There is one critical set of strategies required to speed you on your way to the achievement of your objectives and goals and hence the acquisition of your dreams: your Daily Activities Lists. The activities list is your prioritized itinerary. Line by line it illustrates what you intend to achieve during the current day and up to the end of the month.

Consider that there is no limit to the laundry list of activities which you can choose to delegate your time. Therefore, there will rarely be a day during your life when you feel “tied up.” Think back. Can you ever recall a day when you felt that you had accomplished all the things you needed to do and would like to have done? I definitely cannot remember one. However, what’s key is not that everything gets done during a chosen day, but that the activities that are most vital to the achievement of your dreams have been concluded on a schedule set by you. To feel good about how you utilize time does not require being hectic every moment, or regularly playing “catch-up.” Positive feelings and the mental rewards coupled with real accomplishments are fashioned through effectiveness, since only effectiveness creates results.

Believe it. If you can double your effectiveness, by definition you can complete twice as much in the same amount of time. You will double the momentum at which you realize your objectives, and you will cut in half the time it takes you to reach your dream.

To boost your effectiveness, apply the 20/80 rule. Just twenty percent of the behavior on which you could opt to spend your time will generate 80 percent of the results you’re after. On the contrary, spending energy on the other 80 percent of your possible activities will produce only 20 percent of the outcomes you’re after including only 20 percent of the total sense of satisfaction from attainment.

When it comes to attaining your dream, just 20 percent of your activities will take you along your path faster and farther than others. Recognize that 20 percent and then splurge the lion’s share of your time, mental and physical energy on their accomplishment. Focusing first on the completion of that 20 percent is what alters energy-wasting efficiency into results-producing effectiveness.

Remember: it would be a misuse of your time to spend effort on anything not in the top 20 percent of the activities on your list, at least until that 20 percent has been fully satisfied.