If you have more to do than you have time to do it, you’re not alone. Regardless of how much society advances with new technology that’s supposed to enable us to do more in less time, there never seems to be enough time to do everything that needs to be done. So how can you save time?
If you could essentially add another hour or two to your day, how would you use that time?
While you can’t actually add time, you can free up additional time with these techniques:
1. Eliminate unnecessary tasks. Maybe you have too many things to do! Take a detailed look at your life and determine if there are any tasks that you’re doing that are unnecessary. There are bound to be a few things you can eliminate from your life without suffering any negative impact. EOS has a method," Keep, Kill or Combine".... let's change that to Keep (you do it) Kill (quit doing it), and Outsource (hire someone else to do it). If you are decent at it but hate doing it, outsourcing is a great option.
2. Outsource social media accounts. Social media platforms are valuable, but they are also great timewasters. By outsourcing your social, you are free from having to create content, create ads, remember to post, and more. Sounds like nirvana.
Consider outsourcing your business social media accounts to a professional service like NLC. Perhaps personally avoid social media altogether and try picking up the phone once in a while to check in on your friends, family, and business associates/clients the old-fashioned way. I think we've forgotten how to do that these days!
3. Disable notifications. Do you really need to be notified of every text, email, and app activity in real-time? Turn all of it off and take a quick peek every few hours to see if you’re missing something important.
4. Avoid perfection. Some tasks require a high level of attention. Others do not. It’s not necessary to clean out your junk folder with the same level of perfection as a surgeon performing a liver transplant. Ask yourself how well a task really needs to be done and perform it at an appropriate level of effort and detail or hire a VA.
5. Ask yourself how you can do this task better and faster. Are you sure you’re taking the best route to work? Are you cleaning your house efficiently? Think about every task you do regularly and search for a more efficient way of doing it.
6. Delegate. It’s possible to delegate much of your life. No one can eat, sleep, or exercise for you, but you can pay others to do many things for you. Imagine how much time you would have to further your business if you delegated mundane tasks.
Some people will clean, do laundry, mow grass, drive, shop, cook, do your taxes, and build your new deck for you
Agencies like NLC can manage content, design, production of web, print, trade show, social, and more.
You might even have a partner or children that can carry some of your load.
7. Schedule your day. A decent plan is lightyears better than no plan at all. Think about what you need to accomplish and make a list. Stick to your list, and you’re bound to get more done in less time each day. Perhaps a time block so you have focus time, phone call time, and meeting times segregated for efficiency.
8. Track your time. Where are you wasting time? How are you spending all of your time? You might be surprised where your time is going if you’ve never looked hard at it. I use ScreenMonitor because I am terrible at tracking time, and it takes a screen capture every 10 minutes so I can remember what I was doing.
Spend a couple of days logging your tasks and how much time you spend on them. Pay particular attention to the time spent on electronic devices and other amusing activities.
9. Consider your mealtimes. Eating takes more time than people realize. You have to shop for the food, cook it, eat it, and clean it up afterward. If you eat three meals a day, that’s a lot of time.
Some meals are much quicker than others. A sandwich and an apple eaten on a paper plate is less time and work than roasting a chicken, making mashed potatoes, and washing pots and pans.
Shop for foods that are easy to prepare and have minimal cleanup. Also, shop as infrequently as possible. Each trip to the store can take an hour or more.
Use a delivery service. Nowadays we have full meal delivery, precooked and needs to be heated. My family uses HelloFresh so that we always have a nutritious meal and all the ingredients available. (Now, it is just getting someone to cook it!) Check out all the options!
Everyone gets the same 24 hours each day to live life. Whether your 24-hour day is easy and carefree or extremely busy, it’s also helpful to find additional time to use as you see fit.
You can’t make a day last longer, but you create additional hours by being effective, efficient, and by reducing unnecessary tasks and responsibilities.
Would you like a partner to work with you on your design and marketing efforts? Give us a call for a FREE brand audit! We'd love to help! Linktr.ee/neonlizardcreative
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