If it works for them why not allow yourself a few minutes a day to do the same thing.

In your calendar you should make an appointment with your self for 10-15 minutes where you take a walk or step away from your desk and take a break outside of your work area. This allows you to get your blood flowing again and gives your mind a break from the daily grind to refresh for a few minutes.

I have been doing this for a week now and I am finding that it really does help.

1.) Delete things from your to-do list.

If this seems scary start with picking one thing on the list to delete.

I didn’t say to check it off as completed. What I meant was delete them.

If you make long lists of things to do, you probably have things on that list that don’t really need to be done or you’re not the one that needs to do them. Get them off your list. Cross them off without doing them. Frankly, it’s freeing. I take gleeful pleasure in deleting things from my list.

Your to dos should be a short, focused listing of things that you actually need to do, when you need to do these things, and nothing else. We used to always get together on the first work day of the week and come up with a list of 10 things that we wanted to get done that week. We would take time and put them in the order that they needed to be accomplished. If we didn’t manage to get through the whole list we would put them on the list again next week, where they may move up on the list as more important or they would stay in a “someday” status.

Cluttering up your list with “nice to do” and “maybe someday” will make it more difficult for you to see what you need to do TODAY. Make sure that you prioritize your list of to-do’s.

Go ahead and keep a bucket list but that isn’t what your to-do list is about. Keep your to-do list clean, short, and filled with things that you personally need to do.

If you find yourself having a difficult time getting things done, even if you’ve captured all your to-dos, perhaps you need to clear out some other things, too.

Try this:
Sit down, take a deep breath, and write out everything on your mind. If it’s something to do, fine, you can transfer that to its proper place later. Now keep going. Write down everything you’ve been thinking about this day. Be honest. Don’t censor yourself. Write it ALL out, everything you’ve been thinking about at this moment, in this day.

Now step back and take a look at what you’ve written. Is this everything? If not, get it on the page.

Now read your list.

Take another deep breath.

Now that your mind has been emptied and you are feeling the release of all those pent up thoughts that have been rattling around in your brain, you should have a better capacity to GTD.
Now see if you can set your mind to doing something productive. It might not be something you set out to do. It might be something on this list. But it most likely will be something that you need to do.

I found an article on the top thirty things to avoid doing to yourself in 2012 I read through it and though there is a lot of good material that would help me realize some balance in my life.

Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.

I found this quote from an IBM Chair-person:

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that?s where you will find success.” – Thomas J. Watson

I think a good strategy is to follow the footsteps of great individuals such as Thomas Edison. Mr Edison had the philosophy that every failure was a good way to learn how to not do something.

A positive attitude and an attitude of being able to learn from your mistakes will go a great distance is helping you achieve great things. The key is being flexible, accepting the fact that you may fail, but embracing the gift of learning a lesson.

I was watching a video on TED today, Stacey Kramer: The best gift I ever survived She talked about how you can learn from everything that happens to you. You have to choose your perspective, you may not be responsible for what life throws at you however, you are responsible for how you react to your situation.

Remember a badly planned project takes 3 times longer than expected – a well-planned project only twice as long.

Watch out for scope creep, it can soon turn into a scope avalanche.

Remember projects become a year late one day at a time.

Worrying doesn’t get things done.

Remember the sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.

I hope that these have brought a smile to your face.

May you have a wonderful Christmas and a very special New Years. May this next year find you with a new sense of balance.

-ck-

Become a terrific communicator. Remember everything is open to interpretation, just because you understand what you have said doesn’t mean anyone else does!

Always make a record of everything in writing and make sure everyone involved has a copy. Remember if is not on paper it hasn’t been said!

Be prepared to change direction; don’t let your reluctance to admit something is not working to prolong a problem instead of solving it. Remember a change freeze is like the abominable snowman: it is a myth and will melt when the heat is on.

You need to be able to pre-empt possible obstacles and problems. Remember what you don’t know hurts you, and a little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.

Set realistic deadlines. Remember Simply by convincing someone to agree to an impossible deadline will not make it happen. Also there is such a thing as an unrealistic timescale. The person who claims it will take the most time and cost the most money is probably the only one with a clue how to get the job done.

Make sure that you understand how long and how difficult every project is. Be as realistic as you can. Remember that nothing is impossible to the person that doesn’t have to do it!