According to the folks at  MakeUseOf, “The time has come where we all make promises to ourselves that we’ll be better, harder, faster, and stronger by the end of 2014. Twelve months is a long time, though, and it can be easy to lose steam over such a long period. What can you do about it? Our approach: break the year down into months and dedicate each month to a particular change. This method lets you internalize one change at a time before moving onto the next one. Front loading all of your resolutions together is just a recipe for being overwhelmed. A common resolution for most working people is to be more productive. If you do it right, by the end of the year you’ll be doing more work in less time!” Credit for the content of these monthly posts goes to Joel Lee, MakeUseOf.

April’s Bad Habit: Not Taking Notes

“How much time do you waste trying to decide what you’re going to tackle next? For a lot of folks, deciding what to do can actually take up a good chunk of the day — especially true for those who are more on the indecisive side. Without a clear roadmap of what the day entails, productivity drops through the ground.

Solution: Take notes and take lots of them. Evernote is fantastic for this since it handles notes, to-do lists, syncing across desktop and smartphones, and more. Whenever a new task pops into mind, immediately jot it down in your notes so you don’t forget it. For optimal to-do list productivity, make your list of tasks for tomorrow at the end of today — that way, you can hop right into tomorrow when morning comes without wasting any time. ”

This excerpt is from 12 Productivity Habits To Finally Hack Your Life In The New Year by Joel Lee, MakeUseOf, Jan.1, 2014