Do you know how to develop personal freedom? Freedom in your life to live the life you want?

You might be surprised to learn that the biggest obstacle to your personal freedom is right between your ears. A negative mindset is the biggest block to freedom.

There are so many parts of your life you cannot control, from the need to earn a living to finding true love. But you can control your mindset, your thoughts, and how you act in the world. So how can you overcome your psychological blocks and open your mind to achieve greater freedom?

To Develop Personal Freedom, Start In Your Mind

• Change the record

Everyone has a constant inner monologue; what psychologists call self-talk. And most of the time, yours is probably set to negative. Any messages you get in childhood about being bad, hopeless or selfish or stupid all get absorbed in your malleable child’s brain and resurface in adulthood as your Inner Critic.

The good news is that you can reprogram your Inner Critic and turn it into an Inner Coach.

Make a list of all the negative things your Inner Critic says. Be alert for phrases that start ‘you always or ‘you never.’ Watch out for ‘shoulds’ too. Then take each negative message and turn into a positive one.

To truly develop personal freedom, change your self-talk broken record to a new track full of encouragement and positivity.

• Change your expectations

Studies have shown that the most significant contributors to success or failure are your expectations. Happy people expect things to go well and mistakes or problems do not crush them, they see them only as temporary setbacks. Conversely, if the expectation is to fail any issue will confirm the expectations, and you won’t try again.

Expecting things to work out is not wishful thinking; it is choosing to be positive no matter what the circumstances.

• Change your focus

Modern society trains us to be dissatisfied with what we have now and constantly strive for bigger, better and shiner. You can choose to step outside of this and be grateful for what you have right now.

Developing a habit of gratitude frees you from this pressure and affects the structure of your brain. Studies show that the more you feel grateful, the more resilient you become in the face of life’s ups and downs. You feel happier with what you have and more open to receiving. Even better, you rewire the neural pathways in your brain so that your mindset defaults to positivity. You start to see the good things before you notice the bad. Over time, you perceive life as positive, and your expectations change. You free yourself from the burden of negativity!

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How to Be More Grateful for What Freedom You Already Have

There‘s so much emphasis on getting ahead, being successful and striving for change that it can be hard to remember that you already have so much for which to be grateful. Even worse, the constant pushing to change your circumstances can lead to dissatisfaction, and keep you trapped in a cycle of always feeling you’re not good enough.

Free yourself from the shackles of ‘must try harder’ by remembering to stop and appreciate what you’ve already achieved, what blessings you already have in your life. Keep in mind that you are free to be content right now. Here are some tips to help free you from the cycle of discontent.

• Change your focus

Research has shown that the more you cultivate a habit of gratitude, the better able you are to weather the ups and downs of life. As you perceive life to be positive, you will come to expect more of the same. You can retrain your brain from negative self-talk to greater thankfulness, gratitude, and happiness.

By practicing gratitude, you rewire the neural pathways in your brain so that it becomes your mindset’s default setting. You learn to look for the good in things instead of focusing on the bad.

• Step away from more stuff

If you’re like most people, you have more than enough possessions. The current mantra is that spending brings happiness, but deep down you probably know that it doesn’t. Sure, buying yourself a new car or outfit makes you feel good at the time, but that spenders high wears off pretty quickly.

Break the habit of buying the next shiny thing and appreciate what you’ve got right now.

• Develop a mindfulness practice

Mindfulness and meditation can help you focus on the good that’s already in your life. By focusing on the present, you free yourself from that familiar yoyo-ing of brooding over past disappointments and future anxieties.

You can easily integrate mindfulness into your day. Whatever you’re doing, pause and focus on your breath. Ask yourself: what are five things I’m grateful for in my life right now? Your five items can be anything from having a roof over your head to having a job, your partner or your health. Or you can be grateful for a comfortable chair or clean sheets! Chose anything that makes you feel good at that very moment.

Choosing gratitude and contentment doesn’t mean being stagnant or giving up. It means stepping aside from judgment and freeing yourself from the bonds of negativity.

Do you ever get to the end of the day and say “What happened? Where did my time go?” Sometimes the time just gets away from us. Have you been saying to yourself “I want to learn how to manage my time productively”? Then you’ve come to the right place!

How to Stay Productive Throughout the Day

Are you someone who is productive during very short periods of time in the morning, but the rest of the day you tend to procrastinate and waste time? This is a very common occurrence for most people, but there are some ways to be a little more productive late in the morning until the afternoon.

Try Time Blocking

Time blocking is a great way to stay productive throughout the day, since you are managing how you spend your time and can stay on track. This method involves using different blocks of time between 1 and 3 hours on average, where you dedicate that time to one type of task.

The time period will vary based on your schedule and the task, but might look like:

• 6-6:30am – morning routine
• 6:30am-8:30am – marketing and social media
• 8:30-9am – breakfast break
• 9am-12pm – working on your blog

You can choose different parts of your day to work on different things, and balance it out between work and personal tasks. You’ll learn how to manage your time as productively as possible.

Batch Your Projects

This doesn’t mean multi-tasking and working on multiple things at one time. Instead, you want to use the work batching method, which means you do the same type of task in one batch. For example, if you have a YouTube channel, you might record multiple videos all in one long session. If you run a website for your business, you might brainstorm and research the next week’s worth of posts all in one sitting, then tomorrow, batch all the writing to be done together.

Choose When to Check Your Email

Having your email notifications open all day will steal your focus consistently, and make it really hard to stay productive. Every time you see that a new email has arrived, you are tempted to read it and possibly even respond. Don’t allow the distractions to drive how you manage your time productively.

Instead of having it open, close your email and have dedicated times during the day when you read and respond to emails. This can fit into your time blocking schedule, or just when you have free time to do so.

Go for a Walk During Your Afternoon Slump

Everyone has a slump in their day, usually around the early afternoon. This is when you tend to lose a lot of your energy and need a little pick-me-up. Instead of hitting the vending machine, consider going outside and taking a walk instead.

Plan Activities Around Your Energy Levels

It is also a good idea to be aware of when you have high or low energy during the day. During your peak work hours is of course when you should get the productive work done, especially the tasks that require a little more brain power. Then during times of the day when your energy is lower, work on answering emails, updating your website, or doing smaller tasks that don’t require as much energy.

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How Being Organized Saves You Time and Money

In order to manage your time productively, you have to be able to manage your own schedule. We all want to be able to organize our schedules and have the commitment to maintain them on a day-to-day basis, but how? Creating a workable schedule is typically time-consuming and often results in a frustrating battle with your calendar.

Organization is beneficial for everyone and can be easily adapted to suit individual needs. And believe it or not, being organized in your everyday life actually saves you time and money. Here are a few of the reasons why.

Efficient and Stress-Free

If you keep your belongings organized, you don’t need to spend time looking for them when needed. This is especially handy in the case of important yet rarely used items, such as insurance or tax information.

The key to keeping things organized is to come up with a place to keep something and stick to it. If you want to keep important mail in a desk drawer, make sure you keep all of your important mail in that drawer. Don’t be afraid of sorting your things too much. The more categories of things you come up with, the easier it will be to find exactly what you need when you need it. You’re learning to manage your time productively!

Saves You from Buying New

Organization keeps you from buying items you already have, but you’ve forgotten about or lost in your household or workplace. You’re more likely to forget about a pack of rubber bands you bought several months ago and never opened, than your car keys or your wallet. Combined, these types of purchases can end up costing you a significant amount of money for items that you already have.

Fortunately, this is a very fixable problem. By cleaning and organizing the designated “junk” drawers in your home or office and making a list of all the items, you will easily find the item you’re looking for the next time you go searching. This avoids unnecessary purchases and impulsive buys at the store in the future. It’s a very flexible habit that can be applied to many aspects of your daily routine.

Helps You Remember Important Details

It can be hard to keep track of every detail when you have a lot going on in your life. Sometimes, bills can get lost in the shuffle and go unpaid, or household maintenance gets overlooked. By keeping all of your activities organized, you can get them done in a more efficient manner and you make sure that every detail is taken care of.

Saves Money on Shopping

If you plan out a menu for each month, you can buy many of your groceries in bulk, saving you time and frequent trips to the store. If you prepare a list ahead of time, you can also look for coupons that offer savings on the things you plan to buy.

The same applies to non-food items, which can be bought in bulk and stored for later use. Staying organized and keeping essentials stocked up saves you the stress of running out to make a special trip for more. You can also plan out birthday or holiday gifts well ahead of time, so that you can keep an eye out for a good deal.

While it may take a bit of effort, organizing your life allows you to use your time more efficiently and to take full advantage of your finances. Not only that, but the more thought-out your budget or schedule is, the less you will worry about them. Planning ahead ultimately helps you manage your time more productively.

Surprising Time Management Secrets

One certainty in life is that time is limited. While no one is sure how many years they’ll be given to finish doing what they want to do, everything is equal for each day you are given. Everyone has the same 24-hour day to dream, determine goals, and complete tasks that will help them meet those goals. But doesn’t it seem like some people are just better at time management than others? Surprisingly, there are some time management secrets that make you feel like you have hours more in your day.

Set Priorities – There are really only four choices:

1. Most important
2. Most urgent
3. Least important
4. Least urgent

When you identify tasks and set your priorities carefully by what is important over not important, as well as avoid having issues of urgency each day, you can get a handle on how to manage your time productively, in ways that you never thought possible.

• Learn the Power of No – Saying no is probably one of the most important things you’ll ever learn to say. The problem is our parents disciplined the word “no” from our vocabulary. It’s time to learn how to say no again. If something is not right for you, is too “urgent”, causes you stress, or you just do not want to do it and it doesn’t fit in with meeting your goals, say no. Saying no will free up untold amounts of time to focus on your priorities.
• Disconnect from Technology – Unplug the phone, turn off email notifications, and for goodness sakes get off Facebook. If you’ve not completed the most important tasks on your daily list, you have no business messing around with technology. The idea of multitasking is overrated, so unplug and tune in to the tasks at hand. You’ll work faster, smarter, and gain the time you need for other things.
• Schedule Everything – Your priorities need to be added to your calendar. Everything from the 15 minutes you need to use social media for marketing purposes, to the one hour you take your kids to the park, needs to be put into your calendar. If you have a project due in a week, you should have five days of scheduled time to work on the project prior to the due date. This helps avoid those urgencies mentioned earlier.
• Ignore Interruptions – Unless the house is on fire or a child is bleeding, the telephone ringing and the knocks on your office door are not important. They are interruptions. Check your email at scheduled times during the day, explain to your children, spouse and family when you are working, and otherwise ignore the door bell ringing. If you didn’t schedule it, you don’t need it.
• Outsource – Whether it’s the housework, cooking, or customer service, it’s important to outsource what you can afford to outsource. There are huge payoffs to outsourcing the things that are simply time suckers from your day. If you can’t afford to outsource, your kitchen will not explode if a few dishes pile up, and everyone can do with eating a salad for dinner. And, you can automate a lot of customer service issues if you work from home.
• Once and You’re Done – Multitasking is not really a bastion of efficiency. Instead, seek to touch each task only once and finish it. For example, when you check the mail immediately throw out the trash, schedule bills to be paid, and deal with any issues that came up with a letter – right then. Of course, your mail time should be scheduled as well so that you can stay on track.
• Check Your Schedule – At least twice a day, set out the time to check your schedule. Usually the morning is good and at the end of the day is good. Ensure that you have your priorities in order, add anything new to your schedule that needs to be added, and remind yourself of what is expected the next day. Checking your schedule helps you feel accomplished at the end of the day, and reminds you of what’s coming up tomorrow.

Finally, it’s important to be very serious about following your schedule and calendar. Use technology to help such as Google Calendar or Outlook, synced to your smartphone to help you remember what it is that you should be doing now, and next. It may seem geeky to be so serious about a schedule, but it’s this one factor that makes these surprising time management tips work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the priorities for managing your time?

Setting Priorities for Managing Your Time

One of the hardest parts of time management is learning how to set priorities. Sometimes it can feel like every last thing you need to do is an emergency. But the truth is, there are ways to organize your time and manage the tasks that you need to do so that you get them finished right when they need to be done without feeling overwhelmed or rushed.

1. Needs to be done immediately
2. Needs to be done but can take longer and needs more strategic planning
3. Distractions, but needed by others
4. Not at all important and often used in order to procrastinate

Use the grid to help create your daily to-do list by prioritizing the importance and urgency of each item you have to pick from. It can be as simple as doing the purple things first, then the green, next pink, and finally the light green items. But, if you do it this way you might miss out on something important you can learn from the time management grid.

How does this help me manage my time productively? When you are assessing any task, make sure you label it, then ask yourself if it fits in with your core values and goals. As you learn to use this system it will start becoming more automatic so that you can say yes or no faster and put your time management on auto drive.

What about planning for better time management?

Creating a time management plan keeps you from wasting time. Having a plan makes every hour count, ensures that you get to work more quickly and helps distribute your time over all the tasks that you need to do each day, week, month and year. Creating a time management plan is an imperative if you want to be successful.

• Be Realistic With Your Plans – Don’t go against your own internal clock when planning each day. If you know you struggle to get up in the morning, do not schedule things in the early morning hours. If you can manage in the mornings if you do tasks you like first, try that.
• Set Time Limits – This is especially important for both tasks you dislike and tasks you like. You always have a risk of procrastination when it comes to tasks you hate by spending too much time on tasks you like.
• Eliminate Distractions – One of the biggest killers of any plan that you set are distractions. While nothing is ever perfect, you can eliminate most distractions by planning ahead about how to deal with them.
• Differentiate Important from Non-Important Tasks – One of the hardest tasks when creating a time management plan is understanding what is important and what is not. If you make it a habit to do the most important things first, you’re going to feel more accomplished.
• Use a Calendar and Technology – Where would we be without technology? Using a system synced to your phone is a great way to ensure that your calendar is always with you and that you don’t forget things. You can even set reminders and alarms to help.
• Eliminate Urgency from Your Life – This can be difficult but most things really aren’t urgent. If you are a service provider, stop taking last-minute work; train your clients to give you plenty of time to work tasks into your schedule. If you set family time and play time into your schedule too, that will eliminate the need for a last-minute meltdown from the toddler too.
• Create and Use Lists – It is one thing to note on your calendar “work on project A” but it’s quite another to list exactly what you are to do during that time period on project A. This is the most effective way to schedule your time. Be very specific with lists so that no time is wasted.
• Create a Daily Action Plan – There should always be at least four or five things that you can do each day toward any future goal that you have to help you feel accomplished. Plus, having a variety of things to do each day will eliminate boredom and procrastination.

What are the best tips for time management for better productivity?

Stop doing everything yourself. That’s certainly not how to manage your time productively! Outsource your work before it’s too late. To be successful, you need to save your time and energy for what you do best. If accounting, customer service, marketing, or technology isn’t your thing outsourcing the work by finding an online freelancer is a great option to save you more time and frustration.

The following are a few areas to outsource in your life and business to save you more time:

• Making hotel reservations or booking meetings and other appointments.
• Social media, email, and other marketing projects and tasks.
• Laundry, cleaning, and other housework or maintenance.
• Content writing, administrative or human resource tasks such as payroll.
• Customer service and support.
• Shopping and dry cleaning.
• Other repetitive, time-consuming, and frustrating tasks.

What to outsource depends on what you need the most, what you can afford, and what goals you are looking to accomplish. Ask yourself this one simple question to get started: “What takes up most of my time?” Then decide from there if it something someone else could be doing for you instead.

Depending on your needs, there are many different platforms to choose from online to hire independent contractors to do various tasks from content writing, social media marketing, answering phone calls from customers, sending out emails on your behalf, or even delivering your groceries other materials.

We’re all guilty of bad time management habits from time to time. It’s not a matter of being able to avoid them forever. But if you can identify them for yourself and learn how to get past them, you’ll be in good shape!

Habits of Unproductive People

If you’re not careful, bad habits can easily become a lifestyle. And once they do, they can be ridiculously hard to break. If you are caught in a cycle of unproductivity and feel busy all the time, but nothing ever gets accomplished, it might be time to look at your habits. The most common habits of unproductive people:

These bad time management habits are a warning for anyone who wants to increase their productivity without being busy all the time. If you wish to have time for all areas of your life so you can live a more balanced, enjoyable existence, seek to eliminate these bad habits of unproductive people. Start with identifying one or two that you realize you’re doing and set up a plan to stop. Make this your very first goal to end these unproductive habits so that you can live the life you’re meant to live – one of abundance and success.

Why Bad Habits Are Hard to Break

Bad habits are frustrating and difficult to break, but why are some so hard to shake? First, let’s explore why bad habits are so stubborn and what you can do to overcome them.

Your Life Is Out of Alignment

Bad habits often arise when something in your life is out of balance. Maybe you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, or perhaps you’re not getting enough sleep or exercise. Whatever the case, when something in your life is off kilter, it can be hard to break a bad habit.

What’s out of alignment? Here are some common examples and what to do to fix it:

• Energy levels – Make sure to get enough sleep, exercise regularly, and eat a balanced diet.
• Stress/anxiety – Engage in stress-relieving activities such as yoga or deep breathing exercises.
• Bad time management habits – Create a daily routine and schedule tasks to maximize productivity.
• Finances – Develop a budget plan and stick with it.
• Relationships – Spend quality time with family and friends.
• Work/life balance – Set boundaries between work and leisure activities so that you can rest and relax during off-hours.

It’s important to identify what might be out of alignment and work to fix it. To determine what is out of alignment in your life you may need to practice mindfulness by keeping a journal to help you figure out what’s not right for you.

For example, if you have low energy, is it due to your diet, sedentary lifestyle, stress, or anxiety, or is your bad time management needing improvement? This requires brutal honesty about what you may be doing to cause this misalignment.

You Don’t Understand Why You Are Doing It

Sometimes, people engage in bad habits without really understanding why. Maybe you’re doing it out of boredom, to cope with negative emotions, or simply because it’s a habit you’ve always had.

It is difficult to address the issue without understanding the root cause of your bad habits so that you can make lasting changes.

Thankfully, it only takes a few steps that will allow you to get to the root cause of a bad habit:

1. Identify the habit
2. Track your behavior
3. Ask yourself hard questions
4. Take action

Take the time to observe the bad habit so you can determine what exactly the bad habit is. Take notes when the habit occurs. Ask yourself why. Write down the situation or emotions you experience that triggers the habit. Ask yourself these hard questions to identify and understand any underlying causes, especially the payoff you get from performing the bad habit.

You Focus Only On the Goal, Which Overwhelms You

Breaking a bad habit is sometimes overwhelming. This is especially true if you’re focusing on the end goal rather than the steps it takes to get there. So instead of trying to quit a habit cold turkey, it is often more effective to focus on small, achievable steps.

For example, if you’re trying to stop procrastinating, try setting a goal to work on a task for just 15 minutes each day. You’ll be more prone to sticking to your new habit and making lasting changes by taking small steps that accumulate over time.

Bad habits are hard to break. However, by understanding the root cause of your habit, focusing on small, achievable steps, identifying what might be out of alignment in your life, and working to correct the issues, you are sure to overcome them and create lasting change.

Powerful Benefits of Breaking Bad Habits

It’s important to remember that you are human at the end of the day, and humans make mistakes. Therefore, breaking bad habits doesn’t mean you need to become a projectionist nor have bad days. In other words, by following good habits most of the time, you will live a full, successful, and happy life.

Bad time management habits can be replaced with proactive time management techniques to make the most of the time you have. It’s not about smushing more into each minute, it’s about making each minute count.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I go about eliminating bad time management habits?

Ditch These Distraction Habits to Master Your Focus

• Disable Alerts to Ditch the Social Media Distraction Habit – You may be waiting on pins and needles for your comment to be seen and liked on Facebook, but unless social media is part of how you earn a living, it could be distracting you needlessly. Turning off notifications can help you save social media for when you have proper down time. It’s the same for email notifications, text alerts and so forth.
• Enforce a Do Not Disturb Model to Ditch the Chatting Distraction Habit – Losing your focus, even for a few minutes can diminish your productivity and creativity. It takes a while to ramp back up to being in focus. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by casual conversations when you are working. If you stay focused and don’t engage in conversations you may find you get your work done faster than you thought and have more time for others when you are done.
• Limit Overstimulation to Ditch the Multi-Tasking Habit – Multi-tasking is often thought of as an effective way to work, but doing too much at one time can water down your focus. Limit the types and number of things you do at once. If you find you do better with white noise in the background or thrive taking on multiple tasks at once, try to limit them to the least distracting to your conscious or your subconscious.

Breaking Bad Habits: Planning for Setbacks

• Forgive Yourself – It’s important to be kind to yourself when you experience a setback. Know that it’s a normal part of the process and move on.
• Take a Break – Sometimes a setback happens just because you’re overworking yourself. Often you can put things right by taking a break and coming back to the issue with a clear mind.
• Evaluate What Happened – Take time to reflect on what led to the setback. Finding the root cause will help you develop strategies to prevent it from happening again.
• Set Specific and Achievable Goals – Clear goals keep you focused and motivated. Be sure to set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
• Be Flexible and Adaptable – Setbacks are a normal part of life. It’s vitally important to be flexible and adaptable. If something isn’t working, be willing to adjust your plan and try something new.
• Find Healthy Coping Mechanisms – Stress majorly contributes to setbacks, so it’s imperative to find healthy ways to manage it, like exercise, meditation, or talking to a therapist.
• Restart – Don’t let a setback discourage or derail your progress entirely. Instead, use it as an opportunity to start fresh. Set a new goal and focus on taking small steps in the right direction.
• Seek Support – It’s helpful to have someone to talk to when trying to break a bad habit. You can also consider joining a support group to help you overcome your challenges.
• Stay Positive – Getting discouraged during a setback is common, but staying positive and focusing on your progress is important. Remember that change takes time.