We all want to achieve great things with our lives, both in our careers, and in our personal lives.
Of course, it's one thing to set yourself ambitious goals, and to work towards them, and it's another thing altogether to actually manage to achieve them.
Between the different problems we all experience from time to time, and the duties and obligations we have on a daily basis, we need to be pretty smart about things if we want to actually turn our dreams into a reality.
These days, there are all sorts of tools available for helping you to track and manage your time, finances, and more, ranging from accounting software to personal planners.
Here are a few reasons why those tools might improve your life, and why you should use them.
Because knowledge is power. The more you know about yourself, the better you're able to change and pursue your goals effectively
In order to improve any dimension of your life, you first have to be able to get a clear understanding of exactly where you are in relation to where you've been, and where you want to be.
Once you've got a clear sense of exactly where you stand today, you can work on improving things in an iterative and ongoing way. But, if you've got no way of measuring your progress and determining whether or not you're actually on the right track, it's unlikely that you're going to make any real progress.
Many of the popular tools available today for life and business management, are based around tracking specific metrics, so that you have a clear idea of your circumstances, and can work effectively to shape them going forward. As the old saying goes, "knowledge is power." Fitness trackers and personal budgeting tools, like YNAB, help to give you the perspective you need in order to move forward.
Because many of us are chronically busy, anything that can help us streamline how we do things can be a major blessing
Everyone's heard the saying "time is money," and it's difficult to argue with the fact that you need to use your time as effectively as possible if you want to be successful in business, or in the pursuit of your personal goals.
Many of us are chronically busy, and struggle to find the time to really invest in developing our dreams and circumstances. Fortunately, many of the tools that are on the market today, exist specifically to help us streamline processes that would otherwise be very time-consuming.
If you're using a great integrated Content Management System, for example, your efficiency is likely going to be far greater than it would if you were trying to get your work done without it.
Because we're only human, and sometimes we need to give our willpower, focus, and motivation a little nudge
In our most ambitious and enthusiastic moments, we tend to believe that we can meet any challenge head on, and prevail, using nothing but sheer willpower and grit.
That can be a very powerful belief, and can definitely help to drive you forward and get you through tough times. But, we're all human nonetheless, and we do have certain limitations.
From time to time, everyone could use a bit of a nudge to their willpower, focus, and motivation. Using the right tools can help to give you that "nudge."
StickK, for example, is a tool for creating date-specific goals, and holds us accountable to those goals by depriving us of a pre-agreed amount of money if we fail to meet them. Needless to say, it's easier to keep moving forward when you've got that threat hovering over you.
Because it's often impossible to really progress towards our goals, unless we have a system in place for tracking our projects and tasks
Some of the most popular tools out there are task and project management systems, such as Todoist and Wunderlist (soon to be integrated into Microsoft To Do.)
These tools do a great job of helping you to track the tasks and projects you need to attend to, and organise them in an intuitive manner, that's easy to get a good overview of.
When all is said and done, it's often impossible to really progress towards our goals, unless we have systems in place for tracking exactly what it is we should be doing at any given moment. With these sort of tools, you may never have to worry about forgetting to file an important form, ever again.
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