Many of us know the answer to the question, “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer, “One bite at a time”! Unfortunately, for many of us, our to-do lists can outweigh an elephant, and yet we approach our to-do lists like eating an elephant: checking off one item after another. Unfortunately, at some point we get too full to finish eating the elephant, so we give up, and the same goes for our to-do lists. They just keep building and the task of completing all the items on our To Do List becomes overwhelming.

A few simple personal productivity tips can help you tame your to-do list and, in turn, help you live the life you’ve always dreamed of.

Personal Productivity Tip 1: Set goals. Don’t just get through your day; thrive by taking action every day that moves you toward your dreams. Too often we get so caught up in the process of being busy that we fail to plan our lives. We end up reacting to the incoming requests that come each day in the form of emails, phone calls, mail, outages, etc. and let them guide us through our days and therefore, our lives.

Personal Productivity Tip #2: Plan ahead. Spend 10-15 minutes each night reviewing your to-do, appointment, and project list, prioritizing and scheduling the most important items for action the next day. Take it a step further by assigning the completion of these priority items as an appointment on your calendar. This is an appointment you must keep with yourself. Be sure to factor in some downtime and procrastination time (you know you do). It is important that your schedule is realistic and achievable. It is also important to have time to recharge your batteries in order to operate at your optimum productivity. In fact, schedule your bedtime on your calendar. Don’t assume you can work 80 hours a week without burning out.

Personal Productivity Tip #3: Spend time on what matters most. Make sure the tasks he assigns you are aligned with your goals. If not, reassess their importance and the priority you give them.

Personal Productivity Tip #4: Determine if you live to work or if you work to live. If you work 60+ hours a week and you hate it, but you do it just to have a big house, big car, etc. but are too exhausted and stressed to enjoy it, is it really worth it? Try to live with less, not just less stuff, but less stress.

Personal Productivity Tip #5: Set limits. It is a well-known rule that things expand to fill available space and time. The bigger your space, the more stuff you’ll get to fill it up. The more storage you have, the more stuff you’ll store in all those bins and closets, and the more time you have to work on a project, the longer it will take to get it done. More is not always better, sometimes more is just more. Have you ever procrastinated when you knew you had to get a particular task done that day only to wait until the last 30 minutes of the day to finish it? What if you had started the day by using the first 30 minutes to focus on that project and then had the rest of the day to complete a few more tasks and then since all the work you assigned for the day was complete you could take the rest of the day off? Wouldn’t the effort be worth the reward?

Personal Productivity Tip #6: Scenario the night before. By packing your briefcase, the kids’ backpacks, packing lunches, laying out clothes, and gassing up the night before you set the stage for a stress-free morning. And starting the day off right can set a positive trend for the whole day. It’s easy to get a few minutes at night, but a few more minutes in the morning can mean the difference between being late for work and being on time. Even a few minutes late is LATE and doesn’t send a good message to your coworkers, bosses, or even the friends you hang out with on social outings. If you apologize by saying, “It’s just a few minutes,” realize that those few minutes can come at a great cost when you don’t seem to care about your work or other people’s time. The person on the other end may be thinking “why can’t you leave a few minutes early so you’re not always late?”

Personal Productivity Tip 7: Start the Family 15: Learn to delegate and get everyone in the home or office to collaborate and put things away. Set a timer and spend 15 minutes before bed to pick up everything that belongs in other rooms, from the living room, dining room, kitchen counters, etc. and return them to their proper place. Devoting a few minutes each day helps avoid large buildups that will require a full Saturday to clean up.

Personal Productivity Tip #8: Limit Internet and TV time. Does watching 4 hours of TV a night really contribute to your life? Don’t get me wrong, TV can provide entertainment and relaxation as it doesn’t require much thought, but don’t let it get in the way of achieving your goals. Browsing the internet or getting lost in a sea of ​​emails can also be a huge waste of time. If you’ve ever said “If only I had time!” You most likely will, but you need to spend it more wisely. Keep a journal for a week and track how you spend your time. This will help you identify your time wasters and help you make a conscious decision to change these limiting habits and instill new ones that will help you achieve everything you want in life.

Personal Productivity Tip 9: Learn to make decisions quickly. Think of batteries as delayed decisions. Whether it is piles of paper or piles of things, the pile was created by not deciding what to do with it and/or by not acting on the decision. Have you ever picked up your mail and looked at it on the way home, identifying many items as “junk mail” and yet adding it all to the already large pile on your desk or counter to deal with later? These delayed decisions and actions create more work for you later. The next time you receive your mail, sort it immediately. 3 types of items: Action Items, Reference Items, and Recyclable Items (aka Junk). Immediately put recycling in a recycle bin and don’t let marketers add tasks to your already overloaded to-do list. If you weren’t actively looking for the item that’s now on sale, be critical about whether you really need to make a special trip to get something that you’ll just need to find a place to store once you get it home. Most likely, you don’t really need it. Reference items should only be retained if you really feel the need to refer to them at a later time, and if so, archive them immediately. If you’re going to bother to save it, make sure you know where to find it when you need it. Action items should be prioritized and processed during your daily evening planning session. Consider creating a tracking system and adding items to your calendar/planner to complete it.

Personal Productivity Tip 10: Don’t be an information junkie. More information doesn’t necessarily change your life for the better. Do you ever keep magazines, newsletters, etc. and yet 6 months later you never read a single number? However, you keep them because you have the best of intentions to reach them, as you feel there will be some inspiring story or information you don’t want to miss. Do you read advice on issues that you are interested in improving in your life only to not take action on the advice given? Put down the old magazines and newspapers and start over.

Only through action do we change our lives. If you want to experience Personal Productivity, start by changing some of your limiting habits and create new ones that will guide you towards a more fulfilling life. Start small and build on your success. Our challenge to you is to choose one of the Personal Productivity Tips presented in this article and institute it as a new habit in your life today!