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Staying motivated is a tiring experience. Sadly, the more effort you put into staying motivated is energy lost in the effort itself. It is easy to get lost or discouraged, especially when the environment you live in is bringing you down. Let’s face it, times are tough. Gas prices are at record highs, food prices are climbing, the kids are out of school, and just getting your everyday tasks done can seem like a monumental hurdle.

What to do about it?

Follow up:

Well first, when you know there are tasks you have to get to, make a list. When I make a list I start out just writing everything down. Some will say making too big a list is discouraging in itself, but I find if I make a master list it helps me to keep the big plan in focus. After I have created the large, chaotic and disorganized master list, I break it into sub lists. For example, I might break it into a business list, a personal list, a life list and a family list.

Once you have the lists, you can organize your time to get to the items on the list. It is important to realize you will not get EVERYTHING done on your lists, at least not right away. That is why you have to prioritize the lists. The most important tasks are first, no matter what.

One warning about lists though, list making can become a distraction of it's own. Try not to make a huge master list more than once a month or less. Try to revise your list only once a week, or if you find you made a lot of progress. Otherwise you may find yourself constantly reorganizing a list and trying to make it look like a pretty presentation, and not really accomplishing anything at all.

Now, in budgeting your time, you have to segment your life. A part of you is necessary for each list. If you dedicate all your energy to just one aspect, then the other aspects will suffer. So break your day up. Allow time for work, family, your personal life and for play.

The next step is the hardest, it is where motivation and dedication really come into play. You have to be able to focus your energy to the task you set out to get off the list. You can’t be pulled between two tasks or desires. As Publilius Syrus said, “To do two things at once is to do neither.” If you think about it, it is true. No matter what all the multi-tasking experts will tell you.

It is important to realize you cannot be a task completion monster all of the time. Give yourself some slack for not getting everything done every day. So long as you got the most important things off the list, you did well. If you did more than just the essentials, you did great.

Make sure to give yourself play time. Sleep and recreation are essential to life. You will have less energy, less happiness and less motivation if you are constantly driving yourself all of the time. As Evan Esar said, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a rich widow.” Just don't let play overtake your productive time. It is real easy to enjoy the fun too long and to to suffer later for the procrastination.

For the self-employed, single parents, or just plain single folks out there, this is the hardest tip of all. If you can delegate, do it. Sometimes there are tasks that only you can do, but there are a host of other tasks that could be done for you. Enlist help where you can. Don't however rely on untrustworthy help. One of the most sabotaging experiences can be delegating a task to someone and it not getting done. You will loose energy trying to force them to do the task, you will loose momentum having to do what was left undone, and your mood will plummet when you feel let down by the person you depended on. The best thing to do is to not delegate the most important tasks, delegate the lesser tasks to those you can depend on, and delegate only the lowest priority tasks to people who you can't rely on (I'm thinking of children now, I don't know how many times I've delegated the dishes to a child and found they weren't done. In the big picture, dishes are a minor issue).

The last tip, if there are things on the list that never seem to get done, things that you are loathe to even start, those are the things you should move to the top of the list. If you clear those items from your list you will feel better about yourself and the list in general. I consider items like that to be a sort of mental constipation.

Good luck!