Happy New Year! While you are rested and enjoying the sunshine, it's a great time to think about how to get the most for yourself in 2015. Do you often wonder why successful people seem to have so much spare time? Enough time to exercise, share holidays with family and yet, to still be completely relaxed and stress free? Those people probably have the balancing act right and are efficient at managing time.

Here are six things that really productive people do that could help:

1. Define your priorities

Defining these can often be tricky and it isn't always about work. Part of you wants to say that work is your priority, but stop before you answer this question. What do you find fun? Think about the kind of lifestyle you want and go from there. If you want to be a CEO, you're going to have to be willing to take the level of work commitment that goes with it. If you want to have a life filled with family, then work out what your priorities are in order to make this happen.

2. Do what you are best at

You don't do everything well, but what you do well is often more enjoyable and will take you less time. It's also more than likely that if you don't enjoy something, you may not compete it or do it to the best standard. Don't take on new challenges if they are too much for you to handle. Be efficient and use your best ski8lls and expertise to shine and get the job done on time.

3. Integrate your activities

If can be a real balancing act trying to manage work, fitness, a social life and family, so look at ways to incorporate these. Find someone at work who wants a workout buddy so you can exercise together in lunch hours. It also helps to try and develop you work life and career around your interests. You will soon find yourself amongst peers with similar interests which can in turn lead to a healthy and balances social life. Instead of feeling pulled between work and play while trying to keep everyone happy, aim for a healthy medium and let everyone come to you.

4. Stop wasting time

Social media can be an excellent business tool....but it can also be a very good time waster. Unless you are using a social media site to do something specific, put it away. Ignore gaming apps which send reminders and updates - these will only lead to distraction. You need to actually budget time for necessary activities with family and friends and don't do anything that doesn't energise and uplift you. Also use business tools that can help you increase productivity like Xero cloud accounting , Trello, Call Scheduler and more. 

5. Learn more

In spite of what you may think, learning can give you back time. By discovering new tools or ways to do things, you can become more time efficient and effective in your way of doing them. If it starts to drag on though, leave it. Nothing should take up your time, only enhance it.

6. Don't beat yourself up

Remember that you are only human, so don't get too down on yourself if you can't attend to everything on the list. Also remember to celebrate your achievements as you do them. Reward yourself for the items you do tick off the list because completions can act as a form of motivation for other tasks.

It's not easy to do all these things at once, but by gradually incorporating each too into day to day work and play, you might find that over time, stress levels will be lower and life more enjoyable.