This article will give you 12 time-saving tips that are easy to implement and help save you a ton of valuable time while simultaneously helping you be more efficient with the tasks you're tackling!
We all spend so much time in our day trying to complete tasks and chores around the work place and our house.
It's easy for these tasks to pile up, especially when you're juggling a job, kids, or other responsibilities. You might find yourself spending hours just trying to get everything done!
This article will give you 12 time-saving tips that are easy to implement and help save you a ton of valuable time while simultaneously helping you be more efficient with the tasks you're tackling!
You will easily get back 2 hours of your time.
#1: Make a list of things that need to be done and prioritize them by importance or urgency
It is important to prioritize tasks and chores by importance or urgency, so the more important ones are done first.
You can ask yourself these questions, “If I can only do one thing today, what would it be?” Next, ask again, “If I can do two things today, what would they be?” And finally, ask one more time, “If I can do three things today, what would they be?”
I use these questions to find out what my daily and weekly big 3. Big 3 means my 3 most important tasks.
#2: Time box your day
The effective way to accomplish your tasks is through time boxing. Psychologists call this “setting an implementation intention”, which is a fancy way of saying what you are going to do and when you are going to do it.
We can plan ahead by using a time boxing template to plot out what we are going to do at what time.
For example, you could set aside 9 am to 11 am to tackle your most important task, 11 am to 12 pm to check your inbox and then 2 pm to 3 pm to have your meeting. All other timings are filled with different activities.
Every 30min or 1 hour is planned so that you don't waste time thinking what to do.
It's also important to keep these blocks of time free from distractions as possible so that you can really focus on them.
#3: Plan ahead on what to do with small pockets of time in between activities
As you are planning the day or week, plan ahead on what to do with small pockets of time in between. If you know you have spare minutes waiting for your Uber or grab, waiting for an appointment or your next meeting, then plan ahead and assign a task to complete during this waiting.
For me, I love to use these small pockets of time to edit my Blog or YouTube script. You will be surprised how much you get things done rather than using this time to scroll your social media.
#4: Use Parkinson’s Law to get things done fast
Parkinson’s law said that “work expands so as to fill the time which is available for its completion”, which signifies that the more time people dedicate in advance to a certain task, the longer it will take to complete it, even if it could have been completed in less time.
For example, according to Parkinson’s law, if someone is given a week to complete a task that should really only take them a day to finish, they will often end up unnecessarily stretching out the task, so that it will take them the whole week to complete it.
Sounds familiar?
I remember when I was a student if I was given two weeks to finish an essay, I would procrastinate and only start and finish the essay on the day before the deadline.
So knowing Parkinson’s Law, we can set artificial time constraints (i.e. deadlines), beyond the original ones that initially applied to the task. For example, if you are given a month to complete a certain task, but you know that it’s possible to get it done within a few days, you can set a deadline for yourself to finish the task within that time frame. It will save you a lot time.
"Parkinson’s law said that “work expands so as to fill the time which is available for its completion”, which signifies that the more time people dedicate in advance to a certain task, the longer it will take to complete it, even if it could have been completed in less time."
#5: Take care of tasks as soon as they come up instead of putting them off until later
It's important to take care of tasks as soon as they come up, rather than waiting to do them later. For example, if you read an email that requires a reply that takes you about 2 min, then finish the reply rather than waiting and come back later.
Such accumulation of little things will take up a lot of time later.
The same thing goes for household chores. For example, washing a few dishes immediately is way better than accumulating all the dirty dishes in the sink and washing them later. There won’t be any big mess and it takes less time to wash those few dishes.
#6: Have a place for your small things like keys, wallet
Have you ever spend a lot of time finding your keys, wallet and phone etc?
One good tip to save time from finding those items is to have a house for them. It's also helpful to have the same place for these items so that you can easily grab them and spend less time looking for them.
For me, I have a small tray to put my keys, wallet and wireless earpiece at home as well as at my workplace. Whenever I am going out or coming back, I know exactly where those items are.
Saves me time from finding them.
#7: Declutter your Workspace
Show me a neat and clutter-free table and I will show you a productive person.
Studies have shown that a cluttered desk causes you to be easily distracted as all those unnecessary items are competing for your attention. You will find it difficult to stay focus to complete your task.
When I reorganised my working desk a year ago to make it as minimalistic as possible, I found that my productivity has skyrocketed.
So next time, spend some time after your workday to organise your workspace so that you are ready to go tomorrow.
A clutter-free working desk helps in your productivity
#8: Take notes during meetings / lectures so they don't have to be re-explained later
This is a good time saving tip because it allows you to stay in the meeting for as long as possible without getting distracted. You can also take notes during this time so that you don't have to worry about re-explaining what was said during a meeting.
If you are a student, paying attention and taking notes during lectures save you more time than getting distracted and going back home to relisten to the lecture recordings.
#9: Use applications to your advantage and help you to stay focus
If you find that you're easily distracted, make use of applications like Forest, Pocket to help you stay focus.
For example, I mentioned before that I used Forest to set a time to do my focus work and grow a virtual tree at the same time. If I use my phone to do other things, my virtual tree will die. This helps me to stay focus for that set time and I complete my task.
Pocket is another app that is designed to let you save articles, videos, and websites in a click. It saves just the text, videos, or images, for a content checklist of great things you want to see later without distraction.
So do stay in touch with relevant applications to help you save time.
#10: Delegate or #outsource tasks instead of doing them yourself
Do you find yourself doing the same tasks over and over again?
Delegate or outsource those tasks to someone else so you can focus on more important things!
For me, I like to outsource some things that take up time. For example, I pay a monthly fee to someone to wash my car three times a week. It saves me time from washing the car myself and I have a clean car when I drive in the morning.
I also outsource my video editing work for my other Youtube channel.
The freelancer is way better more efficient than me and he charges an affordable fee as well. I can use this time saved on planning and shooting my videos!
#11: Plan ahead when doing errands. Batch the tasks by venue
Plan ahead when doing errands. You can batch the tasks by venue.
For example, if you need to go to the grocery store, the post office and pick up your restrung tennis racket from the tennis store, plan for it to be all in one day. T
his way, you're not running around from place to place for hours or taking multiple days to complete errands at different stores.
Another great time-saving hack.
#12: Automate recurring tasks by using apps or existing services
They are many apps and Tools that can help you to automate tasks so that you don’t have to sit there and do the work.
For example, if you want to regularly post content on your social media platforms, services likes Buffer or Hootsuite let you schedule and automate your social media posts well in advance so that you don’t need to sit at your desk every time you need to manually post something.
You can also use subscription services offered by ecommerce stores to automatically purchase things that you know will run out regularly.
For example, I pay a monthly subscription from this online store called Cowpresso to order my favourite coffee. This way I won’t be worried if my coffee runs out.
My go-to coffee website to order my coffee
If you are paying monthly bills, you can simply set up a monthly recurring payment scheme to automatically pay your bills. I find it a hassle to find time every month to pay the bills manually.
Automation frees up my time and I don’t have to worry about late payments.
Wrapping up, I shared 12 time-saving tips that are easy to implement and help save you a ton of valuable time while simultaneously helping you be more efficient with the tasks you're tackling.
The sooner we can start applying these principles, or even just 1-2 ideas from this list each week, the less overwhelmed we'll feel throughout the day.
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