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Jim Rohn, one of the country’s leading experts on success and personal development, stated that the one reason why people don’t succeed is NEGLECT.

So his secret of success is to not neglect. Right. Do the opposite. A quick trip to the thesaurus reveals that the antonym, or opposite, of neglect is the care for or to look after. Are there things in your life that you should look after that you have been neglecting?

Not many folks, percentage-wise, in the world can claim to be millionaires. Jim Rohn was a millionaire at the young age of 31. While other neglected to work at the things that would make them successful, Rohn took care of those things.

Jim Rohn listened to successful people. His friends neglected to do this.

While his friends neglected to set goals, Jim Rohn carefully cultivated his goals.

While his friends neglected to read books to improve their thinking, Jim Rohn took care of his mind and his positive thinking by filling his mind with the motivational words of the book he carefully chose.

There are enough opportunities, money, education, and jobs for everyone. There’s no shortage. Don’t blame you lack of success of some external factor. You know the old saying, “The buck stops here.” If you’re not achieving the kind of success that you want in your like, take ownership of it.

Why don’t we succeed? We neglect.

We neglect to try new things. We neglect to seek mentors. We neglect to ignore the naysayers. We neglect to work. We neglect to set goals. We neglect to keep a positive attitude in the face of adversity.

The problem with neglect is that it affects us, well, negatively. We suffer. Not usually in a physical way, but maybe, if you neglect to exercise and eat right.

Neglect affects our spirit. We lose faith in ourselves. Our self-esteem plummets. Our attitudes become decidedly negative. People around us are affected as well. We often let these people down. We lose confidence in our abilities. In our ability to succeed.

If you want to break the cycle of neglect in your life, you need to get in the habit of action. “Just do it,” like the old Nike ads admonished. Study the habits of successful people. Do what they do.

Start something now. Neglect no more. You have the chance to do something great with your life.

This article is based on another fantastic Brian Tracy Podcast: “21 Great Ways To Double Your Productivity - Number 5.”

Everything you do throughout the day fits into one of four categories:

1. Urgent and Important Tasks

You can’t ignore these tasks because they’re right in your face: a pesky phone call, a company meeting, a coworker stopping by to talk about something work-related. Put these off at your own peril.

If you’re like a lot of people, you spend a lot of time working on these types of tasks. Some folks call this “putting out fires.”

2. Important but NOT Urgent Tasks

Brian Tracy says that if you want to create the longest-lasting impact on your life, then finish these types of task.

Tasks in this category are spending time with your family, physical fitness, exercise, personal renewal and updating your business skills.

You can put these tasks off until later; but don’t! Brian Tracy indicates you can change your life dramatically by working on these tasks.

Mark my words, if you don’t work on the Important BUT NOT Urgent Tasks now, the come back to bite you in the butt. Some tasks in this category are term papers for school and reports for your boss.

3. Urgent but NOT Important Tasks

These are things like personal phone calls, shooting the breeze with coworkers, etc.

Brian Tracy expresses that these tasks will have no effect or negative effects on your success. This is not real work. This is busy work.

In fact, these kinds of tasks are great time- and career-wasters. Stay away from tasks in this area.

But the biggest time-wasters are those in group four:

4. Neither Urgent NOR Important

Stay away from these tasks. They are completely useless; they have no consequences at all. Don’t do things like reading the newspaper or calling home to find out what’s for dinner. You will be contributing nothing to the company goals or to your personal aspirations.

To summarize…

Make sure that you’re first working on the “Most Urgent and Important”. Then move into the “Important but Not Urgent” Tasks. You increase your productivity by refusing to do things that are not important at all.

Here’s the central question to ask yourself continually for each task: What are the likely enduring costs of doing this task?

If the task is not important, move on to the next important task.