With decades to go, it's easy to get caught in the trap of delaying the activities and events you promised yourself you'd undertake. Whether life seems short and merry or long and boring, there's only so much of it. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright once observed that people build “most nobly when limitations are at their greatest.” You can use the limits on your time or resources to achieve your most desired accomplishments.

Consider how productive you are, for example, before you leave for a vacation, or consider how well you do on a task when a deadline has been imposed (even though you might not enjoy having the deadline or like the person who imposed it). As the author of many books, I can testify about deadlines. Each contract imposed deadlines, and these limits actually helped me be productive.

These limits may not always appear helpful or supportive, yet you undoubtedly have many of them confronting you. Here are some examples of limits you may be facing right now:

• You have to pick your kids up by 5:30 P.M. each weekday.

• You have to turn in a work log on Fridays.

• You can work about nine hours daily before your mind turns to mush.

• Your hard drive is almost full, and you won't spring for a larger drive.

• Your contract is ending in 11 weeks.

• You have only 24 minutes left on your lunch break.

• The oil in your car needs changing after another 3,000 miles.

• A loved one is nearing the end of his or her life.

• You get paid every two weeks.

What limits do you face in your career or personal life that you could employ to propel yourself to higher productivity? When you learn to harness these for the benefit they provide, you begin to reclaim your time. I suggest that your daily, primary limit be finishing your day so that you leave work at the normal closing hour.