If you want to improve your interactions with the world and with other people, if you want to be more successful in your endeavors, if you want to get more done, if you want to be happier in your life, then the single most important thing you can do is to take responsibility. Take responsibility for the way you think, take responsibility for your actions and reactions, take responsibility for your interactions with others.

Accept responsibility for your life and what happens in it, rather than look to blame others or circumstances for things not turning out the way you wish they would. Once you accept responsibility there is much Common Sense advice you will then have access to for improving your circumstances.

Take control of your own thoughts. Don’t be forever worrying about the future or feeling guilty and regretting the past, or just dreaming of being somewhere else. Spend most of your time in the here and now, in the moment. It has significant physical and mental health benefits, makes you feel much better, improves your thinking, and you will find yourself being generally more creative. By all means if something hasn’t worked out think about what you might have done differently and ensure you learn from it. But then move on.

Most people have their regrets continually in their mind and go over them hundreds and thousands of times to no useful end.

Learning to live in the moment will help improve your focus and concentration. You don’t multitask on tasks that require thought, much as you might believe otherwise, and the more you are able to focus on a particular task for a period of time the better you will make progress on it.

The tasks you focus on should be meaningful. It is important to have goals that are important to you. Your goals should be ones that will make you feel your life is worthwhile. Goals that are purely materialistic are of little value to a fulfilling life. But goals about what you would like to create or relating to helping others are worth striving for.

Make plans for achieving your goals. Goals are simply idle dreams unless you have sub-goals and specific next actions which will take you closer to their achievement. You are far more likely to succeed in your goals if you write them down and work out what you need to do to get there. Some of your sub-goals should relate to improving your own skills and abilities and behaviors.

Be persistent in what you do. Things won’t always go the way you would like. Even when you’ve thought about it and taken responsibility. There is much that is down to chance in the world, and when you are doing anything that is challenging it will not go all your own way. That shouldn’t get you down. It is the way things are. Think about whether or not you could have done anything to improve the odds of things going your way as a lesson for the future, and then get back on with it.

Learn about your own limitations and take them into account. Just as there are limits to what you can do physically, so there are limits to what you can do mentally. You can not keep up high levels of concentration for many hours on end. Your self-control will deteriorate through the day.

Our self-control behaves much like a muscle. As we exercise it, we tire it, such as when you find yourself unable to do much in the evening after a hard day at work. Like other muscles however you can strengthen your self-control through exercising it: the more you try to exercise your self-control, the stronger it gets. And as when you are tired physically you do things less tiring, so when mentally you find your self-control weaker you can still avoid doing harmful or negative things by doing positive things that require less discipline, and keep yourself away from circumstances that require high levels of self-control.

Since it takes much less effort to do things which we have made into a habit, a very good use of our self-control is to develop positive habits. It takes effort to create good habits but once something has become a habit it requires very little conscious effort.

Retain, or develop if necessary, an open minded curiosity about the world. It makes life interesting and you need never be bored again. The world is a fascinating place and there are always interesting things you can observe or read and then wonder about and try to find out more about.

If you find yourself stressed and worried about certain things, then do something about it. This is of course easy to say and difficult to do. But it is important to get out of any sense of helplessness you might feel. You must take action which will lead you away from or enable you to deal with whatever is stressing or worrying you. You might have to take this a step at a time, maybe even a very small step at a time. But start to take control.

Get organized about where you keep things. Being organized will leave you with more time on your hands since you won’t be wasting time finding things you’ve lost. You will also be much less stressed if you can quickly find anything you might want to find, and you will be able to quickly get on with productive tasks. If you are organized you will be more motivated to do things. Being organized means having a place for everything and ensuring things are in their place when not in use.

Get organized with regards your time. Time is a limited resource, and when it’s gone, it’s gone: final. If you’re not using it, you’re wasting it, though don’t get paranoid about using every moment of your time. Use of time for recreational or relaxation purposes is not a waste of time, so long as it is part of a balanced use of your time. However most of your time you should be deliberately managing, and ensuring you are using it to useful ends.

Time management is not simply about getting more and more done. You will never get done everything that you could and ought to get done. Time management includes thinking about what is worthwhile and ensuring you do the things that are important to you. Be ready to say no to doing tasks that you don’t want to get done and you don’t have an obligation to get done. Stop trying to be busy. Put first things first and don’t worry about the rest. Regularly ask yourself ‘Is this the best use I can make of my time, right now?’ If yes, get on with it. If no, stop what you are doing, and do what you believe is.

Plan for when you are going to do the things that are most important to you. Most people find their days fill up with work, and chores and stuff that has to be done, and that with anytime left over they feel that they deserve a break. Personal goals get put on the back burner and month after month you make little or no progress. To overcome this, timetable when you are going to work on your own projects. For example, get up earlier and get an hour or so done before you start the rest of the day. Or develop a habit of doing an hour or so at some particular time in the evening, or set a specific time aside at the weekends.

Look after your health. Your health is your greatest asset and good health far outweighs almost all other considerations. Health allows you to engage in productive activities, at work and at play. It allows you to enjoy the company of your friends and family. And it allows you to live with vigor.

Keeping reasonably fit and eating healthily is important not only to help keep us from wasting huge amounts of time through being tired for much of the day and being regularly sick, but also to keep us alive and capable for longer. Whilst there are no guarantees, and bad luck can happen to anyone, in general people can have an extra ten or twenty years of meaningful and productive life through moderate exercise, having a good diet, and avoiding particular habits such as smoking, lots of alcohol, and frequent dangerous drug use.

Sleep is vital to overall well-being, and many problems arise when you do not get enough sleep. Problems such as: increased susceptibility to infections and slower recovery times; general fatigue and lack of motivation; difficulty concentrating and poor memory; poor problem solving skills; general moodiness and irritability; general feeling of being overwhelmed with small problems; increased likelihood of accidents; tendency to put on weight; and increased risks of general health problems.

People vary in the amount of sleep they need but most adults need between about 6 and 9 hours a night, and children into their mid to late teens need more. If you feel tired during the day, or find yourself stressed not long after waking up, then it may be that you are not getting enough sleep, though there may also be other factors such as poor diet. If you have trouble sleeping then look to do something about it, without having to make regular use of tablets. There is plenty of advice to help develop good sleep habits. Find it and apply it.

Develop good safety habits. Danger is potentially all around us, but we are generally safe so long as we behave appropriately. If you don’t behave appropriately then you are liable in certain circumstances to be killed or injured, or get someone else killed or injured. Most fatal accidents and injuries could have been avoided if someone had paid more attention to the potential dangers in what they were doing.