Usually when you don't think you have the time to pray or when you just don't feel like praying is when you really need to pray the most. Prayer calms your mind and eases your frustrations. To think that someone that created every single star in the sky and can seen the tiniest atoms in our little toe is actually listening to you can be an uplifting experience. People without faith don't know what they are missing. People with faith, often take for granted what those people are missing.
Prayer is a very very useful tool.
I would say next to salvation, it is one of the greatest gifts God gave us. The ability for us to talk to him and lay all of our cares before him and to know that he hears them and acts upon them is one of the greatest things I can think of. To God, New Year's has come and gone and it did several thousands of years ago and it will come again to him in a week. God is outside of our time, but he takes the time to listen to us. IF you are one for making New Year's resolutions, I have one for you.