10 Short Tips for Those for Whom 24 Hours in a Day Are Not Enough
Use forced pauses, create patterns, and unload your brain to get more done
1. Set aside time for rest
Newcomers to time management and perfectionists want to cram more tasks into their schedule so that not a minute of free time is left.
The approach may seem logical, but you can still improve a few significant areas.
Firstly, unforeseeable circumstances can still occur, even with tight planning. A slight delay can be enough to throw off the entire schedule completely.
Secondly, taking adequate rest is crucial to accomplish tasks more efficiently and effectively.
2. Use forced pauses to your advantage
Always take a notepad, tablet, or book with you.
If you have to wait — at the post office, hairdresser, bank, or elsewhere — you can read a dozen pages, take notes, or answer work emails.
3. Record
Don’t rely on your memory — take notes.
Record everything valuable to you in a notepad or smartphone: ideas, tasks, important names and contacts, useful links, and exciting thoughts.
Subsequently, this will save you a lot of time: you won’t have to spend a long time figuring out the name of the book you want to read or the last name of the specialist you need.
4. Create templates
An office employee spends almost a third of his working time on correspondence.
If you often get the same questions (about how to advertise on your blog, sign up for a consultation, and get a job in your company), prepare answers in advance and send them to your interlocutors.
You can also create an FAQ section on your page or website.
5. Be dual-tasking
But only if none of your activities require deep concentration.
Listening to a podcast and responding to messages simultaneously probably won’t work.
Multitasking like this only reduces your productivity.
However, some cases do not require full involvement and involve different processes. For example, you can play an audiobook while you do crafts, tidy up, walk, or run.
6. Read, don’t skim
If the information from a letter, article, or book will still be helpful to you, delve into the text and do not skim it diagonally.
Otherwise, you will have to re-read it later and waste more time than you could.
7. Unload your brain
If you feel your mind is full of plans, ideas, and tasks, stop and write them down on paper.
Recording everything makes your work easier: you will no longer be distracted by persistent thoughts like “Remember to make an appointment for your child to the dentist”.
Try to formulate things as briefly as possible and immediately divide large tasks into stages — this way, they will not be scary, and you are more likely to complete them.
8. Unsubscribe from unnecessary subscriptions
Some newsletters no longer engage you, and some you subscribed to by mistake.
As a result, hundreds of unnecessary emails distract you with notifications and prevent you from finding the information you need.
You can use the Unroll service to unsubscribe from all unnecessary mailings simultaneously.
There is also a Rollup function: with its help, you can collect essential mailings into one digest, which you can send to your inbox once a week.
9. Set rules for yourself
Uncertainty and an abundance of options force you to save time making decisions.
Create settings that will narrow the choice and make the situation more transparent.
For example, if you create a menu for the week, it will immediately become clear what you need to buy in the store, and you won’t have to think about what to cook for lunch every time.
10. Consolidate small tasks
You’ve probably heard of the two-minute rule: if something takes a minimum of time, you must do it immediately.
The idea is good, but if there are a lot of small tasks, you will be distracted by one thing or another all day.
And it takes about 23 minutes for a person to get involved in work after a distraction.
You can set aside half an hour or an hour every day to complete small tasks en masse or choose one day a month to completely dedicate to routine tasks you usually don’t want distracted by.
