Yes, it is midnight or maybe even 2AM and you just realised you didn't finish your to-do list, you didn't accomplish much or maybe nothing, zero, nada, now what...

It happens to all of us, life is just a huge to-do list and the problem I believe, is that most of us try to accomplish too much, we loose focus.

It is easy to loose focus in today's world, with all those tweets and facebook updates around us, all those blogs we think we need to read, all the email we need to reply to, and all of the things we have to learn to keep ourselves competitive and marketable.

Because of all of the above, we do not keep our focus on what's important at the moment, we think we can multi-task and that is all a lie, we fool ourselves into thinking we can do it all and on time, we can't.

In order to accomplish our goals, we need to make sure we only have a few items in our to-do list every day and concentrate on getting those items done, turn off your phone, close your email, do not open Twitter or Facebook and log off from your instant messaging application. If you have any of those applications open, you will be checking them every few minutes, believe me, I know.

I am not saying not to use those tools or stop looking at Twitter, instead, make it a routine to use those tools and applications at a determined time of the day if you have to, it will help you concentrate on what actually helps you get the bills paid.

Another suggestion is to concentrate on those tasks we know we need to complete but they are difficult or just not fun to work on, the sooner you start and complete those tasks the better you'll feel. In the end, you'll probably have to still complete those horrific tasks and chances are you'll be in a hurry and stressed out because you are now behind.

To me, preparing our tax return is something I always used to leave until the last few days before the deadline... and it got me all stressed and upset because I was always in a hurry and worry that I was not going to be able to complete it on time. Last year I decided to do it as soon as I collected all the information I needed, usually by the first week of February and that has worked out great for me.

Stop thinking that you need more hours in your day to get things done, we all know that we spent too much time just reading and writing email, checking out Twitter and other social networks, reading news and blogs, watching LOST, or The Office, etc... It is OK to do all those things, I do it too. However, setting an specific time to do each and all of those things helps a lot, we don't feel like we are missing out and at the same time we are producing more by concentrating in our work first.
For example, I am trying to only read email twice a day, so far it has worked OK and Twitter I usually open it when I have a quick question to ask and at night when I spent about ten minutes reading and replying to stuff I am interested on.

The little changes I've made so far to my daily routine, have provided me with more time and concentration to be able to finish my tasks on time and with better quality since I am not in a rush all the time. The small changes to the way I work allow me to get in the zone more often and be more productive. I feel happier.

There are days when for one reason or another this does not work as planned, you get interrupted by one of your clients because a server is down, or a friend calls you to meet for lunch, or your dog wants you to take him out for a walk, etc... and that is OK, it is life, enjoy it, but make sure this doesn't happen all the time or you won't have a client or a server to fix, money to go out for lunch or a dog ;-)

Keep your focus, do less and you'll accomplish more, feel better and have more free time to do what's fun... or not.

Good luck!