b. Every night when you retire fix upon the hour at which you wish to get up in the morning.  In connection with your waking at that hour, think of all the sounds that will be apt to be occurring at that particular time.  Bar every other thought from your consciousness and fall asleep with the intense determination to arise at the time set.  By all means, get up instantly when you awaken.  Keep up this exercise and you will soon be able to awaken at any hour you may wish.

[Sidenote:  How to Compel Recollection]

c. Every morning outline the general plan of your activities for the day.  Select only the important things.  Do not bother with the details.  Determine upon the logical order for your day’s work.  Think not so much of how you are to do things as of the things you are to do.  Keep your mind on results.  And having made your plan, stick to it.  Be your own boss.  Let nothing tempt you from your set purpose.  Make this daily planning a habit and hold to it through life.  It will give you a great lift toward whatever prize you seek.

Rule III. Search systematically and persistently.

When once you have started upon an effort at recollection, persevere.  The date or face or event that you wish to recall is bound up with a multitude of other facts of observation and of your mind life of the past.  Success in recalling it depends simply upon your ability to hit upon some idea so indissolubly associated with the object of search that the recall of one automatically recalls the other.  Consequently the thing to do is to hold your attention to one definite line of thought until you have exhausted its possibilities.  You must pass in review all the associated matters and suppress or ignore them until the right one comes to mind.  This may be a short-cut process or a roundabout process, but it will bring results nine times out of ten, and if habitually persisted in will greatly improve your power of voluntary recall.

[Sidenote:  Formation of Correct Memory Habits]

Rule IV. The instant you recollect a thing to be done, do it.

Every idea that memory thrusts into your consciousness carries with it the impulse to act upon it.  If you fail to do so, the matter may not again occur to you, or when it does it may be too late.

Your mental mechanism will serve you faithfully only as long as you act upon its suggestions.

[Sidenote:  NOW!]

This is as true of bodily habits as of business affairs.  The time to act upon an important matter that just now comes to mind is not “tomorrow” or a “little later,” but NOW.

What you do from moment to moment tells the story of your career.  Ideas that come to you should be compared as to their relative importance.  But do this honestly.  Do not be swayed by distracting impulses that inadvertently slip in.  And having gauged their importance give free rein at once to the impulse to do everything that should not make way for something more important.