work faster rather than procrastinate). You might go to your favorite restaurant for lunch. You could treat yourself to a new CD or book which you’ve been meaning to buy. Rewards can be hugely motivating – give it a go.

How do you manage to get on with work when you’re not in the mood? Do the above tips work for you, or do you have any others to share?

Image courtesy of Amelia PS/Flickr

So you’ve got something you’re really passionate about. Perhaps it’s a hobby which you think you could turn into a business. Or a community project, or a novel you’re writing, or a diet or exercise routine which you’re really taking seriously this time.

The problem is, you’ve got a day job. It takes up most of your time and energy each day.

So how can you find the energy to get anything else done?

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not easy. I wrote fiction, then a blog, alongside a day job, and I started out freelancing while still working full-time. It was tough, and it wasn’t a situation I’d have wanted to sustain in the long term – but it was necessary while it lasted.

Although I ditched the day job a couple of years ago, I still need to balance my time and energy; I’m studying a part time masters alongside freelancing.

Here’s what works for me:

Try Different Times of Day

I used to do all my writing in the evenings, after a full day at work. Unsurprisingly, I found it hard to concentrate – some days I didn’t get any writing done at all, then felt very frustrated that I’d “wasted” the precious few hours which I did have.

Eventually, I tried writing before work. It meant getting up at the unholy hour of 5.45am, but it did mean that I wrote much more easily and felt like I’d accomplished something meaningful before even going out to work.

I still do my best work in the mornings (though not usually that early), so I try to keep those hours for my writing.

Obviously, you’re going to be restricted by your day job hours – but can you try working on your small business first thing in the morning? Or exercising at lunch time? Or writing your novel before dinner instead of after dinner when you’re tired and lethargic?

Get Enough Rest

When you’ve got more to do than hours in the day, it’s very tempting to start taking time away from sleep. I think this is almost always counter-productive. By all means, make sure that you’re actually spending your time in bed sleeping rather than just lying there (the nine tips from Kyeli here are great) – but don’t skimp on sleep. It’ll make it harder for you to focus the next day.

Getting enough rest isn’t just about sleep. If you’re working five days a week at your day job and trying to cram in more at the weekend, you’re eventually going to crash and burn. Try to take a full day off each weekend – even if that means making slower progress on your personal projects than you’d like. Or try making one weekend in four a “free” weekend when you can just rest and enjoy yourself.

Minimize Chores

If you’re spending eight hours a day in work – and extra time commuting back and forth – then you really want the rest of your time to count. If it’s getting eaten up by chores, can you find ways to reduce those? That could mean:

• Lowering your standards. (I’ll agree it’s nice to have a sparkling clean kitchen and a perfectly tidy house, but it’s not necessary.)
• Hiring help. For many people, that means getting a cleaner – but you can think creatively and even hire someone to prepare your meals (it may not cost anything like as much as you think). You could pay a local teenager to mow the lawn, or to watch your kids while you get on with work.
• Looking for alternative, more efficient, ways to get things done. For instance, you might cook huge batches of food every weekend and freeze them in individual portions for weekday meals.

A good way to figure out where your time is actually going is to keep a time log for at least a couple of weeks. Are any particular tasks taking up huge amounts of time?

Changing Your Day Job

This isn’t necessarily a possibility for everyone, so I’ve kept it till the end of the post. But if you’re really struggling to find the time and energy for you, can you change some aspect of your day job?

That might mean dropping down to four days a week instead of five. It could mean moving to a different department and a less stressful role – especially if you often end up working unpaid overtime. You might even change careers entirely.

With more and more employers realizing the benefits (to them!) of flexitime and remote working, you could have the option of shifting your work hours slightly – perhaps starting work later in the day so that you can use your early morning to do something meaningful. You might also be able to work from home some of the time, which would let you avoid wasted hours commuting back and forth.

How do you find the energy for the rest of your life, beyond your day job? And if you don’t have a day job, how do you balance the different areas of what you do?

If you’ve been reading personal development blogs for any length of time, you’ll have come across plenty of posts about goals. We’re all expected to have them. We’re told that having goals means we’ll be happy high-achievers, storming through life as we check off yet another item on our to-do list.

And yes, setting goals for yourself can help you to stay focused on what you want from life. It can help to counter our bias towards short-term thinking and short-term results. But even if you’ve diligently written down your goals, if you’ve created your vision board or made check-lists galore, you might still have a nagging sense that’s something’s wrong.

Here’s why:

Writing Down Your Goals Isn’t Magic

At some point, you’ve almost certainly been told to write down your goals. The theory goes that because you’ve put something down on paper, you’re going to be much more committed to it than if you’d just thought about it.
The truth is, there’s not a huge amount of actual research on this. In fact, the key oft-cited study (variously attributed to a group of Harvard and a group of Yale students) appears to be fictitious – Sid Savara has a great debunking of it on his blog:

Sometimes the study references a Harvard class of 1979, and sometimes a Yale class of 1953.  …  The premise and results were always the same.  Either this was a reproducible experiment, or something was a little fishy.

(Sid Savara, Fact or Fiction? The Truth About The Harvard Written Goal Study, SidSavara.com)

You  could sit down for an hour and write a huge list of goals: it’s easy to jot down everything we think we should do. But simply writing something down is no magic bullet.

I wouldn’t like to tell you how many times I’ve come across a list of written goals – big or small – that simply haven’t happened. My old journals and diaries are full of them. The act of writing something down can be helpful, but it’s not magic.

Arbitrary Goals Won’t Work

So why aren’t written goals working? A key problem is that we have a tendency to construct impressive lists of spurious “goals” which we don’t really care about. Here’s one from the lovely Naomi Dunford:

Here’s an actual sample of the things on my actual 100 Things To Do list from an actual (very good but sadly, I think, out of print) book:

1. Get driver’s license.

2. Get glasses.

3. Crochet a whole blanket.

4. File my taxes.

5. Get divorced. Finally.

6. Buy a Waterman pen.

7. Get personalized stationery.

8. Learn how to cook.

9. Get up to date on all my bills.

10. Buy car?

(Naomi Dunford, How to Set Unstupid Goals, IttyBiz)

Naomi goes on to explain the problems with each of these goals – traps which a lot of us fall into when we’re setting our own goals:

• Some are completely unexciting (e.g. “file my taxes”, “get up to date on all my bills”)
• Some are goals that she felt she should have (e.g. “get driver’s license”)
• Some aren’t really goals at all (“learn how to cook” – how do you know when you’re done?)
• Some involve settling for second-best (“buy a waterman pen”)

In the end, there are only a couple of goals on that top ten list which Naomi really cared about: “crochet a whole blanket”, and “get personalized stationery”.

The only gurus I can think of which would possibly include those as great goals are The Etiquette Grrls (I have both their books, they’re hilarious). The point is, Naomi picked those goals because she actually wanted to do them. Which, surely, should be what goals are all about?

What Do You Really Care About?

So the best place to start when goal-setting is to ditch the “should” and choose a few things you care about. My big three aims for this year are:

• Getting married
• Finishing the novel I’m writing
• Continuing to build up my business

None of those are goals which I need to write down. I’m hardly going to get to September and suddenly think “Oh yeah, I’m getting married in a week’s time, and I forgot to do anything about that. Oops.” I’m not going to wake up one morning having forgotten all about my novel. I’m definitely not going to sit around all day, every day, wondering what I’m supposed to be doing, only to belatedly remember that I’ve got a small business to run.

Have you got any goals like that? Perhaps you wouldn’t even describe them as “goals” – they’re just what you really want to do. Maybe you’re working on a cool project, designing a website, writing a book, redecorating your house, raising a family, or doing something else awesome.

Don’t treat goal-setting as some exercise that you’ve “got” to do. Use it as a tool to help you narrow your focus in the areas which you really do care about.

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Words That Heal and Empower

Do you ever feel that you’re so caught up in the day to day and hour to hour routines of life that you never get a chance to step back and see the bigger picture?

Do you get lots done, but without a real sense of accomplishment?

Have you ever reached the end of a busy week and wondered what the point was?

I expect we all feel like that from time to time – but for some people, it’s the norm. Perhaps you’re juggling studies and work, or work and family, or multiple projects and goals. Maybe you have a nagging sense that there’s something wrong or that your priorities are skewed – and you keep promising yourself that you’ll be less busy next week/month/year.

The problem is, you always seem to be busy. You’ve got lots on, and your attention is on the details, not the whole picture. How can you get some perspective on your life?

Take a Weekend Away

This is a big one, true, but please don’t rule it out as impossible. Can you take a weekend away? That might mean going on a mini-vacation with your spouse (especially if you never get any time together now). It could mean going off on your own for just a couple of days … perhaps walking, cycling, traveling to see old friends, or even going on a retreat.

We often pack our weekends with commitments and chores, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Even if you can only take a single day for yourself, you’ll return to your “normal” life with renewed energy and fresh clarity.

Schedule in Thinking Time

One of the most powerful uses for your time is to think. So often, we end up spending our day answering emails, returning calls, racing through work – and never pausing to consider whether there’s any better way to do things.

Spending just half an hour a week – a fraction of your working time – in thought can give you a chance to question whether everything’s really going as well as it could be. If you need some prompts to get your thoughts going, try:

• Where am I wasting a lot of time? Can I ditch/delegate/diminish those tasks?
• What’s going well? How can I do more of that?
• Do I feel unhappy about anything? What can I do about it?

(If you feel like thinking never really helps, or that it just makes you feel worse, check out these common patterns of limiting thinking.)

Write a Journal

Journaling is a really powerful way to work through problems and to get your thoughts out of your head. If you have trouble sleeping at night because you’re constantly worrying about the next day, try journaling for just ten or fifteen minutes before bed. Putting your thoughts down in black and white really helps you to get them in perspective, and it can often prompt you towards solutions.

There’s no one way to write a journal. Some people like to write every day, others write less often. You might find it particularly helpful to pick up your journal if you’re facing a difficult decision, or if something seems to be weighing on your mind.

Be Brave

Finally, getting perspective on your life requires an element of bravery. Sometimes, we end up burying ourselves in work and busyness in order to avoid thinking about deeper problems.

Being brave might mean facing up to a relationship which needs serious effort. It could involve admitting that you’ve chosen the wrong career and you’re miserable at work. It may well mean standing up for yourself and your own needs, and turning down other people’s requests. You might take on board a health problem that you’ve been trying to deny, like your smoking habit or your weight.

I know how hard and scary it can be to face up to problems in your life. Even if you’re not especially happy most of the time, it’s easier to keep going through the motions and kidding yourself that everything’s okay. But by stepping back, getting some perspective and being honest about any areas of life that aren’t working, you can take real strides towards success and true fulfillment.

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Do you find yourself procrastinating a lot? (You might even be procrastinating right now, reading this blog post while you should be working or cleaning or ordering the groceries online.)

Procrastination can be a real problem for some of us, leading to wasted hours and days, and a lot of frustration. Often, we think that to cure ourselves of procrastination, we need to concentrate harder, focus ourselves better and become more self-disciplined.

But I don’t believe that procrastination is a disease. It’s more like a symptom. And by figuring out – and addressing – the underlying cause, you’ve got a good chance of ending your procrastination habit.

So, what might the causes be?

You’re Working Too Hard

Okay, sometimes procrastination is more like laziness than hard work. If you think back to your college days (or if you’re still in college), you’ll know what it’s like to spend a whole day faffing around instead of getting on with an essay.

Quite often, though, procrastination can be caused by working yourself too hard. If you’re taking work home every night, if you’re busy all weekend with projects around the house, if you’re always thinking about work and if you never get any time for yourself – no wonder you’re ending up on YouTube or Facebook when you should be working. You desperately need some down time.

The Cure: Set a stop time for your work each day – and stick with it. Give yourself permission to do something which you really enjoy once your work for the day is done.

Your Work Doesn’t Excite You

If you find your job tedious and boring, it’s no surprise that you’re procrastinating. You’re finding any way you can to take your mind off the tedium. Or perhaps your work is really stressful and makes you feel miserable: you’re seeking escape however you can.

However many tips you read about improving your concentration, you’re not going to fix the fact that you’re in a career which you dislike. Finding a line of work which you love and which absorbs you is not an impossible dream.

The Cure: Do some serious soul-searching about what you really want to do with your life. What gets you fired up and excited? In the short-term, look for ways to inject passion into your current work.

You Can’t See the End Point

Of course, however much you love your work, there’ll always be some tasks which you’re tempted to put off again and again. They might be tedious, or they might be high-energy ones. You’re not especially excited by them, but you know they need to get done.

The best way round this is to focus on the end point – to think about how you’ll feel once this particular task is off your plate. Relieved? Unburdened? Ready to move on?

If you feel like a task is pointless or meaningless, think about how it plays into the rest of your work. Sure, tidying your desk isn’t going to have a direct impact on your profit margins – but will it leave you feeling more relaxed about your work? That’s a great benefit, and a meaningful one.

The Cure: Don’t focus on the task itself, think about how you’ll feel after it’s done. Focus on that feeling while you make a start on work.

You’re Frightened

Procrastination can come from fear. This is often the case on big picture procrastination – when you never quite get round to looking for a new job, or handing in your notice, or moving house, or starting up your small business.

When you’re frightened, you’ll find all sorts of excuses to put something off. You might plan to spend a whole Saturday creating a website where you can sell hand-made knitwear … but somehow, you end up cleaning the kitchen instead…

You’re excited about your goals but you’re also scared. You’re hoping that the fear will eventually melt away, but it never does.

The Cure: Recognize that fear doesn’t usually vanish: you have to work through it. Break your goal into tiny steps and take just one small step, then another.

What’s the underlying cause of your procrastination – and what can you do to sort it out?

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Ever had a day (or, more likely, a week) when you felt a bit miserable, for no clear reason? Perhaps you were stressed and felt disorganised and over-busy. Maybe it seemed like everything was piling up on you.

When you feel like you have little energy and no motivation, it’s easy to start spiraling down into feeling worse and worse. You might want to make big changes in your life, like losing weight or changing careers, but you just can’t summon up the strength to get going. You feel unhappy but you’re not sure how to fix what’s wrong.

A great place to start, and to give yourself a quick boost, is to start clearing some clutter out of your life.

Why It Works

You’ve probably had the experience of moving to a new apartment, or going on holiday and staying in a hotel, where everything was clutter-free. Surfaces were clear, bookshelves weren’t overstuffed, and there were no boxes full of junk shoved just out of sight.

Even if, like me, you have a distinct aversion to cleaning, you’re probably much happier when you’re in a tidy, clean environment than in a cluttered, grubby one. Clutter tends to drag down our mood and take up valuable attention. For instance:

• You keep seeing a stack of papers that you mean to file – which makes you feel stressed about your lack of organisation.
• There’s a project-in-progress covering the kitchen table – which means you either have to eat off a tray, or shove everything into a big pile
• You often have to spend half an hour searching frantically for your keys (wallet/passport/etc)
• There are lots of broken items cluttering up your house, which you keep failing to do anything with
• You’re hanging on to items from short-lived hobbies or brief periods of enthusiasm, and you feel guilty that your’e not using them.
• You’re stressed out about work before you even put your computer on, because your desk is such a mess.
• You’ve often wasted money buying something new because you couldn’t find the one you already had.

Any of that sound familiar?

It’s clear, then, that getting rid of some of the clutter is going to reverse these problems. Decluttering doesn’t just restore your physical space, so that you have somewhere relaxing to work and to relax – it also lets you let go of some of the mental clutter which you’re carrying around.

Getting Started

When I’m faced with several cluttered rooms, I feel a lot of resistance about even beginning to clear up. I think how many hours it’ll take to get everything spotless; I worry about decisions that I’ll have to make (should I throw this away, or hang on to it?) and I tell myself that tidying up is a waste of time – surely I should be getting on with something more useful.

Unless you particularly love decluttering, I expect you go through something similar. Sure, you’d love to wake up and find that the house was spontaneously spotless – just like you’d love to wake up having lost 20lbs. But that doesn’t make it easy to put in the effort that’s needed.

Once you make a start, though, resistance rapidly starts diminishing. So what can you do?

Tidy A Single Closet or Tiny Room

If you’ve come across the concept of a “debt snowball” (paying off your smallest debts first, to get some quick wins), then you’ll understand why starting small works. Don’t start with the worst room in the house – pick a single closet, or one tiny room.

Just Do Fifteen Minutes

You don’t need a whole weekend or even a whole afternoon to make a start on decluttering. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to make real progress. If you can find just fifteen minutes a day to declutter, you will see fast results.

Grab Your MP3 player

Stick your favourite music on your MP3 player or CD player, or listen to an audio book while you’re decluttering. If you go for music, something energetic and fast-paced should help you move faster!

Clearing out clutter can really lift your mood, especially if you’re feeling busy and stressed. Don’t use your workload as an excuse – remind yourself that you’ll be happier and more effective if you’re living in a relaxed, uncluttered environment.

Many of us place a lot of importance on being productive. We want to achieve our goals, succeed in our ambitions, and accomplish something worthwhile. That’s all great … but sometimes it  can go too far.

Have you ever pushed yourself too much, only to end up producing poorer quality work … or worse, getting sick or ending up just plain miserable?

To be truly productive over the long-term, you need to take care of yourself. In his bestselling self-help book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey distinguishes between our actual “production” and our “production capability”, explaining that we need to pay attention to the latter in order to continue to have the former.

So how can you take care of your ability to keep on working towards your goals?

Take Regular Breaks

Working for too long without a break will sap your concentration levels and leave you feeling exhausted. When you’re truly focusing hard on a difficult task, you may find that you can only work effectively for 30 – 45 minutes before you need a break.

Learn to distinguish between the times when you’re unfocused and distracted – and the times when your mind and body are demanding a rest. If you’ve been working for a while and you find yourself struggling to maintain concentration, that’s often a signal that you need to stop and take a complete break.

As well as taking mini breaks throughout the day, make sure you’ve scheduled in time to rest each week. Many of us have jobs and other commitments which eat into our weekends – but try to have at least one weekend day when you simply relax and recharge. You’ll really see the difference in your commitment and focus levels on Monday…

Find Sources of Energy

What energizes you and gets you motivated? Much of my life involves writing, and sometimes this is hard and draining: I find that talking to writer friends and being part of an academic creative writing course helps me to keep up my energy.

We all draw inspiration from different places, but here are some things you might want to consider:

• Finding like-minded friends – people working towards a similar goal. That might mean joining a weight loss club, going to an evening class, or finding an internet forum to be a part of.
• Creative activity – perhaps drawing, painting, knitting, writing, cooking… anything which you enjoy doing purely for the fun of it!
• Relaxing times – a long bath, journaling, being outside in nature, sitting in silence for twenty minutes, meditating … whatever helps you to switch off.
• Reading inspirational material – you might have favorite blogs, or particular authors which you enjoy. Biographies of people you admire can often be inspiring.
• Favorite television shows or novels – TV gets a bad press from productivity writers, but watching something you truly love can be a great way to recharge your batteries. Reading a gripping novel can be even more engrossing.

Watch the Energy-Drains

As well as having people, activities and resources which help us to recharge our batteries, we also have factors in our life which drain our energy.

Sometimes, other people can really sap our strength. Perhaps it’s a colleague who you can never get along with, or a family member who’s always moaning or grouching about something. It could be a child who’s acting up, or a partner who never seems content.

You can’t always get rid of people (and in many cases you wouldn’t want to!) but you can be aware of who drains your enthusiasm. You may want to limit the time that you spend with them, or at least avoid prolonged contact with them during a pressured week.
If you’re an introvert like me, even being around a group of friends is draining after a while. Don’t feel bad about having some time alone – the extroverts of the world may not totally understand, but most people will respect your need for some quiet.

As well as people, certain activities may drain your energy. Perhaps you loath doing your taxes and find it a huge chore, or maybe you can’t face focusing on your small business when you’ve spent a morning doing housework. Look for ways to delegate any dreaded activities, or to cut down the time you spend on them.

Are you taking good care of yourself? How can you boost your energy this week?

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The Language of Success

With personal finance, as with so many areas of life, we have a tendency to swing between extremes. Often, an excess of spending – with accompanying credit card debt, clutter and stress – prompts us to take a good hard look at our finances. We make all sorts of good resolutions: a plan to reduce our debt, a savings account for our emergency fund, and so on … and somewhere along the way, we pick up the idea that we should only spend money on absolute essentials.

We might start off sensibly, cutting down on unnecessary spending to put some money aside for the future. But before long, we end up obsessing about every penny, denying ourselves even tiny treats like a weekly coffee or a magazine, because it’s a “waste of money”.

Are You Enslaved by Your Money?

Usually, being “enslaved” by our financial situation means we’re in debt, struggling to stay afloat. But I feel that there’s another sort of enslavement which we can fall into: forgetting that money is just a tool for us to use in whatever way we want.

Do your money anxieties look anything like this?

• You’ve already got three months’ living expenses in an emergency fund, but you’re obsessed with driving up that figure every month
• You feel guilty about any unplanned spending, even if it’s just a few dollars (e.g. you end up buying lunch because you forgot to take your sandwiches with you)
• You won’t spend any money to advance your career (e.g. on studying or business materials) because it’s “not strictly necessary”
• You often think about a smallish purchase which you’d really enjoy (perhaps a DVD box set, or movie tickets, or some equipment for your hobby) – but you keep telling yourself “I don’t really need it.”

Why Spending (Consciously) Could Help You Save

It isn’t healthy to deny yourself everything. Of course, if you’re undergoing a financial turn-around, that might mean some radical – even difficult and painful – changes to your spending habits. But, just like dieters tend to fail when they attempt to cut out all “naughty” foods, your motivation is likely to drain rapidly if you take all of the fun out of your money.

Adam Baker puts it well, explaining how – in the context of getting out of debt and building a secure financial situation – it’s still important to spend on what you really love:

Find your passions and feed them. Of course you need some limits, but the limits need to be higher than zero dollars. Starving yourself of healthy spending is a surefire way to blur your focus and kill your momentum.

(Adam Baker, Unautomate Your Finances (ebook), p24)

True Frugality

“Frugality” is a loaded word. You might feel a bit uncomfortable describing yourself as “frugal” – especially if it makes you think of a penny-pinching approach to life.

True frugality isn’t about being cheap or hording away your money while living on a pittance. It’s about making sure that you get the most bang for your buck. It’s about cutting back on expenditure which isn’t adding anything to your life – saving on the things which don’t matter, or which you don’t care about, so that you’ve got more money to enjoy!

Things that provide genuine personal value to you are not a waste [of] time or money. Playing board games forces me to think deeply and it also provides a powerful avenue for socializing – those things provide genuine personal value to me.

(Trent Hamm, What Exactly is “Wasted Time” (or “Wasted Money”)? on The Simple Dollar)

I love to read, but I very rarely buy new hardback books. I generally wait for the paperback release – and often pick that up second-hand. I also use my local library. The net result isn’t that I miss out on any enjoyment – it’s that I can afford more books overall, and that I have enough to spend in other areas of my life.

Enjoying Your Money – Guilt-Free

So how can you spend money without feeling guilty about it? How can you trust yourself to spend sensible amounts, and not get back into debt?

One easy way is to allocate a certain amount of cash for “fun” spending. You could set an entertainment budget for the month, or even for a whole year. You could get an envelope each week and put $20 into it. Whatever works for you!

I like to look for ways to get lots of enjoyment for a small sum of money. A coffee and a long chat with a friend costs much less than a meal out – but it can be just as enjoyable.

You’ll also want to think hard about what really matters to you, and what you care about spending your money on. Don’t let other people’s views and values sway you here. Perhaps home entertainment is really important to you, whereas you don’t really enjoy eating out at fancy restaurants. Ramit Sethi makes this point forcefully in his book I Will Teach You To Be Rich:

My friend “Lisa” spends about $5,000/year on shoes. … And on the surface, that number is indeed large. But if you’re reading this book, you can look a little deeper: This girl makes a very healthy six-figure salary, has a roommate, eats for free at work, and doesn’t spend much on fancy electronics, gym membership, or fine dining.

(Ramit Sethi, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, p98)

Now, I’m not a shoe person myself (I wear my shoes till they’re falling apart, then I buy another pair). So my first reaction was $5,000 on SHOES? But I take Ramit’s point: his friend is spending on what really matters to her, and saving money in lots of other areas.

What do you really love? Can you cut down on your other spending, and put more money into that?

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