The truth is, we all have the same amount of time, and it’s finite and in great demand. But some of us have made the time for doing the things we love doing, and others have allowed the constant demands and pressures and responsibilities of life to dictate their days.

I once asked Po Bronson how he beats writer’s block. His answer was “write about what makes you angry.” It works like a charm.

I'm about to introduce you to the theory and practice of what I believe to be the forgotten Prime Minister of All Productivity Hacks: asking for help.

Too often our important-but-not-urgent tasks get put on the back burner… and never make it to the front burner. When you get busy with urgent tasks, you may feel pressured to finish those first before you can justify doing anything less urgent. But then when you finally catch a break, you may decide you need some downtime to rest and regenerate, so those not-urgent-and-not-important tasks fill in the time before the next outbreak of urgency. This pattern can continue for years with the important tasks always seeming just a few days away, but somehow they never reach the action phase.

Getting Things Done, commonly abbreviated as GTD, is an action management method, and the title of a book by David Allen.GTD rests on the principle that a person needs to move tasks out of the mind by recording them somewhere. That way, the mind is freed from the job of remembering everything that needs to be done, and can concentrate on actually performing those tasks.

Picture this: I sit down to write a Lifehacker article. "Wonder if anyone at Ask Metafilter knows good software for burning DVDs," I think. Click-click. "Oh look, someone's had a traumatic breakup!" Three hours later, no article's been written, and I want to throw myself out the window. Sound familiar?