According to a study by Shiv & Fedorikhin, people who were asked to remember a 7 digit number instead of a 2 digit number took the impulsive choice of a slice of cake over the heathy bowl of fruit 34% more often when offered. Why? The cognitive resources needed for remembering the extra 5 digits are diverted from other parts, such as impulse-control and self-awareness.

Solves the agenda algebra for you

• Remembering what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and even what to work on next, has a measurable penalty on your decision making.

• Organize what needs to be done and by when, and Time Mapping will plot the best path for you

• Permission to forget everything, allowing deep concentration—stop checking to see if you have missed anything and relax—alerts let you know when your current course of action is pushing constrained tasks past their due time

Stay on top of multiple projects

• Break your schedule up into what projects to give attention to, and then work from each project's custom plan
• Easy to pick up where you last left off—always know the last task you were working on in any given project jolting you back into that state of mind

• Decide what to work on faster, tasks ordered by what gives you the most impact in the least amount of time

Becoming decisive is easy when you have all the information

• Exercises to discover what you most value in life—what you really want to experience
• Set your life direction—being confident and decisive through conflicting situations follows naturally when you discover the reasons behind what you are doing
• Keep your life in balance, saying "no" is easy if it means saying "yes" to something better—most of "self-discipline" comes not from forcing yourself to do what you don't want to do, but with connecting with what you really want, of knowing what really makes you feel better

Kill procrastination

• Create flexible schedules to live up to that instantly rearrange if the day doesn't go as planned
• Build the self trust you have with yourself by creating a realistic plan you consistently achieve by the end of the day
• Pace yourself throughout the day with breaks and reward tasks, to keep you looking forward towards finishing quickly

Eerie absence of distractions

• Silence thoughts that take you out of what you are doing like "I wonder what Jim is up to?"

  working from a schedule gives you clear feedback on how to finish the day, redirecting your thoughts into how to do that

• Regain your place quickly after getting hit off track with an interruption—Time Mapping recalculates the best path
• Say what you want finished, by when, and have a visual agenda created for you—showing how realistic your plan is and how much flexibility you have to achieve it all

The best use of your time

• New way of prioritizing project tasks by having the tasks with the most impact—in the least amount of effort—rise to the top
• Stuck or blocked on your current task? Use productive procrastination by jumping to the next action in another project—when you come back your unconscious will have most likely solved the original problem
• Up to the minute stats on effort spent by project always a hotkey away via the Clapperboard, keeps you driven to make the most of your time

Every life area, a slice of time

• Slice your day up into buffers for interruptions, and movable sessions to attend to long term projects—now the game is to make the most impact within each session
• Getting caught up in a minor detail jumps out at you as it pushes all your more important sessions down the agenda—it's no longer a hidden cost
• Manage perfectionism by driving for results with the slice of time you've given that project

Structure your day even when it is unpredictable

• Always know what the best use of your time is, and why—recover from changes and interruptions
• Time Mapping keeps you aware of how your actions now affect tasks hours away
• Reduce interruptions of others following up on you, by earning a reputation for always delivering

Get good at entering flow

Deflect common thought patterns that prevent flow, gently directing your attention back to the task at hand

• Distracted? Deflect impulses to a project for later, saying "later" instead of "no" is easier
• Resistance? Reduce complexity by breaking down tasks as you explore them
• Too much internet? How to manage the time you spend surfing the web with this easy technique

Improve your ability to concentrate

• Studies show that the brain adapts to your patterns of attention, through a training system you can grow your concentration
• Improper training gets little results and trains the mind to be more reactive, letting less and less relevant stimulus into your consciousness—distracting you
• Find your concentration rhythm by tracking bursts of concentration, plan around these sessions to maintain this rhythm—now you have a baseline that you can gently push against

Research done by Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research found that simply making a note of what you ate, resulted in an average weight loss of 20 pounds—compared to the group that didn't track, who only lost an average of 10 pounds. Why? Self-awareness unconsciously changes behaviour.

Low hanging fruit, easy access to more willpower

• Willpower is a limited quantity—the more we interrupt the day by making decisions about our time, such as deciding what to work on next, the faster it is drained
• It isn't the ultimate decision that drains willpower, but the struggle between choosing
• By deciding up front—with flexible achieveable agendas with a set pace of concentration and breaks—you free up willpower that you can redirect into new habits or emergencies

Change your behaviour just by measuring

• View progress reports to find hidden triggers behind what makes a good day, and a bad day
• Measuring what you are after sends a strong signal to the unconscious pattern matching mind of where it should be on the look out for opportunities
• Clearly see where your effort is going and the results it is generating—always find where you can be making the biggest impact

Master creating new unconscious behaviour

• It is natural to stop the moment we feel any resistence, because we have this intuition that it feels "off" or "wrong"—but growth and new behaviour is just past this
• By reviewing our written goals—a designed structure that directs our unconscious to fill with ideas—we have a beacon to focus on as we venture outside our comfort zones to become the person we can be
• Quickly build new habits by scheduling small tasks to continually make progress on what you really want in life—new intuition is predictable through consistent practice