How to create more time in your day.

Do you wish you could “create more time”? Who doesn’t??? The reality is that although we cannot create more than 24 hours on the clock, we can “create time” in our days by adjusting both how we think about them, and by how we approach them.

Have you ever experienced that you get more done the day before you are leaving to go on vacation than you do on most other days? Why is this? It is because you approach the day differently. You are so focused on wanting to wrap things up so that you can go on vacation and not have to worry about work that, as a result, you work more efficiently and with more focus. On other days, you may tell yourself that you will get to what you can, and whatever you don’t get to will go on your list for the following day. We tell ourselves, both consciously and unconsciously, that we have more time and therefore we take more time to get things done.

What if you could be as productive as you are the day before you go on vacation every day? What if you could get two days’ worth of work done in a single day? Think about how much more you could accomplish in a day, a week, a month, and a year. The reality is that you can do this. It is a matter of how you think about time and how you approach time. It is a matter of retraining both your mind and your work habits so that you can get more done in 24 hours than you currently do. Below are some strategies for doing this.

• Work in smaller time chunks. You will use as much time as you give yourself to do something. If you give yourself 1 hour, you will take one hour. However, if you give yourself 30 minutes, you will get the same amount of work done in 30 minutes. Approaching your day like this means you can double what you get done in a day. Chunk down your time into smaller blocks of time, focus your energy during this time, and blow your own mind when you see how much more you can get done. If you want a template for scheduling your day, you can check out my Sample Daily Schedule template HERE.

• Eliminate distractions. Turn off notifications, close out windows on your computer, move your phone away from you, tell people not to disturb you, etc. Do what you have to do in order to be able to focus 100% on the task at hand. How often do you instinctively pick up your phone and look at it for no apparent reason? This habit is costing you a lot of valuable time. I like to combine the above two strategies together. I set the timer on my phone for my smaller chunks of time and then place it away from my desk. When it goes off, it gives me an opportunity to get up and stretch before going to my next task.

• Outsource the things that do not require your expertise. I know this is not possible for everyone from a financial perspective, however, if possible, doing this will create more time. If you are working on something for 8 hours per day and add in someone else to help for another 8, you now have 16 hours’ worth of work getting done during the same 8 hours on the clock. Whether it is outsourcing things like going to the grocery store or cleaning your home, or outsourcing business tasks like managing social media, emails, or scheduling, consider what your time is worth and if it makes financial sense to “create more time for yourself” by hiring help to do some of your daily or weekly tasks.

• Batch your work and tasks. Whether cleaning your home, running errands, managing your family, working at a job, or working in your business, try to batch similar tasks together when possible. This way, you can get your brain focused on one type of work which will help it work more efficiently and save you time.

• Set up rituals. Sometimes having specific rituals around tasks can help you “get in the zone” so that you can work more efficiently and with more focus. This could involve having a certain type of music playing the background, working in a certain place, lighting a candle, diffusing essential oils, or doing something physical to raise your energy right before you sit down to work. Creating rituals like this help to cue your mind that it is time to focus and get work done.

• Unclutter your environment. Living and working in an unorganized environment will result in wasted time. Such an environment can be distracting, can cause stress, and also cause you to waste time because you cannot quickly find and access things. Taking a few minutes at the end of each day to organize both your living and working space will help you save time.

Consider which of these strategies may have the biggest impact on your productivity and start implementing it as soon as possible. Once you feel like it is part of your normal routine, consider adding in other strategies until you feel like you have maxed out your productivity. Once you do that…have fun planning how you will spend all your extra time!!!

Live your best boss lady life!

 ~ Karen

Karen Vincent Solutions

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