How to save time effectively
Everyone of us got 24 hours per day and whatever we will try to do there is now way to expand beyond 24 hours.
What we can do is to improve our workflow by making positive changes which does include but are not limited to organisation, prioritisation and ability to anticipate your requirements, it’s a simple balance between knowing that process like that would require some time and believing that this can be achieved.
This is the process I follow personally and it has completely changed and improved my daily routine. Please take a moment to get familiar with four points I use to save significant amount of time every day.
- Do priority clarification with Eisenhower technique
You can spend some time every Friday evening or during the weekend to make a simple list of all of your goals for the upcoming week. Do a “brain dump” and make it in writing.
Once this is completed, the next and most important step is prioritising using the Eisenhower technique. The method is very simple and it will help you distinguish the difference between what is urgent and what important. As a result your life will be easier.
Start by creating a spreadsheet or do it on a piece of paper and divide it to four sectors labelled important/not important, urgent/not urgent. Then take a glance at all things on your list and sort them filling these four sectors, it will also help you creating a clear plan for a week to come.
Do treat tasks from your agenda sorted into important/urgent as top priority to complete that week, then move on to not important/not urgent stuff. This way you will see at least one hour every week. Not important and non urgent stuff you may even consider vanishing or moving into less productive time schedule.
- Create a to do list which is based on your priorities
Once you decided on what is actually important and need to be done, decide on how you want to tackle your urgent/important list.
Prioritise which of these tasks you should consider doing first, this will help you creating a priority order for all these items.
- Calendar/time blocking
This is something I have already mentioned in one of my earlier posts. Calendar will be a tool which will help you creating time/date slots to tackle all the priorities. Do take into consideration time when you are the most productive. Please take a moment to read this article which will help you with understanding this subject.
- Minimise decision fatigue by pre-deciding…
It is one of the habits which is worth developing.
Once you have all your work schedule nicely organise, the next logical step it to organise small aspects of your life which may cause decision fatigue without you even noticing! This includes choosing your outfits, preparing meals or equipment needed to do certain tasks.
Why not preparing the clothes for the whole week to come based on your schedule, this way you do this only once and you do not spend necessary time during the week. This will greatly reduce your mental strain at the beginning of each day and help you becoming more organised. You can also pre-decide on your food intake and also create a list on what you will be eating each day.
By doing it all at once you will spend far less time than doing it everyday, you will free up so much of your mental energy and discover on what really matters to you the most. I cannot recommend this enough.
BONUS TIP:
While doing these steps, please stay consistent! To begin with you will spend more time doing this but as the time pass by you will master that skill and it will take less and less time. By looking back at previous week, you will gain great insights into what actually worked best for you and what didn’t work as planned to you can improve things next time and work even better.
If you will have any troubles in developing that new habit, please feel free to take a look on this article when I covered in detail on how to build new habits for life.
What tips you have and practise to save your time? Feel free to comment below.
All the best,
Lucas
