Technique #1: How to Make Goal Setting and Time Management Work Together

Before getting to any tasks, you have to figure out what is it, that you really want to achieve. Set specific but realistic goals. For example, it is two weeks before your vacation and you suddenly decide that you want to lose 30 pounds and look good during your vacation. It is blurred and unrealistic goal, not to mention impossible!!! By setting similar goals you are only setting yourself up for a big failure and wasting you precious time.

Write down your goals on a piece of paper, starting with the most important one (then second important and so on). After that, make a creative to-do list for the next day. For example, if you need to do some long-term career planning or want to iron out the kinks in your relationships, you absolutely must schedule time for these things. Otherwise, you may not ever "get to them," and even if you do, you'll give them some of your "leftover time", when energy and focus are at their lowest.

Most people make a huge mistake by going for the quantity, not quality. They include a whole bunch of little, unimportant half-an-hour task and are trying to do them all. This is the biggest mistake you can ever make. It gives you an illusion that you have accomplished a lot, because by the end of the day you feel exhausted both mentally and physically, but in reality you are just breaking your concentration up from the goals you should be focusing on. So the truth is that instead of moving forward to your goal, you are getting distracted and moving away from it.

Technique #2: 2 Magic Questions You Have To Ask Yourself That Will Save You A Lot Of Time

Contrary to popular belief, effective time management is not based on doing more things in less time. That's just not going to happen. Time management is about doing the right things better. That’s why first and most important skill you need to learn is to correctly identify tasks that require your full and complete attention from little tasks that can wait. Before planning your daily routine and choosing what needs to be done on that particular day, ask yourself two questions:

Question #1: Is it what I need to be doing today?

Question #2: Do I want to do it today?

After that everything is simple. If your answer is "No" to both questions, you are just wasting your time. Stop doing it right now!!! People, who practised "want/need" questions, were amazed by how often they caught themselves doing things that they couldn't justify doing on any grounds. For example, if you spend 30 minutes mowing your lawn but can't stand doing it, STOP!!!

Find someone who will do it for you and concentrate instead on the more important tasks. Your time is money. It is even more precious, because if you don't have enough money, you can borrow some, but you can't say, "Hey, I'm forty years old and I would like to get some extra time, because I've just now realized, what I would like to do with my life". Once it's gone, it's gone.