Keith Price  

Here's a very simple three-step process for beating procrastination and getting more stuff done day after day.

No more going to bed feeling guilty because you didn't get enough done. No more waking up dreading to face the pile of stuff you have to get done. No more staring at a huge to-do list not knowing where to begin.

You've heard the term "time management". But that is a misnomer. You can't manage time. Time is constant. Time is the same for everyone. You can only manage what you do within a certain period of time. It's semantics, I know, but the subtle difference can have a huge impact on the way you decide to get things done.

It's not the ONLY solution. But it's a simple one -- especially for people who have a hard time getting started or who get distracted before finishing a task. Please don't let the simplicity of the system keep you from trying it.

Here's the three-step system:

1) make a list of what you want to do.

2) estimate how long each task should take.

3) pick a task, start a timer, and focus on nothing else until the task is done or the timer goes off.

Now each of those steps probably deserve a separate article, and I think I'll do that. But I won't do it here, because I don't want to clutter up the simplicity of the system.

Try it. Try it more than once. Try it several times in a day. Try it three days in a row. If you are not used to this kind of thing, it will be hard at first. But if you stick with it, you will discover something inside you that helps you focus and be more efficient and get things done. And, you won't procrastinate as much.

If you don't like the idea of doing this, manually, I found an inexpensive software program to automate much of the process (YOU still have to do the task!).