How to invest time and energy on a better life right now.
It can take a lot of time before you can say that you live the life you’ve always dreamed of. Because, normally you’ll have to develop a skill that you can get paid for, you have to become an expert in your field.

The good news is that time is passing, so what do you prefer? Learning a new skill for 5 years or watching that 5 years pass? Whatever you do time will pass, so instead of watching that time we should use this time to develop something that will enable us to live a better life.

Of course, it demands a lot of energy to do this, but instead of watching your T.V. for 5 years, pick a book and read for an hour a day and voila. The average person listens to 5 hours of television per day, but by doing this, they are not perfecting a skill.

There is only one way to live the life you’ve always dreamed of, and it’s by working hard to get it. It won’t be easy. You will be discouraged, but if you keep the hard work one day, it will pay off big time. This is not an easy path to follow; if this were easy, everyone would live their dream life.
However, if you are ready to work hard to achieve something that everyone dreams of and that very few can say that they achieve you can. Living the life you’ve always dream of is not impossible.

Tonight instead of watching your television, grab a book, open your laptop to write, take a sheet of paper, join a course, etc. Take action now, because time will pass, and it will be does who invest their time on a skill that will live the life that you are dreaming right now!

More often than not, we will work on a project for several hours with little or no result. And if you look at your work you will see that the major result that you have, come from half of the time you’ve spent working on it.
This is call the

20/80 rule:

The rule says that 20% of your work will be done in 80% percents of the time it takes to your project and that 80% of your work will be done in 20% of that time! It’s obvious that this is one of the most important rules if you don’t want to waste your time on something that will result with no result.

I absolutely love that rule, because it saves me a lot of time, almost 80% of my time! So, imagine you are working on a report or a project at your job, and normally it takes you 10 hours to do that kind of work. Well, if you decide to use that technique, you will be able to do that work in about 2 hours! 2 hours instead of 10, this is a lot of extra time.

Imagine how your boss would be impressed if it takes you about 2 hours to do a project while it takes 10 hours for your colleagues and the best part is that everyone can do it, because we are doing it all the time. The only thing you have to do to make this work is to notice this rule, and you will be saving time like you’ve never saved before.

So, how it works

First, we all know that sometime we are very productive while other times we don’t feel like working at all, and we will look at the screen for hours surfing the internet. Instead of wasting your precious time like that while you clearly see that you don’t make any progress you should make the most of your productive time.

Next time you work on a project write where your time is going. By doing this you will probably see that the first hour you’ve worked a lot and after that really productive hour, you did almost nothing for an hour or two. Then after your break you did another 30 minutes of very productive work, and it was it.
If you write how much work, you do at a given time you will see some pretty interesting thing that you would have seen otherwise.

So, next time you are working on a project, and you know that you are not productive anymore instead of fighting that feeling go for a walk and come back 20 minutes later and continue to work. That way, you will save a ton of time.

How to keep all your attention on that next step
Well, there is a lot of method that you can use and one can be very helpful for me but not for you. However, here’s what I do.

Make a blueprint it will be your journey. So start with your goal, what you want to achieve in your life, what person you want to become, what is a better life for you, etc. When you know your ultimate goal determine what you can do to make this happen.

So, say you want to become healthier; what are the steps you can take to achieve that goal?

1. Stop smoking
2. Eat healthier
3. Physical exercise
4. Decrease my stress
5. Etc.

This is the step you decide to do so you can achieve that awesome goal. However, how to go from point A to E? If you had never been healthy, it will be a very though journey if you try to do everything at once. Instead start with the easiest habit to change and work your way up. As you can see the first one; stop smoking might not be the best step to start with. Instead, you could start with a better diet. Concentrate on that first step and don’t forget to don’t rush things, the easier it is the more chance you have to succeed.

You could start with eating breakfast every morning it will already be a good improvement if you were not eating when you were waking up. Then you could eat healthy one time a week and when you feel comfortable with that number try to move up. One day you will be eating super healthy every day, but don’t rush it.

When that step is complete move to the next one and then the next one, until you’ve done everything that was on your blueprint.

If you concentrate on the step, you need to do it will be a lot easier because all your energy will be on that step and not on different one. It’s better to be really good at one thing than to know a bit of a lot of thing.

However, if someone gives us a smile while we are walking on the street, this person will make our day. They will make us smile back, and we will feel happier.
The bad thing about this is that we can’t prevent others from doing this. So, what can we do to feel happier and to put a smile to another person? Be a good citizen and use good citizenship. Whenever you walk on the street smile at other people, when you are driving be courteous. You will feel like you are doing the right thing, and you will make their day. There is no magic in this, we can’t prevent other from doing it, but we can act differently and used citizenship. By doing this you will make our world a better place, and you will feel so much better. So, go outside now and go put a smile to someone!

1. Set up rewards: Let’s face it, who doesn’t like to receive a reward after putting effort on a work? Nobody. So, if you want to boost your motivation work with your mind not against it.
For example: You need to finish a 20 pages report in 4 days, but you really don’t feel like doing this. Every time, you sit at your computer to work on it you start procrastinating, and you make no progress at all. However, if you set a reward for every 5 pages that you write, you will be a lot more motivated to do it. And before you know it your report will be done.

2. Psyche yourself up: Another method that you can use is the visualization one. With that method, you need to visualize yourself doing the report. Tell yourself you can do it and then see yourself complete the report.
For example: You have to do the 20 pages report, but you don’t make progress at all and time is running out. You start to feel your stress level increasing, but the page is still blank. Instead of pushing yourself to do it, go outside or find a quiet room where you will be able to concentrate. Once you’ve found the perfect place, close your eyes and imagine yourself writing the report. Imagine that the words flow on the page, and that it’s super easy. Then imagine how great you will feel when you will bring the report to your boss. When you feel a huge boost of motivation toward this work opens your eyes and starts working on it. It’s sound, weird and inefficient if you’ve never try that, but visualization work like a charm. Even pro athlete use this almost every day.

3. Tell people you’re going to do it: This is another method that I use, and it works really well. It will be very efficient for the people who are very competitive and for the people who doesn’t like to be seen as a loser. For this method, you want to tell as many people as possible that you have a 20 pages report to do. Once you’ve tell people you will feel a pressure to do that work. You will have a boost of motivation because you don’t want other looks at you like a loser who can do what he said he was going to do.

4. Focus on the enjoyable aspect of it: This is an obvious advice that I give you. However, when we don’t feel doing something usually we don’t even find one thing that we enjoy in it. So, instead of looking at your report like it’s the worst thing in the world, try to find something that you love in it. It can be the topic of a chapter, the writing part, or the feeling of satisfaction after you’ve completed this report, etc.

5. Break it: Break you report into several small parts that way it won’t seem like the Himalayan Mountain, but more like a hill that you can climb up easily. You will run into a wall if you look at a project as one thing! However, if you break your project into several parts, it will become a lot easier to do, and you won’t feel overwhelmed.

For example: Break your report chapter by chapter. So, instead of a 20 pages report you will have 5 chapters of 5 pages to do. This makes more senses; now concentrate on the first chapter and the second one until you are done.

With those 5 tips to improve your motivation you should be able to boost your motivation, and complete every project that you have. I hope this post help you, if so don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS or by email.

5 reasons to read a book:

1. The information that you find on the internet usually fit in a page, while you can have 250 pages of information on that topic in a book.

2. It’s better than T.V. or even the internet.

3. It will fill your head with new idea

4. You acquire a great deal of knowledge.

5. Simply, the habit of reading: When you read a new book, you condition your mind to keep taking in new knowledge. Your thinking remains fresh and sharp. Your brain is always churning on new ideas, looking for new distinctions it can make. Every day you pour in more ideas, which your brain must find a way to integrate into your existing knowledge base. Frequent reading fires up your neural activity, even during the periods when you aren’t reading.

Some people recommend reading a new book every week, but for some people it can be too much. Reading a book every week means that you need to spend a lot of hours to do that and a few have that time, so instead try to read a book every month. This is more than possible, and at the same time you will be reading 12 books a year. If you feel comfortable with this try to read a book every two weeks, etc.

Personally, I’m reading a book every two weeks and sometimes if the book is very good I’ll re-read it. However, if I have the time to read two books, I’ll do it, but one of my goals is to read at least a book every two weeks. You may find difficult to do this. However, the hard part is to start this new habit; once you are used to it will be something that you will look for.

The reason for this is that you can take action on this area with away. You don’t have to wait. If you want to become fit, you can start right now by getting up and start running, or you can do some push-up. You don’t have an excuse, even the cliché I don’t have enough time to do this. If you look at the stats, averages American watch 5 hours of T.V. per day. So don’t say you don’t have the time to do 30 minutes a day and the good part of this is that it doesn’t have to be torture, a 30 minutes’ walk will do the trick.

But, I want to have a better life not to do 30 minutes of exercises every day!

You’ve probably heard the statement” a healthy mind in a healthy body.” If you take care of your body, you will a lot better in the inside too. If you find something better than, this to improve your life, I will love to hear it, because I absolutely think that the secret for a better life is hiding under a healthy body and a healthy mind.
A simple reason for this is that physical activity built self-esteem, confidence, it pushed our limit, etc. By doing this, we create an improve version of ourselves and at the same time a better life for us.

So before you start to try to improve your life and change your career, take 30 minutes a day to do some physical exercise. It will be the foundation on which you will build other life improvement habits.

As far as I’m concern people would say that I have a pretty busy schedule. However, I don’t think I do. I still have the time to do what I love, I still have the time to just sit outside, to read a good book, to be with my family, or my girlfriend. A lot of time, busy people don’t make much more work than less busy people. When we run all day long we may have the feeling that we are doing a lot of things, but if we were stopping and look at our life, we will see that 80% of the time is wasted on not important task.

I prefer to live a life where there is fewer stress and where I can do what I really care about. How many people can say that they have the time to sit outside for an hour a day only to relax? I bet few people can say this and the number one reason for this is that they are too busy. Too busy to go to the ball-game of their son, too busy to play with their kids, too busy to go out with their spouse, too busy to live! How can somebody forget that there is more in life than work and money. I feel sad for them because they don’t see the beauty of our world. They don’t take the time to stop for a minute and look around them, look how beautiful a sunset can be, how beautiful playing with their kids could be.

If I was this type of person I won’t be on my deck in my backyard looking at the nature, feeling the breeze on my skin. I’ve made a promise to myself to stop as much as I can to appreciate all the beauty of our world, and every little pleasure that we often forget.

We often forget that we are really lucky to have all we got. If you don’t believe me take your T.V. and put it in a place where you can’t watch it for a week with all your technology that you use daily. I’m sure that you will fully appreciate your T.V. again. We often take for granted what we have, and this is what I want to avoid.

Instead, I fully live every moment that I have, and every moment that I can do what I truly want I jump on the occasion. I’m not making the excuses of being too busy anymore. I’ve understood that if you want to live a better and more balance life, you need to do what you love.

At first it can be difficult to stop and just relax, because we are so used to it that we may feel guilty if we stop for 30 minutes a day to relax. However, do it, you won’t regret this. If you feel too guilty start one step at a time, for example, stop for 5 minutes a day, then 10, the more you will do this the more you will feel comfortable with this. And don’t tell me that you can’t stop for 5 minutes. Everybody can find 5 minutes for themselves.

How to break a big project into several steps:
I will explain to you how I will do this; remember that you can break your project in different ways. There are a lot of ways you can do it, the important is to find something that will motivate you and fit you.

• What is your deadline?
The first question you want to ask yourself is how long you have to finish the project? If it need to be finish in a month, you can’t break your project into a 1 to-do per day, because won’t have the time to finish it. So if it needs to be done in a short period of time, you will have to put more energy into it. That being said you see that you will have to sit down for 10 minutes for every project you have and determine how much work you need to do every day to be able to achieve the project before the deadline.

• Break your project in smaller part:
Now that you know what your deadline is, you will be able to do your to-do list. An easy way that I’ve found is to take everything you need to do and break your project in 5 to 10 parts, or in a number, you feel comfortable with. If you work on a really large project, you might decide to do 30 parts or even more. When you do this, your brain will be able to determine how much work you need to do in every part. It’s like breaking a book into several chapters. Take, for example, two books, one doesn’t have any chapter, and the other one have several chapters. What book would you like to read if you are not an avid reader? You will probably choose the one with the chapter because it’s easier to read. Well, this is exactly what we do here; you separate the project into chapter so it becomes easier to do.

Instead of one large project, you now have ten little projects to do. Ten projects can seem even more work, but it’s not because you will start with the first one and only work with this one, and once it’s done you will start on the next one, etc. So instead of being overwhelmed with a to-big-to-do-this project you now have ten little project that take a week or so to do.

• Make your to-do list:
This step is quite easy if you’ve done a good job in the last step. This method can take 30 minutes to do, but take the time to do it as specific as you can because it will save you a lot of time in the future.
Begins with the beginning it’s not the time to feel overwhelmed before you even start the project, so take your very first part and break it into several to-dos. Then determine how much time you need to finish this part and make your list of to-do for every day that you want to work on this. The more you are specific the easier it will be. When you’ve done the first step take the second one and do the same thing until you are done.

You now have a specific plan that will guide you in every step of your project. Your stress level will drastically decrease because when you’ve done you to-do of the day you are done. You won’t feel guilty when you don’t work on this for hours anymore because you will have a very specific plan, and you will know that you will meet the deadline if you follow the plan.

I’m excited to see your comments on this technique that you probably know about it, but few really take the time to do it.