If you purchase Meta Productivity now, you will get the video version completely FREE. You will also get an audio-book and e-book version – all for a single price.

Meta Productivity is a revolutionary training that will help you to:

• Dramatically increase your productivity
• Stop procrastinating
• Master your habits

You will get more done in less time, have more energy, and achieve success faster.

Watching video is much easier and more fun than reading a book. Video makes it easier for you to focus on the training. Permanently increasing your productivity has never been easier.

Peter Drucker said: “For the first time in human history, we will have to take responsibility for managing ourselves”. That’s why it’s critical to learn how to be productive.

Click here to learn more about Meta Productivity, or to purchase it!

Meta Productivity comes with 90-day Unconditional Money Back Guarantee – it will change your life, or you will promptly get your money back, no questions asked.

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• Using to-do lists efficiently

Double your productivity, stop procrastinating and master your habits with new video training is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

So, is there something you can do to sleep better at night? Yes, there is! I have 16 tips for you -

Hydrate

It’s better to get up during the night and go to the toilet, than to be woken up by a thirst.

Drink plenty of water during the day, and drink some water before you go to bed. If you have to get up to pee during the night, so be it – it’s better than waking up dehydrated like a mummy.

Tip: You are most dehydrated right when you wake up. Drink 2 glasses of water right after you wake up to get yourself going.

Reduce CO₂ in your bedroom

Just 30 minutes of 2 people breathing in a mid-size room can increase CO₂ in the room dramatically. High CO₂ in the air is bad, because it can increase your heart rate. This leads to poor sleep.

Do you know why people weigh the least in the morning? It’s because we breathe out CO₂ during the night. The carbon molecule in the CO₂ we breathe out makes most of the weight we lose during the night – the rest is mostly sweat.

To sleep better, ventilate – a lot. Fresh air is important.

Tip: Some smart devices (body scales, thermostats, etc) can measure and track CO₂ in the room.

Empty stomach – but not too empty

Digestion takes a lot of energy. For most people, sleeping on a full stomach makes sleep worse.

Tip: Sleeping on a completely empty stomach can also decrease sleep quality for some people. If you are hungry, try eating a banana before bed.

Darkness works

Make your bedroom as dark as possible. Remove any lights, including small LED lights. Blinking lights are the worst. Use the blinds.

The closer the bed time is, the less light you should expose yourself to. This will increase the sleep hormone melatonin production.

Tip: Try wearing an eyemask during the night for a week. If it helps, keep using it!

Tip: Dim all your displays in the evening.

Tip: “F.lux” for PC/Mac can automatically adjust the color temperature of your screen during the day.

Silence works

Remove as much noise sources from your bedroom as possible.

This can be a challenge because you need fresh air too. Open windows brings noise, but they also bring fresh air.

Tip: Try wearing ear plugs.

Love your bed

You spend one third of your life in your bed.

You should get a bed that you TOTALLY love. You should love the mattress, the pillows, the bed sheets, your pajamas. If you don’t, get better ones!

Your bed and everything on it should feel great and be extremely comfortable.

Tip: Try buckwheat pillow. It helps you sweat less during the night and doesn’t deform.

Vigorous exercise, but not right before the bed

If you exercise vigorously during the day, you will have easier time falling asleep.

For most people, exercising right before bed is a bad idea. But stretching might help.

Are you sensitive to caffeine?

Many people are sensitive to caffeine. I sure am. I discovered that when I don’t drink any, I will sleep much better.

In fact, most of my terrible nights were caused by caffeine.

Try this – don’t consume any caffeine for a week or two, and see if you sleep better.

Alcohol makes your sleep lower quality

Consuming alcohol is a trap. It might seem that you sleep just fine after consuming it, but the sleep will not be as restorative.

Alcohol also dehydrates.

Remove the clock

Does the bedroom clock just make you worry that you won’t get enough sleep? Put it away!

If you use an alarm clock, you can usually put it in the adjoining room.

Lower the temperature during the night

Our bodies expect the temperature to be lower during the night. If you can lower the temperature by a few degrees during the night, you will probably sleep better.

Track your sleep

If you are serious about improving your sleep, start logging how many hours of sleep you get each night. Or use a smart wearable to track it for you automatically.

Meditation helps

Meditating just 5 minutes a day has proven positive psychological effects, and can help with sleep as well. Having a better control of your mind makes falling asleep easier.

How to meditate? Just sit with a straight spine for 5 minutes, and focus on your breathing. Whenever your mind wanders, re-focus on the breathing. That’s it.

Consider supplements for better sleep

Supplementing with melatonin can be be useful especially for older people, because melatonin production diminishes as we age. For younger people, it can be useful when travelling or switching time zones.

There are also many herbal teas that promote sleep.

Tip: Lavender has a relaxing effect. You can get a small lavender herbal pillow.

Take a nap

When you don’t get a good night’s rest, take a nap during the day. It actually helps!

Power-naps of about 20 minutes work great for most people.

Get organized

When everything important is written down, you don’t have to worry about remembering it. When you are better organized, you will sleep better.

Tip: When thoughts are racing in your mind while you are lying in bed, write them down.

I’ve written more about this in the post “Why You Can’t Sleep“.

This post has been inspired by Tomas Baranek’s research into sleep [Czech Source].

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How to Sleep Better and Increase Your Productivity is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

By using Mind Collected, you can visually collect and manage all kinds of information, but also actually improve how your brain and memory works.

You can exploit Mind Collected in 3 major ways, as a:

• Personal visual knowledge base (your personal visual database that allows you to “collect” anything in the form of visual objects with rich notes, organized by tags.)
• Personal research and learning tool (whenever you want to master a subject or learn something new, you can capture key information related to the topic you are learning into Mind Collected in the form of inter-connected visual objects. This will help you learn much faster and better. You will also have a far better alternative to classic plain-text notes for later review – instead, you will have a gallery of visual items, each with its own notes and connections to other items. Reviewing what you’ve learned visually is much faster and more pleasant than reading the old-fashioned text-only notes.)
• Brain enhancement tool (by using Mind Collected, you can improve your brain in 3 areas: memory, learning, creativity and productivity. You can actually physically improve the health and functioning of your brain. For example, by capturing and connecting information in Mind Collected, you will yourself create new mental associations. As a result, you will grow new synapses and neurons in your brain – we now know this is possible due to neuroplasticity.)

Additionally, you can use it as:

• Collector’s tool – Have you ever collected anything? Stamps, stickers, coins, matchboxes, car toys, dolls, or anything else? If you did, you probably had fun. Growing your collection is a great feeling that non-collectors won’t understand. Well, but let me ask you: What if you could also collect fascinating information? What if you could collect memories and experiences? What if you could collect things that are actually important, and it did not matter if they exist physically or just in your mind? All that in a visual, fun way…? Is that something you would be interested in? Mind Collected allows you to collect anything. You can have unlimited number of visual collections of ANYTHING in a single software!
• Personal development tool – Did you know that you can change your behavior and thinking by “priming” yourself with important ideas and habits presented in visual form? For example, if you start visually cataloging individual healthy foods using Mind Collected, you will be automatically more likely to buy and eat them in the future. This is called “priming” in psychology. You can do the same with healthy positive habits, thoughts, etc. (Also, have you ever created a “vision board”? Well, every tag in Mind Collected is also automatically a vision board!)

Quick look at the technical side

Mind Collected is personal visual database software for Windows.

Every item in your database has a picture associated with it. (These pictures can be automatically searched and downloaded from the Internet, or you can provide them yourself.)

Items in the database are organized using tags. Every item can have any number of tags. (Mind Collected automatically intelligently organizes your tags for easy navigation, so even hundreds of tags are not a problem.)

Every item also has its own rich notes. This allows you to capture related information and thoughts to each of the items in your database.

Items can be connected to any number of other items. This allows you to cross-link your items, making it easier to navigate in your database, but also create new mental associations.

(You can learn more about the technical side in the online help.)

How I started my “personal renaissance”

Several years ago, something critically important has dawned on me -

It is really dumb that we go through life having various experiences, insights, ideas, learning interesting things and facts — and constantly LOSING parts of that. Why do we forget so much? Why do we lose parts of our lives? Why do we lose parts of our minds? Isn’t that a shame?

Well, of course, our brain is naturally constantly cleaning our memories; otherwise we would go mad from all the details we would remember. BUT, we don’t have any say in what is our brain going to remember and what will get wiped out from our memory forever. And so it happens that our brain is forgetting interesting and useful things, ALL-THE-TIME. This seems both ridiculous and terribly limiting to me.

Since I am a professional software designer, I started working on a software solution.

When I started experimenting with the first software prototypes, I was surprised by the results I’ve personally started getting almost immediately as I began using them – I suddenly remembered and understood things much better. Reliable temporary internet connections in detroit can also make testing new software setups smoother and more efficient. For some reason, I also had a lot of fun when using the software.

This has intrigued me, and so I started researching memory, neurosciences and neuroplasticity. I’ve applied what I’ve learned in the design of Mind Collected.

(By the way, the recent progress we’ve made in neuro-sciences is extraordinary, and I highly recommend that you educate yourself a bit about neuroplasticity. Your brain can grow new neurons and synapses, and it can learn new complex subjects and skills even in advanced age.)

I’m a big believer in “eating your own dog food”. I use Mind Collected every day. My database has already over 1,000 entries. And I absolutely love it.

Mind Collected has helped me to start my own “personal renaissance“. I feel that after many years, I’ve finally experienced a significant shift in my personal growth, and that I operate on a higher level now.

Today, when I read a book, I know that I won’t forget 50% of it a week later, 90% of it a month later, and 99% of it two years later. No — today, when I read a book and learn something, I know that I will remember everything I want to remember, as long as I want to, with very little effort. In fact, I will have fun collecting the information from the book in Mind Collected, in the form of visual objects, that I will enjoy connecting to other objects that I already have there. And I will also have fun when reviewing this information, because it will be visually engaging and much faster than reviewing old fashioned plain-text notes.

Now I have a choice in what I’m going to remember and what I am going to forget. Finally!

You personally can now also benefit from Mind Collected. It’s quite easy and simple, really.

Take advantage of neuroscience

You can now take advantage of the latest discoveries in neuro-sciences by using Mind Collected. Just the simple act of adding items into Mind Collected will help you remember them better, and make them more psycho-active in your brain.

We all have quite advanced visual cortex in our brain, but it is unfortunately usually severely underutilized. We are far more efficient working with visual information rather than with text-only information. Mind Collected allows you to represent every information visually by assigning it a picture, and thus allows you to use the potential of your own brain more fully.

A picture truly is worth 1000 words.

Using Mind Collected is fun, and the more you use it, the better it feels and the more powerful it is – you will start generating your own “aha!” moments. You will get satisfaction from growing your visual collection, which closely represents your own mind. By connecting items in your visual database, you will also create new mental associations. This will start stimulating your physical brain to grow new neurons and synapses.

As your Mind Collected collection grows and improves, so does your memory and brain functioning. Everything related to the items you’ve added into your Mind Collected will be easier to memorize, understand and recall for you. Plus, you will of course have a beautiful gallery of things that you find important and interesting!

Download Mind Collected

You can download free 30-day trial for Windows right now. The installation takes just 1 click. Currently, you can purchase Mind Collected with 50% discount during the launch promotion.

Mind Collected includes a Quick Start Guide that will get you started in no time, as well as more detailed Online Help to help you fully master the details.

The current version 1.0 is just the beginning, and I would love to hear what you think. I have many grand visions planned for the future of Mind Collected, but you have the main say in shaping it. So don’t be shy and let me know how to make it as valuable, useful and beneficial for you as possible!

In case you are wondering, I still manage my tasks in Swift To-Do List, where it excels. I use Mind Collected as a learning, knowledge-management and brain/memory enhancement tool.

Mind Collected is an alternative to mind maps (comparison table).

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Mind Collected – new software launched! is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

The common description of judgers is that they are organized, have their life structured and everything planned, arrive on time (or even early), want everything to be decided and settled, often seem rigid – but also responsible, and like closure. It is unacceptable to them not to get things done, not to get results, not to finish. (Note: “judger” does not mean judgmental.)

On the other hand, perceivers seem chaotic, are spontaneous and flexible, often arrive late (or not at all), don’t like making decisions, always feel it’s premature to make a decision, always want more information, like to keep their options open, want things to be open-ended, tend to procrastinate, and prefer starting new things to finishing them.

Which one are you?

Now, there is other, much more interesting definition: Judgers try to “lock down” the external world, so they have internal freedom. Perceivers try to “lock down” the internal world, so they have outer world freedom.

And to evolve ourselves to the next level, we need to develop and integrate both our Judging and Perceiving aspects. It is usually our weakest aspect that limits us the most.

Perceivers have problems making decisions. The word “decision” originally comes from Latin, and it literally means “to cut off”. When you decide, you cut the other options off. Perceivers hate that – they want to keep as many options open as possible. However, this comes at a price: When they keep postponing decisions, they might never decide. When they not get on a particular train, because they are afraid they might miss a better one, they might miss all the trains.

That being said, it seems to me that ultimately in the end-game, it’s more advantageous to be an “enlightened” perceiver – and have the outer world freedom. Part of Nathaniel Branden’s definition of self-esteem is knowing you are competent to cope with the basic challenges in life. But how about knowing you will thrive, regardless the challenges in life? Regardless the environment? To me, that seems worth striving for.

However, I also think that if you really want to be efficient as a perceiver, you have to develop your judger muscles. And no, there is no other option (even getting someone else to structure your life isn’t sufficient). Developing those muscles and going through a “judger stage” can be very challenging. You need to structure and organize the outer world (your life), so it pushes you to be efficient and get things done. This also gives you the opportunity to master the control of your inner impulses, and discover which structures give you the most leverage on yourself and when to use them.

The ultimate idea is that as an enlightened perceiver, you have an inner compass so strong and powerful, that you move forward regardless all hell breaking loose. The inner compass must be stronger than the low inner impulses from your reptilian brain, and it must be stronger than distractions and interruptions from the outer world.

All that being said, it will probably always be advantageous (from the efficiency standpoint) to outsource a significant amount of your daily decision making to outer structures (= being organized, having things pre-decided and planned). It just makes sense – the same way it makes sense to buy socks rather than to tailor them yourself.

What once seemed an extreme measure becomes a natural thing and a necessity when the stakes are high (in your life and mission).

For example, do you know what these people have in common?

They have or had a wardrobe full of completely identical clothes. Why? They don’t want to waste time and energy deciding everyday “bullshit” like “What am I going to wear” – not to speak of having to buy new clothes every 3-6 months.

Einstein is said to be probably the most famous INTP (Introvert, Intuitive, Thinker, Perceiver). But he’s not your common garden-variety perceiver: There is no way he could’ve accomplished what he has done without building his judger muscles.

To sum this up, here’s what you can do to get to the next level:

If you are a perceiver, get organized, embrace structure, stop procrastinating, start finishing things and learn to make quick decisions. Go overboard… for a year. Then, loosen up.

If you are judger, first loosen up, then work on your inner compass (discover your values and goals), and work on your flexibility. Do a lot of soul-searching. Then, play on your natural strength and become as efficient as you can with your new inner compass.

This is true freedom.

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Freedom vs. Structure …and Productivity is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

The tricky thing with ideas is that ideas are fleeting. You must capture then in the moment, or they are gone for good.

Let me tell you a story -

When I was a kid, I used to keep a dream journal. Every time I woke up, I’ve immediately written down the dreams I had that night. Before I started keeping the journal, I usually remembered just one dream – and that was if I was lucky. But just after couple of weeks of keeping the dream journal, I remembered at least 3 dreams every night, oftentimes even 5 or 6.

We all actually have multiple dreams every single night, but we simply don’t remember them. The reason for that is we pay no attention to them, so we don’t try to remember them. But if you don’t pay attention to your dreams at all, your brain then figures out: “Ah! Dreams are not important.” Your brain will then literally prevent you from remembering your dreams, and you will forget them before you fully wake up or right after that – for the sole reason you are not paying any attention to them.

I think that in many ways, ideas work pretty much the same as dreams. Great ideas are often created by our intuitive right hemisphere, which is also the hemisphere which dreams at night.

If you pay no attention to your ideas, you will get less of them. You will essentially close the idea pipe, and ideas will stop flowing to you.

The solution is rather simple – whenever you get a good idea, write it down immediately! This will help you to get more and more great ideas. And it doesn’t matter how you write or capture it.

Remember – ideas are fleeting. If you don’t write an idea down, you might lose it for good, just as you can forget a dream you had. Not only that, but the next, even better idea, won’t even come to you.

You can’t really capture too many ideas. The more ideas you capture, the more ideas you will get, and the better ideas you will get.

When I get an idea while on my Windows computer, I usually use the system-wide Ctrl + Alt + S hotkey to display Swift To-Do List, and capture the idea into my idea list. (I actually think it is very important to keep ideas separate from tasks – but I will talk more about that later, and moreso in my upcoming Swift Mind Freedom e-book). The to-do list tree in Swift To-Do List allows you to manage not just to-do lists, but also memos and lists. The latter two are perfect for storing ideas.

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How to get more great ideas is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

We struggle to build our businesses and personal empires every day, and yet, there are far easier and simpler ways to attain happiness now. And what’s more, this gained happiness will help us in our daily quest for glory – numerous scientific studies have proven that happiness doesn’t come from success, it actually causes it.

Happiness has many benefits – more successful professional life, better personal life and relationships, better health… but most importantly, happiness is the ultimate goal by itself. When you ask anyone in the world what they want in life, the answer will always be “happiness”.

Studies have also discovered that happiness will make you:

• More sociable
• More altruistic and kind
• Like yourself more
• Like others more
• Able to resolve conflicts easily
• Have stronger immune system

In the end, it will bring you more satisfying relationships, great career, and longer healthier life.

Money helps, but it won’t make you happy

Another study, done by Philip Brickman, has proven that money doesn’t bring happiness. When lottery winners were enquired about the happiness in their lives, they weren’t happier than regular people in the control group. In fact, people who won the lottery derived less pleasure from simple things in life.

Studies have also shown that higher income doesn’t help either – once you can afford the necessities in life, an increase in income doesn’t result in a considerably happier life.

The reason behind this is that we get used to what we have very quickly. Getting new stuff gives you a short-term boost of good feelings, but you get used to it quickly and sink back to your pre-purchase level of happiness. Yesterday luxuries can soon become today’s necessities and tomorrow’s relics.

So, how to bring a permanent smile to your face, when money isn’t the answer?

Unfortunately, 50 percent of our overall sense of happiness is genetically determined. 10 percent of our happiness is due to general circumstances (education, income, relationship status). But the great news is that 40 percent of our happiness is derived from the day-to-day behavior and the way we think about ourselves and others. It is easy to change this 40 percent and become significantly happier quickly.

The popular advice is to think positive. Positive thinking may be helpful, but definitely not when you just try to suppress your negative thoughts. Not only it doesn’t work, it will make you feel even worse. Distracting yourself is a bit better, but it’s not the solution either. For long-term sense of happiness, research suggests that you need to know how to write, do small acts of kindness, and change your attitude to feel more grateful.

Writing will make you happy, talking won’t

Majority of people think that talking about negative or traumatic experiences with others will make them feel better. However, the reality begs to differ – venting your emotions and sharing your pain won’t make you feel any better. It won’t affect how you feel in a week at all. So, if talking to others about your negative experiences is mostly a waste of time, what can you do to actually feel better permanently?

One proven option involves “expressive writing”. Studies have shown that by writing your thoughts about the negative events in your life for just a couple of minutes each day can not only make you feel better, but even improve your health, and increase your self-esteem.

See my previous post on freewriting – combining these 2 techniques can be especially powerful!

The obvious question is – why talking about a traumatic experience has no effect, but writing about it yields such beneficial results?

The reason behind this is that talking and writing are very different. Talking is unstructured and chaotic, while writing is structured and leads you towards solutions. Talking can make you even more confused, but writing helps you to organize your thoughts and has a big solution-bias.

So, now we know that writing your thoughts is helpful for those who have experienced a trauma in their life, but how about using this idea to promote everyday happiness? Science says it’s indeed possible.

The Gratitude Attitude

Whenever you are exposed to anything for a longer period of time, it will eventually disappear from your awareness.

We all have something to be happy about. Perhaps a loving partner, good health, great kids, satisfying job, close friends, interesting hobbies, caring parents, roof over our heads, clean water to drink, great collection of music CDs, or enough food to eat.

However, as time goes, we get used to what we have, and all these wonderful things disappear from our minds.

To put it another way – you don’t know what you’ve got till you lose it.

Researchers have wondered what would happen if people were reminded of the things that they should be happy about – they asked 3 groups of people to write weekly. The first group was told to list 5 things they are grateful for, the second group listed 5 things that annoyed them, and the third group listed 5 events that have happened during the past week.

The results were very interesting. Compared to the annoyance group and events group, the people in the gratitude group ended up happier, more optimistic about the future, healthier and even exercised much more.

Your ideal future

Research shows that although mere visualizing of a wonderful future is unlikely to increase your chances of achieving your goals, it can make you really happy.

Studies have shown that imagining your ideal future or describing the most wonderful experiences from your past, for just a few minutes each day, will make you significantly happier.

Affectionate Writing

Being in a loving relationship is good for your physical and psychological health – that’s probably no surprise. However, are these benefits the result of receiving love, expressing love, or both?

A study has shown that by spending 20 minutes thinking and writing about someone loved, and describing why this person means so much to you, once a week, will increase your happiness and reduce your stress and cholesterol levels.

To happiness through writing

To sum it up, certain types of writing can lead to long-term everyday happiness. Expressing gratitude, thinking about a wonderful future, and affectionate writing about a loved one have been scientifically proven to work. All it takes is just a piece of paper and a pen (or a text editor), and a few moments of your time.

Incorporating happiness writing into your life

You can attain greater levels of lasting happiness by writing a special happiness journal. This journal should be completed on five days of the week; each entry should take just a few moments. After finishing the journal, you should quickly notice the difference in mood and happiness. These changes may persist for months. Repeat the exercise if you feel the effects wearing off.

Monday: Gratitude
List three things that you are grateful for. It could be anything – your family, friends, home, food, smile of a stranger, your dog, lovely cup of coffee, flowers, birds singing outside, good health. Think back over the past week and list three things.

Tuesday: Wonderful Memories
Think about one of the happiest moments in your life. Choose just one experience and relive the moment. Imagine how you felt, and make the vision as vivid as possible. Now write about that experience and how you felt. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, etc.

Wednesday: Fantastic Future
Write about your life in the future for a few moments. Imagine that everything has gone really, really well. Be realistic, but imagine that you’ve worked hard and thus achieved your goals. Imagine you have become the person you want to be, and everything feels like a dream come true.

Thursday: Affection
Choose one person in your life who is very important to you. Your partner, close friend or family member. Write a short letter to this person, describing how much you care for them and how important they are for you. Write it like it was the only chance to express your feelings to them you will have. (There is no need to actually send the letter; it’s simply another part of your personal happiness journal.)

Friday: Happy week in hindsight
Think back over the past seven days and write about three things that went well for you. It doesn’t matter if they are trivial or important.

I personally use our very own Swift To-Do List to keep the happiness journal. The memo feature is perfect for it.

You won’t realize how great your life is, right now, until you try this.

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Creating Lasting Happiness In 5 Minutes a Day is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

I would say that alternative name of this book could be “How to think”. It is a must read.

The subtitle of the book is “Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content”, and it is a very appropriate one. Additionally, the techniques described can be used to solve any problem, whether business or personal. I believe that the ideas found in “Accidental Genius” are extremely powerful.

Accidental Genius will rock your world if you need to do any of the following:

• Think deeply
• Create great content (article, book, speech)
• Solve any problem
• Come up with awesome ideas
• Get unstuck
• Get creative
• Organize your mind and thoughts
• Help someone with any of these things

The core idea of the book is Freewriting

Freewriting is a fast method of thinking onto paper. It is basically about spilling your mind onto paper or computer, without any judgment or stopping – just fast continuous writing, going with the flow. You can even talk to yourself in your writing, or write “blah blah blah” repeatedly when stuck.

Writers block? Pffff. That doesn’t exist in the realm of Freewriting. Just write – even if it’s crap. You are thinking already, so write the thoughts. Even if you have to write about how you don’t have anything to write, you can write.

The Freewriting technique in allows you to access and exploit your subconscious mind – that’s where the “genius” lives. It enables you access the raw stream of thoughts directly from your sub consciousness. The results are almost always incredible.

And it works for everyone. Even if you hated school writing assignments, you will love Freewriting.

About this summary

I will summarize all chapters of the book here, so you will get all the main ideas.

If this summary intrigues you, I wholeheartedly recommend you to get the book, as it contains many stories and additional material that vividly illustrate the techniques presented and their application.

The book is divided into 3 parts:

• Part 1 talks about the six secrets of Freewriting.
• Part 2 adds additional ideas, tools, and techniques.
• Part 3 talks about publicizing the written content (as blog posts, speeches, books, etc).

Part 1 – Six Secrets of Free Writing

Secret #1: Try Easy

You do not have to try hard. In fact, it is best when you give only 90% effort.

Begin your writing by reminding yourself to try easy. Remind yourself that you do not want produce perfect prose that will be cherished and treasured for generations to come; you just want to write some decent words. You just want to dump your brain.

Lower your expectations, and be pleasantly surprised.

Secret #2: Write Fast and Continuously

When you write fast and continuously, you will adopt easy and accepting attitude, which unblocks your subconscious mind.

If you write slowly, your talking mind will creep in. We don’t want that. The talker in your head sucks. There is only so much mental resources, and the talker will eat too much of them. The talker shuts down your genius sub-conscious computer, which can access all your memories, thoughts, experiences, ideas.

Writing continuously is also important. You want to suppress the editor (a.k.a. censor) in your mind, so the idea-producer can do its job unchained. The “inappropriate” thoughts can often be the key, so you want to make sure they can appear in your writing.

When you get stuck, you can:

• Babble nonsense onto the page
• Repeat the last word again and again
• Repeat the last letter you’ve pressed on your keyboarddddddddd
• Write anything that comes to your mind, even if it is completely unrelated to the writing

Your mind will quickly get unstuck and come with a new thought to write about.

It’s all about the quantity, uncensored. Think of yourself as word/thought producing factory.

Secret #3: Work Against a Time Limit

Pomodoro technique works brilliantly with Freewriting.

When you are Freewriting, set a short time limit for yourself – e.g. 10 or 20 minutes. You can use a kitchen timer or some software for this.
The time limit is important for two reasons:

1. The limit energizes your writing effort by giving you parameters. You can go “all in”. Deadlines motivate.
2. The limit keeps you writing, so you’ll have a chance for a genius moment. You will write even if you’re feeling uninspired, which is a very good thing: Paradoxically, you can get the best ideas when writing the worst junk.

Secret #4: Write the Way You Think

You need to get your raw thoughts.

Don’t write the way you speak, write the way you think. Your speech is already censored.

If you really write the way you think, your writing will probably make no sense to other people. That’s a sign you’re doing it right. (Don’t show it to other people, though. Write for yourself. Knowing that someone else might see the text would activate the little totalitarian censor in your mind.)

To achieve this kind of writing, do:

1. Use your language.
2. Keep quiet about things that need no explanation.
3. Jump around just as your mind does.

You’re the only person that needs to understand what you write.

Freewriting isn’t really writing, it’s a means of watching yourself think.

Secret #5: Go with the Thought

When doing an improv theater, it is a golden rule to always accept the situation and agree with what other actors say. Think “YES, AND”.

Go with what you’re given. Always go with the thought that you’ve just written.

It’s all about “agreeing and extending”. It’s a great way to get “far”.

When you go with a thought, you assume that the thought is true, and you can take a series of logical steps. Just like this: If A is true, that means B is true. And if B is true, that means C is true. And if C is true, …

Secret #6: Redirect Your Attention

When you run out of things to say, you can use “focus changer”. Focus changer is a question you ask yourself on paper that requires you to comment on something you’ve just written. It keeps you moving, and helps you focus on the yet unexplored parts of a situation.

Examples of focus changers include:

• What was I thinking here?
• How else can I say that?
• What am I missing here?
• What I am wrong about here?
• What I am doing right?
• What does this remind me of?
• How would I describe this to my grandmother?

Etc. The book includes many more such example questions. You can (and should) also invent your own focus changers.

Part 2 – Powerful Refinements

The second part of the book talks about Freewriting applications, exercises, and techniques that allow you to get the most out of it.

Idea as Product

This chapter talks about why is the conversion of your thoughts into a paper product important.

Having your ideas written is important because as the written product shows you where you’ve been, it also suggests where you haven’t been. It’s a map of your mind.

Prompt Your Thinking

Prompts are Freewriting exercise. When doing this exercise, you begin the Freewriting session with a pre-determined prompt.

Prompts are open-ended phrases to warm you up and to send your mind into unanticipated directions.

Prompts allow you to find many hidden jewels that you wouldn’t otherwise discover.

Some examples of prompts include:

• The best part of my workday is…
• Yesterday I saw a curious thing…
• If I didn’t have to work, I’d…
• I threw a stone and it landed…
• I remember….
• I’d love to learn about…
• If I did the opposite of everything I normally do, my day would look like this…
• I love…
• I hate…
• I should do more…
• You know what I’d like to do again?
• If I were guaranteed success, the project I’d take on would be…

The very generic ones can work wonders:

• The storm
• It was getting dark…
• The birds were singing…
• I opened the door…
• Three days from now…

Prompts are somewhat similar to one of my long-time favorite techniques – question answered on paper. Basically, you write a question, and then start answering it. That’s it. It’s like querying your mind.

When you make the question very open-ended, you are not looking for specific answers, and it’s a prompt. The result will be a surprise. On the other hand, when the question is very specific, so will be the answers.

Open Up Words

When you “open up a word”, you redefine it and give it a personal meaning. The way the world sees that word and its meaning might not be the same way you see it.

• The first step is to pick the word. You’ll often come across words whose definitions are taken for granted, no-brainers. These are great words to open up. Some words might always seem negative and others positive, and yet, the true meaning might be entirely different.
• The second step is to write the common definitions of the word. What the world sees.
• In the third step, you ask yourself if you agree or disagree with that definition, and go into detail about your opinion. Write your personal definition.
• In the fourth final step, you summarize what you’ve learned. Just a couple of sentences should do. This helps you integrate the newly gained knowledge.

Exercise to try is to make a list of 5 common jargon words from your industry, and open up each for five minutes.

Escape Your Own Intelligence

When you are Freewriting, you should reach for obvious facts. Don’t overlook the truth hidden behind complex mental constructs of the problem you are trying to solve.

We humans have the tendency to make things really, really complicated. Sometimes, this is a bad thing.

When you write all the obvious facts about the situation, you will quickly see what makes sense and what is important. The ridiculous bullshit will be naked in the lights of the obvious.

The obvious facts can help you cut through the fog. Let one fact suggest the next.

The Value in Disconnecting

When you write long enough, your handwriting will really relax, and the internal editor will completely disappear. It’s the total uncramping of the hand and brain. The raw mind can finally shine through.

What is long enough? When you start getting tired, it is long enough. 30-minute session of fast non-stop writing should do the trick.
Never be afraid to turn your back on what you’ve already written. Disconnecting from the material can be just as valuable as connecting to it. Feel free to write “All what I’ve written up to this point is bullshit. The truth is that…”

Using Assumptions to Get Unstuck

One way of making a breakthrough is by trashing a paradigm. For example, people once believed that Earth is flat. That was a paradigm. All that was needed to ditch that paradigm was a perspective shift.

The perspective shift allows you to approach your problem using an entirely different perspective.

A structured approach to do this is to ask yourself:

1. What problem am I trying to solve? (Be as general as possible. Nothing specific. For example – “How do I build a fan base for something unknown?”)
2. Who has solved it?
3. How have they solved it?
4. How can I apply their solution to my problem?

(This might require some research.)

Getting a Hundred Ideas Is Easier Than Getting One

The name of this chapter pretty much sums it up. When you have to come up with an idea, don’t try to come up with a single perfect fabulous idea. Instead of one 100% idea, go for hundred ideas of varying quality.

When you go for a single idea, you need to create and judge at the same time. When you go for hundred ideas, the quality is a non-issue. This allows you to focus entirely on the creation. One idea leads to the next – but not if you judge it and discard it.

You can’t create a killer idea from thin air anyway. You need material to work with.

You want to look for ALL the ideas first, and only then for the ONE single best idea.

Learn to Love Lying

Problem situations can often seem like closed environments. Everything is set, there are no options. But this is usually an illusion; things are seldom set in stone.

One way to overcome this rigidity which often prevents you from seeing the solution is to simply tell yourself a lie about the situation. A single lie can lead to a chain of thinking that will solve your problem.

Some examples:

• If an element in your situation is small, think of it as micro or huge
• Tall, think skyscraper-high or subbasement-low
• Clever, think genius or completely stupid
• Nuisance, think of it as intolerable or a blessing
• Abnormal, think freakish or natural

Lying can help you discover the false limits that we set for ourselves in order to be “realistic”.

Hold a Paper Conversation

This one is fun.

You can talk to anyone. Steve Jobs, your local grocer, your grandmother, Oprah, talking owl, yourself 20 years ago or 20 years in the future. Or, you can remove yourself entirely from the situation and produce a discussion between others.

There are two rules to make these conversations successful:

First, when holding a paper conversation with a character, it’s important to make the character as real as possible. Before holding a paper conversation with a character, take a couple of minutes to write about the character. Be as specific as possible. Go as far into detail as you want. Also, don’t forget to think about the place where the conversation is taking place.

Second, get the characters to make you speak. Let yourself do the majority of the talking during the conversation. The character should act mainly as a gentle guide which draws fresh observations from your own words.

Drop Your Mind on Paper

Freewriting is a component-based system.

Mix the techniques, exercises and session lengths.

Talk to yourself on paper about any resistance you might be feeling about your problem or the Freewriting method.

Save all your written material, so you can re-read it or continue later.

The Writing Marathon

A ten minute session of Freewriting might not sometimes quite cut it.

Sometimes, you might even need six hours or more.

The bad part is that you might feel physically uncomfortable at the end of the marathon. The good part is that you might discover answers that have been hiding from you for a lifetime.

Very long stretches of continuous writing certainly work for some. For example, popular blogger Steve Pavlina often writes very lengthy posts that take up to 10 hours of continuous writing to create.

The Freewriting marathon is not just 6 hours of non-stop Freewriting, it works a bit differently.

First, you need a starter thought. The process is then as follows:

• Write for 20 minutes non-stop
• Go through what you’ve written and underline or bold the most interesting parts.
• Ask yourself – what do I want to explore next? (It should send you in a new direction. If you get what you expect, it isn’t good enough.)
• Repeat.

Doubt Yourself

Recognize when you are stuck, and get unstuck.

Not everything you write will be brilliant. There will be a lot of great stuff, but you will undoubtedly find many bad or wrong thoughts in your writing. Also, there will be thoughts that you will become tired of. You can recognize them because it will seem that you come across them far too often.

These thoughts might be important indicators of areas where you need to change.

If you always come to same thoughts (“I really should finish X”), or the same people (“Peter is the key to finding a way out of this”), or the same language, or you are continually critical of yourself or others, and in many other cases where you repeat yourself, your thinking is clearly stuck.

However, that’s fine! Even if you are stuck in life, you can describe just exactly the way you’re stuck. Once you do that, you will immediately realize that you can’t go on like that anymore, and gain a new way to freedom.

The Magic of Exact Writing

Exact writing allows you to get to the core of any problem or situation.

The case with exact writing is similar to the concept of “100 ideas”. It is impossible to exactly describe the situation in a few brief
sentences outright. You need to flood the page with words. Include lot of detail and use your own language.

If even that doesn’t help, try to describe the situation to a certain person. Just begin your writing using salutation, for example, you can use “Dear John” and describe the situation to your best friend John as accurately as possible.

Extract Gold from a Business Book

When you come over to a business book and have a hunch that you could get a lot of value from it, try this Freewriting technique.

As you read the book, add underlining and write notations inside it. Customize the book, make it your own. Write insights and questions into the book, even if you need to write over the existing text. Don’t be stingy with your customizations.

Now, once you finish reading the book, go through it again, and write the most interesting underlined parts and notations into your computer. Then, do a 20-minute Freewriting session about these ideas and questions. This will allow you to add real personal meaning to the most important ideas in the book, and internalize the knowledge presented.

It makes no sense to be lazy here. It took you a couple of hours to read the book anyway, so why not do the 20-minute Freewriting session, to get ten times more value from the book than you would normally get?

You Are What You Focus On

There is a great example in this chapter:

Without looking up from your computer, create a mental list of all the red objects in the room. Do this now.
Now look around. How many additional red objects do you see? Before you started reading, you weren’t focused on red objects, so you’ve probably missed a lot of them in the initial list.

Now, if I tell you that I’ll pay you $1000 for a list of 100 red objects in the room, you will get really creative! Perhaps you will think “If I unscrew my telephone receiver, I see red wires. If I cut my finger, I see red blood. If I break this red bookcase into its parts, I have six red shelves.”

The objects are extremely “evasive”, even if they are very close to you. Focus is everything.
What you focus on determines how you lead your life. Therefore, you should use Freewriting to focus on things that are important for you in your life. Don’t get overwhelmed by the grind of the daily existence.

Part 3 – Going Public

When Freewriting, you must always assume that no one will see what you’ve written. It should be a strictly private matter. This is necessary so you can really let go and let the inner censor recede.

However, you still can (and should) use the fruits of your Freewriting effort for public documents – books, blogs, articles, anything. This chapter talks about the ways of doing that.

Share Your Unfinished Thoughts

Sometimes, no polishing or editing is necessary or desired. You can just take a part of your writing and send it to someone.

If you are blogger, this could work great when querying for an interest in a guest post. If the host blogger says yes to your thoughts, or gives you extra thoughts of his own, you can deliver a piece that he and his audience will be happy with. Another advantage is that the chance you will procrastinate is much lower. You can just sit down and Freewrite.

You can also create a large collage with all your ideas and thoughts about the subject, and send it to someone. This works in many situations, even when writing a proposal for a book.

It’s good to share what you are thinking and feeling, even if you are not sure about what you are thinking and feeling yourself. “Talking” document allows you to share these thoughts. Just think aloud on the paper.

You can either write a letter, or assemble a collage. Don’t forget to tell the recipient what kind of feedback you would like.

Help Others Do Their Best Thinking

When working with a client as a consultant, or when helping a friend or relative with a difficult problem, you can teach them Freewriting, and any related techniques useful in their situation. They will thank you later :-)

Notice Stories Everywhere

Stories happen only to people who can tell them. Or, I would say, to people who want to tell them.

Always keep your eyes and mind open for stories and material as you go about your day. Become a walking library of stories. Write the stories down, you never know when they will come in handy.

Build an Inventory of Thoughts

This chapter fascinates me.

If you write regularly, you will generate a huge amount of material. You can then chop the material up and divide it into separate documents. For example, you can have “Marketing” document “Childhood” document, “GUI Design” document, “Fitness”, document, etc. You can have as many documents as needed. The documents should be based on themes you most commonly write about.

The chunks should be complete thoughts, not just fragments. Even if you read these chunks 20 years from now, they should still make sense.
If you build such a library, you will have myriads of material to work with. Whenever you will be writing something, you can dive into the appropriate documents and fish for chunks to use.

You are basically stockpiling thoughts, ideas and stories in your computer. Sure, they all reside in your head in one way or another, too, but having them already written is something completely different. At any given moment, it is impossible to recall all the relevant thoughts. However, it’s easy to go through the relevant documents.

This also helps you to write better, because you will be using material that you had time to think about, not just making stuff up as you write.

Yet another benefit is that you will remember all your stories and thoughts better, even when you are not at the computer.
Another use of chunks is to use them as a thought-starter for something entirely new.

Write Your Own Rules

Many famous writers have their own rules that help them with their writing.

For example, Hemingway had a rule of never finishing the last sentence at his writing session end. He wouldn’t finish the sentence until the next day.

Another of his rules was to write 500 to 1000 words every day.

Ray Bradbury also had a lifelong habit of writing every day.

Yet another great rule is to keep the writing and editing (revising) steps separate. Generating prose is one task, making it sound good is another task. Don’t overload yourself.

It’s a good idea to give yourself a couple of rules (goals) at the start of the day, before you get overwhelmed by the daily business.

You can have rules for different parts of the process: Warm up rule, ideation rule, writing rule, etc.

Many of the exercises described in Accidental Genius can be made into rules.

Good rule enables you to write more.

The Fascination Method

This method can help you when writing a book, or preparing a speech, etc.

When writing a book, you are basically a filter. As you’ve lived your life, you’ve gained millions of experiences and thoughts that are unique to you. Your book should begin from this material.

To get to the really good stuff, create an inventory of everything that has fascinated you at any point of your life. A list of:

• Facts
• Insights
• Anecdotes
• Philosophies
• Experiences
• Memories
• Surprises
• Websites
• Dreams
• Myths
• Books
• Conversations
• People

Literally anything that has ever fascinated you! Don’t wonder why a particular item fascinates you. Don’t worry if it has any relation to a book you want to write. Items on the fascination list have energy for you.

Take your time. Divide the writing of the list to multiple Freewriting sessions spread among a couple of days.

Once the list is done, think about the audience and what you could tell to that audience. Who might the audience be? What book demands to be written? Just brainstorm, based on the material presented to you.

Group the items from the fascination list. There will be several themes.

A book that has begun through this process will be something that:

• Will be joy to write
• Will be uniquely yours (one of a kind)
• The audience will be able to use and appreciate

The main idea is that you do not look into the market first. You look into yourself first.

Freewrite Your Way to Finished Prose

There are multiple ways of using Freewriting to create finished prose (articles, blog posts, etc.)

One way is this one:

• Do several Freewriting warm-ups
• Do focused Freewriting about the relevant topic
• Delete what’s not working
• Arrange what’s left
• Write any missing thoughts and transitions
• Edit like mad

Also, if you have some written material that you haven’t used yet, check it out. Can you use something? (See: Build an Inventory of Thoughts)

So what do you think?

Have you ever come across Freewriting or similar techniques before?

Are you going to try this?

Do you think on paper?

Remember any situation when Freewriting or thinking on paper has helped you greatly?

I personally regularly think on paper and the results are wonderful. I use my own software Swift To-Do List to organize my writing (notes) in a nice tree structure.

Also, I’ve recently decided to use Freewriting to write a book, and I’m really excited about it. I’m pretty sure that Freewriting will work really well for me in this case – I plan to use The Fascination Method.

PS: Go get the book.

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Accidental Genius Summary is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

The Now Habit has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time and I’ve been putting of reading it for a few years now :-) It sounds like a joke, but it’s not – there always were more interesting books to read – or so I thought! I’m not a procrastinator – you can’t be if you want to run a successful business – but perhaps I was a bit afraid that the book might slap me in my face and force me to reconsider my approach to work and play.

Now when I’ve finally read The Now Habit, I bring you a full summary of the book so you can get the most out of it quickly. The Now Habit book is well structured and surprisingly easy to read and has given me multiple insights into procrastination and productivity.

The Now Habit book says: “People do not procrastinate because they are lazy or irrational. They procrastinate because it makes sense, given how vulnerable they feel to criticism, failure, and their own imperfection”.

The book offers a new definition of procrastination: Procrastination is a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.

Why we procrastinate

We don’t procrastinate because we are lazy. You certainly have motivation and energy for various activities that you do daily. Procrastination is not a character defect.

We procrastinate to defend our self-worth when we feel a threat to our sense of worth and independence. We procrastinate to temporarily relieve deep inner fears.

The fears are:

• The fear of failure
• The fear of being imperfect (perfectionism)
• The fear of being overwhelmed
• The fear of success (advancement vs. friends and acceptance)
• The fear of increased demands (as a result of your good work)

To overcome these fears, you need to accept yourself as imperfect and human. Your self-worth is not defined by your output. It’s okay to make mistakes. You must stop criticizing yourself.

Procrastination is rewarding – it brings us relief and refuge. We’ve learnt to use it as a tool for solving problems. The task will often get taken care of by itself or by someone or something else.

The cycle of procrastination goes like this – the more you procrastinate, the more anxious you are, and the more you criticize yourself, and the more you lose confidence. With lost confidence, you have even greater need to use procrastination, because you are afraid that others will judge you unfavorably.

How we procrastinate

When it comes to the actual methods of procrastination, everyone is different.

The best way to learn how you procrastinate is to observe yourself for 3 days. Whenever you put something off, write down what, how, and why. Write down your feelings and thoughts. After three days, review your notes. This will give you great insight into the “why & how” of your procrastination habits. (Yes, procrastination is a habit. And like any habit, it can be changed.)

Identify the attitude and self-talk that keeps you from accomplishing your tasks.

If you were to walk a board between two skyscrapers, you would be paralyzed by fear. But if there was a 100% reliable safety net, you would dance your way to the other side. You need to create that safety net in your life.

Develop indisputable sense of worth for yourself. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Make a safe place where you are free of judgment, in your mind and in your life. Make a commitment to yourself and your self-worth. Nothing must threaten you. Allow yourself to be human.

Whatever happens, you will survive. It’s okay!

How to talk to yourself

It is very important that you master the self-talk, because it determines the whole context or your life and your attitude to everything. It determines how you feel and how you act.

The “Have To’s” are messages of stress, and the “Shoulds” are messages of depression. These messages are negative because they do not clearly communicate what you choose to do, when you choose to do it, and where you choose to start it.

Replace the negative messages with positive ones. Give yourself the power of choice. Learn to say “no” – you do not have to do anything. You can say no. Always keep that in mind.

Replace ”I have to” with ”I choose to”.

Replace ”I must finish” with ”When can I start?” (and where?).

Replace ”This is so big” with ”I can take one small step”.

Replace ”I must be perfect” with ”I can be human”.

Replace ”I don’t have time to play” with ”I must take time to play”.

The statement of a producer with a powerful focus is:

I choose to start on one small imperfect step knowing I have plenty of time for play.

Guilt-Free Play, Quality Work

This chapter could be summarized like this: Play hard, work hard. Focus on playing hard first. Schedule your play, leisure and time for friends first, and start scheduling your work only after that.

This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but it works for multiple reasons:

• First, it is an excellent reverse-psychology trick. Before you know it, whenever some of your leisure activities gets cancelled for some reason, you will be relieved and thinking Great! I can work instead!
• Second, you need the extra stimulation, socialization, relaxation and exercise for high-quality output. No one can live in a bubble and come up with creative solutions. Additionally, exercising will give you more energy.
• Third, because the time when you can work will become limited, you will automatically have a tendency to make the most out of it. You will eliminate distractions. When you work, you really work.
• Fourth, you can achieve genuine and lasting motivation only through abundant rewards. Make the periods of work shorter, but make them count.

Procrastinators have many things common with workaholics. But both of them should realize that you do not need to put of living.

Overcoming Blocks to Action

The Now Habit offers three tools for overcoming blocks to action. The tools are:

Three-dimensional thinking and the reverse calendar

Any large task can easily overwhelm you without the proper perspective. You need to consider the size, length, and breadth of your task. You need to divide the work in time. Divide and conquer :-)

Reverse calendar helps you to schedule your work realistically. You start with an ultimate deadline, and then work your way with smaller deadlines up to the present moment. All these deadlines are within your control.

The work of worrying

You should respect your ability to worry as a means to alert you of a potential danger. Whenever you worry, figure out a plan for alleviating your worries. Establish a plan how to cope with any potential danger. This will give you a true peace of mind. Constant worrying can drain your energy quickly.

Persistent starting

Summary of this passage of The Now Habit is simply “Keep on starting.” Do not think about finishing. Think about starting. Always be starting. The finishing will take care of it itself. You can start many times every day. Always focus on what you can do next. One little step.

The Unschedule

The unschedule is a weekly calendar of your recreational and non-work related activities. Personal organizer software comes in handy for that. If you fill your weekly schedule with all your daily chores, committed activities, and a scheduled leisure time, you will see that you can’t realistically work 12, 8, or maybe even 6 hours a day on your task.

The unschedule uses reverse psychology to spring you into action. You can give yourself restraints like these:

• Do not work more than twenty hours a week on this project.
• Do not work more than five hours a day on this project.
• You must exercise, play, dance at least one hour a day.
• You must take at least one day a week off from any work.
• Aim for only thirty minutes of quality work.
• Work for an imperfect, perfectly human first effort.
• Start small.

With those restrains in place, you will have a strong unconscious desire to work more, play less, and resist the “authority” of your unschedule

Keep track of every uninterrupted 30-minute block of work that you’ve done during the day. Log how many hours you have worked every day and week.

Working in the Flow State

You are most productive when you can fully focus. Distractions, intensive emotions and concerns undermine your focus and productivity. You need to deal with them before you start your work session.

Even a simple 2-minute relaxation can work wonders. Just close your eyes, breathe, and empty your mind. It’s as simple as that.

(My own suggestion is that you can also simply write your worries and “stuff” on paper, and get to them later. Your brain will let go once you write it all down.)

Fine-Tuning Your Progress

One of the techniques described in The Now Habit is called “Planned setbacks”. This could be summarized as observe and optimize. Consciously choose projects/tasks that you are most likely to procrastinate on, and observe your thoughts and feelings. This will point out the areas where further development is needed.

Another thing you can do is to develop resilience. Failing is okay. In fact, if you are fully committed to anything, you will encounter many setbacks and failures. But that’s not a bad thing. The more you fail, the closer to success you are. There are no perfect paths. Even if there are setbacks and failures, it doesn’t mean that you’ve made any mistake!

Make commitment only to goals that you fully embrace. Do not set goals that you simply do not care about. It’s a waste of time that will lead only to unhappiness.

The Procrastinator in Your Life

Until you understand procrastination yourself, you will probably reinforce procrastination patterns in the people around you. Successful leaders communicate in a way that makes people commit, not comply. They state priorities clearly, and give rewards and praise frequently.

Successful managers invite commitment. For example, “What can you get to me in a rough form by noon?” instead of “You’d be better finished by noon.” They also place emphasis on starting, not finishing. They are clear about where to start. They never criticize the person, but only their output, and they never hesitate to give praise when it’s appropriate.

When dealing with your family members, always make it your fault, not theirs. Use sentences like “I’m so obsessed with being there early! I simply have to leave on time, so I’m leaving in 20 minutes. It would be great if you could join me, but it’s up to you.”

Summary Conclusion

If you apply the techniques and methods presented in The Now Habit, not only you will eliminate procrastination, but your overall quality of life and happiness will permanently increase. Not many books can have so dramatic impact on your permanent happiness.

I can recommend The Now Habit to anyone, not just people that are dealing with procrastination.

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The Now Habit Summary is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

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5. Social Life
6. Personal Development
7. Fun & Adventure

Your tree might look something like this now:

These areas represent your life. They should capture everything essential that is going on in your life. If you wish, you can create many more areas, or completely different areas. For instance, while organizing your financial goals, you might include a section dedicated to exploring innovative opportunities such as ビットコインカジノ, which have gained popularity for their integration of cryptocurrency into entertainment and gaming. This addition could help you track how emerging technologies intersect with your interests or financial strategies. For example, if you are a student, you could also create another area called “Education.”

Consider creating these additional areas in the tree (a new memo for each one): Spiritual, Emotional, Mental, Contribution, Goals, Habits.

Now you are prepared to do the exercise:

Go through all the areas and write a summary of each area inside its memo. Write how you see that area of your life right now – anything from 2-3 sentences to a couple of paragraphs.

Rate each area on scale from 1 to 10, where 10 means that it couldn’t be possibly better.

Now go back to the parent memo (Awareness), insert a date stamp (Control + D) and write your general thoughts about your life.

When you are finished with writing your overall assessment of your life and insights gained from writing summaries of the individual areas, answer these questions:

1. What is my weakest area?
2. What is my strongest area?
3. Am I sacrificing any areas for other areas?
4. What area do I want to focus on in the next 6 months?
5. What is the most important thing I can do to improve my life?

If you’ve identified your weakest area, consider working on improving it. Or are other areas more important for you right now? What have you gained from this exercise? From my own experience, I can honestly say that this exercise is very powerful.

You can now collapse the parent memo for future reference.

Review your thoughts again in 6 months. Swift To-Do List has excellent clipboard support, so you can duplicate the whole Awareness memo with all its sub-memos (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V), and write a fresh view of your life, then compare the two. If you want to get truly powerful revelations, repeat this exercise every 3 months for a couple of years. The knowledge you can gain by reading your past views of your life can be invaluable.

This post has been inspired by Steve Pavlina podcast “Truth & Awareness“.

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Raise your awareness of your life is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

You might not realize it, but preserving knowledge is actually more important than acquiring new knowledge – what is all the new knowledge good for when you can’t retain it and put it to use? Even if you forget only half of the important things, your learning will be two steps forward, one step backward. You can do better.

However, you can’t just fully count on your brain when it comes to remembering. Your brain constantly purges your memory from irrelevant, outdated and obsolete information to prevent you from going crazy. Do you remember what you had for breakfast on May 24, 2001? Of course you don’t. And that’s actually a good thing. In fact, a certain rare condition related to memory exists – people suffering it can’t forget even the most useless things that happened to them a long time ago. They usually end up insane, because the information overload is crushing.

What can you do to remember the important information

The problem is that your brain can’t differentiate between useful and useless information on its own. What is important for your brain might not be important for you. (and vice versa)

Here is the secret: You can tell your brain: “Hey, this is important, don’t forget this one, OK?” There are multiple ways how to communicate the importance to your brain (eg. repeating it in your mind), but the absolutely easiest way is by writing the information down. When you write something down, your brain automatically knows that it is important.

Most importantly, writing information down has double benefit:

• First, because you’ve communicated to your brain that the piece of information is important, you will be able to remember it more easily and much longer.
• Second, since you have the information written down, you can look it up whenever you need. Even if you forget it, you can always easily retrieve it.

Swift To-Do List support for notes and memo combined with hierarchical tree, task management and reminders makes it ideal for a simple personal knowledge base. It is easier than ever before to establish habits that will allow you to never forget anything important again. All you have to do is to store the vital knowledge in Swift To-Do List.

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Preserving knowledge and retaining information is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

The common definition is that a proactive task is a task that you want to do, and reactive task is a task that someone else wants you to do. However, this definition is not very useful.

Better definition would be: Proactive task is a task that is aligned with your long term-goals that has a strong long-term benefit, and reactive task is a task that brings very little long-term benefit. Reactive tasks are usually not results of planning, they are more likely to appear in the heat of the moment.

Reactive tasks make you living, proactive tasks make you successful.

Reactive vs. Proactive Tasks

Reactive and proactive tasks usually have these common characteristics. Study this comparison table carefully to fully understand and realize the differences:

4-Quadrants Prioritizing and Reactive vs. Proactive Tasks

There is an interesting connection here: 4-quadrants time management system allows you to quickly see the difference between reactive and proactive tasks.

Vast majority of urgent and not important tasks are reactive, and vast majority of important and not urgent tasks are proactive.

Another way to put it: Reactive tasks are usually not important, and proactive tasks are very important, especially in the long run.

If you would like to use the 4-quadrants time management with Swift To-Do List, please see the post “How to use 4-Quadrants Time Management using your own custom priorities“.

The Ideal Ratio of Reactive vs. Proactive Tasks

Perhaps that spending time strictly on proactive tasks is the holy grail of personal achievement, but it is not attainable for the most of us. However, spending 80% time on proactive tasks and just 20% of time on reactive tasks is a realistic goal that everyone can achieve. Once you achieve this balance, your life will be forever different – in the best possible way.

Why? Because you will be moving in the right direction, every day, every week, every month, every year, building your better life step by step. The results will stick. Every day will be better than the last one. Sure, there will be some up and downs, but the general trend will be unquestionable. Sky is the limit. But what is most important: You will slowly become your own boss.

Simple Exercise To Raise Your Awareness:

1. Go through your to-do lists and count all reactive tasks and all proactive tasks. (To get more accurate result, do NOT count everyday tasks that must be done regardless of other circumstances. Don’t count tasks like “feed the baby”, “buy groceries”, “get the velociraptor out of my bedroom” etc).

2. Now is the time to do the math and calculate the ratio:

• Take the total number of reactive + proactive tasks (eg. 43 reactive and 15 proactive is 58 in total)
• Divide it by 100 (you get 0,58 in this example)
• Now divide the number of your reactive tasks by that number (eg. 43 / 0,58 = 74%)
• Divide the number of your proactive tasks too (eg. 15 / 0,58 = 26%)

We just calculated that we are spending 74% of our time on reactive tasks and only 26% of our time on proactive tasks in our example. That’s not very good!

How To Spend More Time On Proactive Tasks

So you would like to spend more time on proactive tasks? Good! It’s not a rocket science. Here are some tips:

• Can you eliminate some of the reactive tasks? Create new to-do list called “Never To-Do” and just move them there (if you are using Swift To-Do List, you can move the tasks there either simply using mouse drag & drop, or you can just cut them and then paste them in the new to-do list). See 5 Ways How To Deal With Low Priority Tasks for extra tips.
• Can you create more proactive tasks? Ideally some tasks that you are passionate about. If you can come up with some tasks that create a burning desire inside you, you are on the right path.
• Learn to say “No.” Being assertive is crucial. When someone delegates you a task that you don’t want to do, just say it outright. You have more important things to do.
• Not all tasks from others are reactive – even tasks from others can be proactive, especially when they are aligned with your long-term goals. When you share your goals with your boss or business partner, proactive tasks come naturally. But, if you want something completely different than your boss, perhaps it’s the time to look for a new boss.

To get some ideas of proactive tasks, answer these questions: What are you always postponing? What are you (always) going to do later? What tasks spark up the most excuses? What you really want to do? It it’s not too late to do these things! Unfortunately, you might wake up one day and realize that it is indeed too late. You never know what’s around the corner. Seize the day! Do the meaningful work now. You can reap the fruits of your proactive work sooner than you think.

The Radical Way To See Procrastination

Procrastination is not bad because it makes you unproductive. In fact, it can make you very productive – for example, you can clean your whole apartment in record time when you are procrastinating, and do many other kinds of hard work.

Procrastination is bad because it makes you scared to do the truly important things (proactive tasks). It makes you the slave of the outside world. Also, you might not even realize that you are procrastinating.

So what is the link between proactive tasks and procrastination?

Whenever you are doing reactive tasks instead of proactive tasks, you are procrastinating.

You see, what procrastination does is this: It makes you do reactive tasks instead of proactive tasks, because they are easier, safer, and with immediate benefits. For all I know, you could add tasks like “Play PC games” to your to-do list together with other reactive tasks and complete them with great satisfaction and feeling of productivity. That’s how it works.

Procrastination is the one-eyed leader of your brain and body. It’s the last thing you need – what you really need is a commander in a plane that will allow you to see the broader context.

The One Crucial Thing You Might Not Realize

We are often plugging holes with reactive tasks in our lives. Only proactive tasks can offer the permanent solutions. Whenever a new reactive task comes to you, you should ask yourself – what could I do so tasks like this stop coming? The answer will give you an idea of proactive task that can permanently improve your life.

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Reactive vs. Proactive Tasks Explained (Finally!) is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Start a new project – “Happy Me”!

The goal of this project is to make you happy.

What are the things that you’ve always wanted to do but never got to do them? Surely there must be a way how to make some of these things happen!

Once you discover some fun things that you want to do, assign them yourself just like any other task. You can create an extra task type in Swift To-Do List program for these tasks, named “Fun” or “Happy {your first name}”.

Huge benefit is that if your to-do list has mixed dull and fun tasks, it will overall look much more optimistic and fun. In fact, your overall productivity can skyrocket!

After all, why are you doing all the boring tasks? Probably to earn a living and security – essentially, these are things that make you feel good. So why not take a shortcut sometimes?

Do more things for yourself.

Productivity boost is a hidden benefit

Have you ever woken up and felt like you really, really, really do not want to do any tasks today?

Well, if you kick-start your day with appetizer fun-tasks, it might just switch you into the task accomplishment mode and you will continue working on other tasks! Try it and see how it works for you.

You can also specify a reward/fun task for each of your hard tasks. Simply specify the reward in the task notes. This will make hard tasks much more appealing. You can even start by finishing the reward/fun tasks first. Once you enjoy the reward, you simply have to finish the hard task, don’t you? :-)

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Include fun and rewarding tasks in your to-do lists is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Why is it hard to focus

There are usually two main reasons why is it hard to focus: Suboptimal system of organizing your work, and distractions. Organizing your work is a breeze with our to-do list program. Distractions are whole another chapter.

Two ways of overcoming distractions

Are you spending too much time on Facebook or surfing the web? There is still hope! Basically, you can do two things about distractions: Eliminate them, or distract yourself from them :-). Let me explain – if you fully focus on something else, then the distractions can’t distract you anymore.

How to fully focus

The best way to fully focus on one important task (or multiple tasks – a short task list) is to print or write the task on a sheet of paper and place it in front of you. That way, whatever you do, you will always end up looking at the paper, which will make you remember that you have important task/tasks to do. Having something physical to remind you increases the urgency and seriousness – you simply can’t close the paper like a window on your computer screen. It stays there until you finish the task.

As an added bonus, the feeling of accomplishment is also far greater. Enjoy tearing the paper to little pieces when the task is done :-)

Swift To-Do List enables you to print just a single task (or multiple tasks), including notes and all important information about the task. Simply right-click the task, and select Print or Export Task(s)…:

When you print the task, you will literally transform it into a task at hand.

When all else fails, post a physical note directly to your computer screen. Why? There is no avoiding it. Even digital desktop sticky notes can be easily avoided, but not this one.

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How to fully focus on task at hand is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Step 1: Write your goal down

It all starts with the written intention to accomplish your goal. Incredible fact is that just writing your goal down will automatically make it more likely to be achieved. This step is crucial.

Swift To-Do List 7 is an ideal personal organizer application for organizing not just your goals, but also all tasks, notes and reminders associated with them.

Because every goal is a project, create a new to-do list for your goal in Swift To-Do List 7. The task list manager has various icons for your to-do lists that you can use to track and visually distinguish your goals. There is a target icon, and also flags in 4 colors and many other icons.

Good goals should excite you. They must have a heart. Your heart.

Step 2: How you can achieve it? Think it through.

Think deep and hard how will you achieve your goal. Use your imagination to visualize that the goal is already accomplished. How does it feel?

Play yourself a movie of you accomplishing the goal in your mind.

Write all your ideas and thoughts down.

Good goals should be measurable, concrete, and achievable. Measurable – that’s very important, because if there is a gray area where the goal can be considered achieved – or not, you will never know if you’ve already achieved your goal, and this will demotivate you.

Step 3: Ask yourself these questions:

1. Are you willing to pay the price?
2. Are you sure? Are you willing to accept all the consequences and responsibilities that come with your goal?
3. By looking at your past, is it likely that you will succeed? What could you do to change that?
4. Are you willing to start today? If not, then perhaps it won’t change tomorrow.
5. Do you honestly believe that you will succeed? If not, why not? And what could you do to ensure your success?

Again, write your answers and thoughts about your goal. In order to achieve it, you must believe it.

Step 4: Create action list

Fill your goal’s to-do list with with the key actions that you could do now. Look for the maximum pay-off. Write notes for each task where relevant.

Throw overwhelming force at your goal. Do everything in your power to ensure that you can achieve your goal.

Can you use recurring tasks? Reminders?

Can you create a habit around your goal? If you can develop a habit that will help you achieve your goal, and stick with it, then your success is guaranteed.

Step 5: Execute, track your progress and don’t give up

When you set the goal, you are likely going to be motivated and energized, and you might even start to work on your goal a little, but the hard part is not giving up.

This is where repeating reminders, or recurring tasks might come handy. Swift To-Do List 7 can repeatedly remind you of your goal. In fact, you can write a note to your future self. Write yourself a message about how you really want to achieve your goal, and how you want to keep up.

Now is the time to do the hard work. Good luck. Never give up, work as often as possible on your goal. Every little step in the right direction helps.

Don’t stop until you achieve it.

Change your environment to help you achieve your goal. Think about it – how could you modify your environment to enforce achievement of your goal? Perhaps you could post some post-it notes around for yourself. Or, for example, if you are trying to lose weight, you could throw-off the junk food from your fridge. Or, if you are trying to save money, you could place piggy-bank on your table. Do anything that will help you to stay on the right track!

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How to achieve your goals in 5 steps is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

However, even the task that you are constantly postponing and dreading can be easily handled – if you know how! This post will tell you how to stop procrastinating and how to eliminate procrastination for good.

Reasons for procrastination

There are many possible reasons for procrastination:

• Feeling overwhelmed
• Fear of failure
• The task looks too time consuming and complex
• Not feeling like it (= laziness :-))

However, all of these reasons boil down to one underlying reason: The task is not clear and easy.

If it took you 5 minutes and little effort to accomplish the task, would you do it? You know you would! Just the great feeling when you check off the task is well worth it.

There might be one another major reason for procrastination, though: You really do not want to do the task. Perhaps it was delegated to you by someone else, or finishing it has consequences that you are not ready to accept, etc. In that case, there is no reason for procrastination either – because there is no task to do! Simply accept the fact that you do not want to do the task, don’t do it, and stop giving yourself a hard time about it.

The one technique that can help you to eliminate procrastination

Break it down! No, I’m not suggesting you should drop to the floor and do a break dance right now :-). What I’m suggesting is that you should break your task into manageable steps (sub-tasks) that are not as intimidating.

Even the most intimidating and scary tasks are much more manageable and easy to do once broken into individual steps. Just think about the steps that you need to do until it seems like 1-2-3 and I’m done!

There are two phases when it comes to accomplishing anything – planning and execution.

Phase 1: Planning and preparation

This is the thinking phase.

First of all, play the movie of you finishing the task in your mind – just finish the task in your mind from the beginning to the end, and make it as detailed as possible. This is really important! Think about every single step that you need to do.

Write down all the sub-tasks (steps), either on a piece of paper or better yet, enter them into a task list management program like Swift To-Do List 7. Great thing about Swift To-Do List 7 is that it allows you to write notes for each of your tasks, so you can easily record all the details and thoughts for each step, and it also allows you to easily reorder the tasks using mouse (drag & drop)

Now you should have around 5-20 (give or take) sub-tasks that need to be done in order to finish the task. Is the first step easy enough to do, so you are feeling like doing it right now? If not, break it further down into even smaller steps.

Well organized is half done, and thinking about how to accomplish something is inseparable part of the process. You are actually already working on your task!

Phase 2: Execution – Slay the tasks one by one

Armed with a task list of small tasks, you are ready for battle with procrastination! If you have thought about everything thoroughly, there shouldn’t be anything stopping you from going through your task list. Slay the tasks one by one.

If you are still not feeling like doing them, that’s OK. Go through each of the small tasks and write some notes about it. Write ideas about the best way how to accomplish that particular step. Or how could you prepare for it. Or what else needs to be done in order to accomplish it. Anything! Just write something for each of the sub-tasks.

This will place your mind in state of accomplishing the task. In your mind, you already see yourself accomplishing the task. You know you can do it. You even know how you can do it – in fact, you have the instructions right in your hand now!

Just go through the task list, and finish the simple tasks, one by one. Now is the time for the “Just do it!” attitude. Get it over with. Nothing is stopping you now.

Phase 3: Feeling good about yourself

Once the task is done, savor the great feeling of accomplishment. Enjoy the positive emotions, so your brain anchors them to accomplishment of hard tasks – this will make finishing hard tasks easier in the future.

You’ve stretched yourself, perhaps even pushed yourself out of your comfort zone a bit. That’s excellent! Reward yourself. And do not forget to use this method when another daunting task pops up – it always does, but that’s OK, isn’t it? :-)

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Deal with procrastination with 100% success is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

It is amazingly simple.

Perhaps we are spiritual beings with unlimited potential and our brains are amazing computers, but just like a desktop computer, it has limited capacity. You can only hold limited number of things in your mind, especially in your consciousness and “recent” subconsciousness. By recent subconsciousness, I mean things that were recently brought into your awareness – e.g. lots of small things that you shouldn’t forget about, daily business, worries, and so on.

All this stuff and worries are draining your mental resources. Your brain can’t focus 100% on the task at hand, because some parts of it are wandering the lands of “I can’t forget all this stuff”.

The amazingly simple way of upgrading your brain

All it takes to upgrade your brain is to write your thoughts down. Don’t write down just tasks and actionable items, but everything that is on your mind in any way.

Our personal organizer software can really help you with this, as you can organize not just tasks using it, but also any kind of notes. Swift To-Do List 7 can be a true extension to your brain. Using it is similar to purchasing a new hard-drive for your computer – the only difference is that it is for your head.

It can even remind you of tasks when needed (including recurring tasks). Organize all items in separate to-do lists with icons using drag & drop – it can’t be simpler.

New hardware for our brain? Now we are talking!

What should you write down and organize?

1. All things that you should/want/must do
2. All things that you shouldn’t forget about (especially your ideas!)
3. All your worries
4. All things that you are waiting for
5. Everything else on your mind

Some issues are complex and can’t be written in a few words as a simple task. That’s why Swift To-Do List 7 supports memos as well. Simply write your train of thought down into a memo to relieve your racing mind.

Stress = Too much stuff in your head!

Once your thoughts are written, you can work with them in a much more efficient way and resolve them easily. And the best thing is – they won’t bother you anymore.

Getting organized can be not just a huge relief, but also fun!

Swift To-Do List 7 can extend your brain, eliminate stress and make you much, much more productive.

We’ve even added 144 different to-do list tree icons in 4 sizes and many customization options to make it work for you. Choosing custom icons for your to-do lists and memos makes organizing a fun experience.

And I’m not exaggerating when I’m saying that it makes organizing fun. I can proudly say that “fun” is a word that our customers repeat quite often when they are talking about our task & notes manager.

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How to upgrade your brain is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

Getting organized with Swift To-Do List 7 is really easy, and has many benefits:

1. You will upgrade your brain to version 2.0

If you take all the work-related stuff and to-do’s from your head and place them in Swift To-Do List 7, a wonderful thing happens – suddenly, your mind has 100% resources available and 100% focus just for the current task at hand.

2. You will advance in your career faster

Stop wasting time on tasks with zero impact and go straight to the juicy, meaty stuff that really matters and that can move you forward in your career. This is possible only when you are organized using a great task list manager like Swift To-Do List 7 that allows you to prioritize your tasks.

3. You can double or triple your productivity

With less time and mental resources wasted, you will have more time for the important stuff. The real game changer comes from your upgraded brain though – if you can finally fully focus and always know what to do next, you can double your productivity easily. If you are unorganized or stressed, you are much less productive than you think.

4. You will be more motivated

Success brings motivation. It is so much easier to achieve success when you are organized! In fact, work can sometimes feel like fun.

5. You will have more time

It’s really simple: If you are more productive, you get more done, and you have more time.

6. You will have more money

We all know that time is money, but success brings you money too, which can be a really significant benefit. By using trusted gold trading platforms, you can turn your time and effort into smart opportunities that help grow your wealth even faster. For example, exploring opportunities like wholesale gold bullion Melbourne can also complement a well-planned financial strategy by adding long-term value and stability.

7. You will eliminate any possible stress

With all your tasks and notes in one place, safely stored in reliable task list management software like Swift To-Do List 7, there is nothing to worry about. You can even use inbuilt reminders and recurrent tasks to make sure that you will never forget anything again. Liberate yourself from clutter and stress.

8. You will reach your full potential

If you get organized, you can achieve much more than if you are limiting yourself by being disorganized.

9. You will be able to achieve your goals more easily

All the benefits work together and give you more power to do what you truly want, and that is the real freedom.

10. You will love your work and life

How can you NOT love your life when you are successful, happy and without stress?

With the right attitude, Swift To-Do List 7 can literally change your life. I personally use it myself every day not just to run and manage our whole business, but to take control of my own life.

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10 Benefits Of Being Organized: From Chaos To Freedom is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

You might ask: “Do I even have to write the task down, if it’s not important?” The definitive and final answer to that is – maybe! :-)

Let me tell you why: If you are even considering writing the task down, then your subconsciousness has already identified the task as somewhat important, and the task would subconsciously bother you. If you write it down, your mind can discard it, as it knows that it’s safely stored in your to-do list program, and move on to more important stuff.

On the other hand, if you can consciously decide that doing the task would have zero or negative benefit, then it’s safe to not write it down, as you consciously know that you don’t even want to do it.

So, the promised 5 ways how to deal with low priority tasks. *drum roll*

1) Can you delegate it?

This is not really a solution, unless you have a very reliable person to delegate the task to. Otherwise, you have to create a task “Check that Wally has done Task X”. And besides, doesn’t Wally have something more important to do, like drinking coffee and eating donuts?

2) Will it resolve itself?

If you know that the task will take care of itself, then just skip writing it down and let it go.

This approach is not always wise, as some tasks “solve” themselves not the way you would like them to (eg. your bills will get paid with the friendly help of executor :-)). It’s important that you are sure the task is really of low priority before using this approach.

3) Do I even want to get this done?

As I’ve said above, if there is zero or negative benefit for completing the task, then just move on.

4) Is it really low priority?

Sometimes you might label important tasks that you are not feeling like doing as low priority. That’s a really bad habit! If the task is important, admit it. Don’t run away from the truth.

Also, sometimes it is likely that finishing a task will have zero benefit, but it might also pay of handsomely. Eg. calling a client might likely not result in more business for you, but what if he places a huge order? (Now or in the future, because you’ve called him today)

5) Write it down and forget it

That’s my favorite way of dealing with unimportant tasks. I recommend creating a new to-do list just for tasks like this. You can name the to-do list something like “Maybe”, “Future”, “Procrastination Ideas” or “Never to-do” :-).

Alternative approach: Place the low priority tasks in your normal to-do lists, and get them out of your sight, either by sorting your to-do list by priority (from Highest to Lowest), or using filters (eg. you can create a new filter preset that will automatically hide all unimportant tasks).

Did you know that you Swift To-Do List 7 allows you to fully customize priorities? For example, you can delete or rename the default “Low” and “Lowest” priorities. Read more about it in our previous blog post: How to use 4-Quadrants Time Management using your own custom priorities

Don’t let low priority tasks undermine your productivity!

Having lots of low priority tasks that never get done haunting you can be *really* demotivational. I hope that this post has given you some insight into this issue and ideas how to deal with them.

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5 Ways How To Deal With Low Priority Tasks is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog