"It's human nature for people to wait until the last second to make that investment," says Heather Clarke, director of advanced financial planning for Investors Group Inc. in Winnipeg.

Add in Christmas bills and the inability to see past the end of the winter, let alone forward to a retirement that is perhaps decades away, and it can be all too easy to postpone figuring out how to salt money away for retirement.

But there are several simple ways to escape the trap of waiting until the end of February to build discipline and find the funds for RRSP investments.

The easiest, says Heather Clarke, director of advanced financial planning for Investors Group Inc. in Winnipeg, is to set up systematic withdrawals.

"It's the old pay yourself first scenario," Ms. Clarke says.

"Once you make the commitment, the money is gone before you can spend it."

That kind of approach requires a change in attitude for those for whom retirement seems a lifetime away, says Don Reed, president and chief executive officer of Franklin Templeton Investments in Toronto.

Rather than a last-minute rush, "individuals should be treating [their RRSP contributions] like a utility bill," taking approaches such as automatic withdrawals or building regular contributions into their budget, Mr. Reed says.

That doesn't mean an investor has to feel pressured to choose immediately what kind of investment the money will go into for the long-term, he adds, noting that money can be set aside in something as simple as a money-market fund initially, with more permanent decisions to be made when time allows for more thoughtful decisions.

With regular contributions, investors can take advantage of dollar-cost averaging rather than running the risk of taking whatever the markets offer in RRSP season, while knowing the money is now safely in an RRSP and the potential tax breaks gained, Mr. Reed says.

Investors need to be careful, however, to remember to look past the tax receipt RRSP contributions offer, cautions Arsenio Bonifacio, retirement plan marketing team leader for Edward Jones in Mississauga.

Investors must also consider their long-term goals for retirement.

Over all, Canadians used only 9 per cent of the available RRSP contribution room of $306-billion in 1999, which indicates investors have a long way to go in making any contributions, let alone regularly scheduled investments, Mr. Bonifacio says.

Working with a planner is a way to impose some discipline, he says, adding that a professional can walk investors through their financial situation as well as their financial expectations. And if the numbers don't match, a planner can help investors manage their expectations and find alternative solutions, for example suggesting retiring at 60 rather than a planned 55, he says.

Many investors are reluctant to make a commitment because they argue they don't have the cash flow to come up with regular RRSP funds, but working through a thorough budget analysis with a financial planner can help find uncommitted cash to invest, Ms. Clarke says.

For some, the answer might be to take advantage of company plans that, like a bank's systematic-withdrawal system, take money off the top for RRSP contributions, she notes.

Those with bonuses should consider earmarking that money for their RRSP, she adds.

Another strategy for those working to correct financial-planning oversights is to save for an emergency fund, a safeguard all planners suggest. Once a target has been hit and discipline established, those deposits could be redirected to an RRSP, Ms. Clarke says.

Ideally, lump-sum contributions should be made at the beginning of the tax year, rather than at the end of the year, so that the investment is working the entire year, she adds.

To demonstrate, consider these two scenarios presented by Mr. Bonifacio, built around an annual RRSP contribution of $4,500 -- about the average contributed over the past few years.

For her 2002 RRSP contribution, Investor A invests $4,500 on Jan. 1, 2002.

Investor B, on the other hand, waits until the 2002 RRSP contribution deadline, which is the 60th day of 2003.

Assuming an average annual rate of return of 10 per cent, and after following their respective strategies for 25 years, Investor A has more than $485,000 in her RRSP while Investor B has about $440,000 in his RRSP, a difference of $45,000.

"Changing to a systematic investment program will not give you as dramatic a benefit as investing a year earlier, but it may be more manageable and allow you to take advantage of dollar-cost averaging," Mr. Bonifacio notes.