So Little Time

We’ve all thought it I’m sure. ‘I don’t have time’ is such a common thought and phrase but is it because we truly don’t have time? Or is it because we don’t optimise for the time we do have?

Log your time

If you want to see how much ‘free time’ you have then try keeping a 24 hour log. Of course, you’re never going to be able to work the 16 hours of the day you’re supposed to be awake for. But… you can cut back on unproductive time. How often do you waste your commute time scrolling through the same social media over and over because you’re avoiding eye contact with other passengers? Instead bring that book you’ve been meaning to read, or save some articles that you wanted to look over. Try to do something that you personally can classify as productive towards your future goals.

Or if you’re aiming to be more productive at work you can just track your work hours. I use My Hours to track per project and per task and then it gives me an overview of what I’ve been doing. This insight can also help you to flag to your boss if a process is too slow and needs optimising, which will in turn give you more time to be productive.

Stop the Snooze

I’m really guilty for this one but you always lose out on time when you press snooze. I know I lose probably half an hour which I could spend time eating a proper breakfast and reading something off my ever expanding TBR pile. So either set your alarm later and get up straight away (I know it sounds hard okay) and you can be more productive before bed and still get the same amount of sleep. Or you can get up on time and start your day off with fitting in some of your little tasks.

Start Scheduling the little things

If you know you need X, Y and Z done by the end of the day then schedule them in for certain times. Even if they are 5 minute jobs, it helps you focus when you’ve set times for tasks. This means you’ll be more focused when doing them and less likely to waste time. So instead of having a 5 minute gap between each task, which will take you 30 minutes to get everything done, you’ve done them in 15 minutes and can now move on the next big project.

It’s also a problem if you’ve got 5million things to do and loads of them are large projects. Break up the big tasks which can often make you feel burned out with the smaller tasks in between. This will allow you to accomplish more from your to do list as you’re maximising time, and hopefully won’t make you feel exhausted as you’ve had 10 hour long sprints on different projects.

Take time for yourself

Self care is important so make sure you’re getting even the basics down. Make sure you’ve got enough time to sleep and eat. Set aside an hour a day (at least) just to relax however you want to. Make sure you’re taking showers and actually cooking so you’re feeling your best self. If you’re constantly on the go you’ll eventually lose motivation and can make yourself ill.