Jeffrey A.T. Freed

same need to slow your thinking applies to planning and setting a goal for accomplishing any particular task. Before you start a task, make sure you have a vivid image in your mind of what you plan to accomplish. Be sure that the image you create includes the wonderful feeling you will have when you have accomplished your goal. Feel the glow and the satisfaction you will have on an emotional level. You should do this in a slow, relaxed manner, as you do with all of your active visualizations. This is the part of the activity in which it is most important that you slow down your natural rapid-fire thinking.

Professional organizers always say that to organize your things, everything must have a “home.”

someone you don’t respect can’t get you to do much of anything.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit

You will need only a few things:

A little bit of space.

A little bit of time.

A little bit of help

With that picture in mind, create your space. To help maintain your focus:

Spend no more than a total of one hour.

Divide that hour into twenty-minute segments.

Use a timer to stop yourself in order to take a break. (Take a short walk, have a cup of tea, or just do something else entirely.)

, for example, if you want a night out without the kids, find the sitter now. If you want to see a movie, decide on the one you will see now. If you want to buy something for yourself, like a new CD, a pair of shoes, Godiva chocolates, or a good bottle of wine, make sure that you have set aside the time at the end of the week to go right out and get your reward.