Have a Better Day with These Time Savings Tips

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Have a Better Day with These Time Saving Tips

We all have the same amount of time every day, but some people seem to be able to get so much more done than others. I talked to one of those people recently and I was surprised to find out how she was able to get so much done in a day. We all waste time occasionally. I wish I could say that I never wasted my time. Who doesn’t love watching cat and baby videos?   With these time saving tips, you can have a better and more productive day, and who knows, you may even have enough time to follow us on social media.

One of the worst things about wasting time is that it can hold you back from being productive and having fun with family, friends and other loved ones.

If you can keep track of how you are spending and wasting your time each day, then you will be able to do things like:

• Make some more money.
• Pay off debt.
• Spend more time with your family and friends.
• Gain more knowledge about a subject you are interested in.
• Have more fun.
• Develop and learn a knew skill
• Travel more
• Live your dreams…

Use our Daily Time Tracker, to write down each task you do throughout your day and see where your time wasters are. You would be surprised how much time we waste each day.

Download the Daily Time Tracker Here

It takes time to figure all of this stuff out.  It takes time to figure out where your time goes. If you’re looking for time saving tips to make your dream life a reality, then we have your back!  Just imagine what you can do with an extra 5 to 10 hours or even more hours in one week. These time saving tips can help you have a better day and live the life you have always wanted. Because it is a beautiful life after all.

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The problem with wasting time is that you probably don’t even know you are doing it. There are thousands of little time wasters that we do every single day. You may be aware of the biggies, but it’s the little things that we do that waste hours and hours a week.

Hopefully the time saving tips in today’s post will help you find more hours in your week.

Here are 12 time saving tips to help you have a better day and stay in control of your life:

1.Where did all the time go?

It is good to start with how you are spending your time today. Do you lay in bed for 5 to 10 minutes pondering the world’s problems before you actually get out of bed?  Write it down in our Daily Time Tracker. Do you sit at the computer to write an email and 20 minutes later you still haven’t started that email because you were distracted by a text from your mom containing a cat meme? Write it down in our Daily Time Tracker.  Keep track of how you spend your time for one to two days and you will get an idea of when you are wasting time and what you are doing to waste your time.

2. Get Organized

I found studies from The Street and The Organizing Boutique that said:

-Women spend 16 minutes every weekday morning trying to decide what to wear and around 14 minutes on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

-Women with shoe racks were 7 times more likely to be on time for work than women without shoe racks. (according to Ikea.com)

-Executives waste six weeks each year searching for lost documents,

-30% of all employees’ time is spent trying to find lost papers.

-On average, people spend 6 minutes every morning looking for their car keys.

Looking for things that are missing or lost is a gigantic time waster!  Having a place for everything and putting everything in its place could be the key to saving time, stress and maybe even your job.

Learning to be more organized can be a hard thing to adjust to, but it can really help you have a better day. Here are several helpful time saving tips for becoming organized:

• Put the scissors and other items away when you are finished using them.
• Make a plan for your day and stick to it.
• Make a list of things you need to get done today so you don’t forget anything.
• Set a timer for 15 minutes and declutter every day.

3. Have a to do List

This is one of the time savings tips that has saved me many hundreds of hours over the years. I have carried around a to do list since I was in college. Before there was smartphones and super cool apps, I carried around a 3×5 index card in my purse or pocket. (I usually broke a pencil in half to fit it in my pocket as well.)

The older I get, the more important my to do list has become. I would feel completely lost without it.

but putting a to do list together doesn’t have to be hard. I keep my to do list on my phone, and it’s just a simple list of things I need to do throughout the day, week, month, and year. I can even set reminders so I don’t forget when things need to be done. Others find that planners work for well for them too.

This is one of the time saving tips that will help you in every aspect of your life, as you can have a to do list for work, home, etc. Your to do list will keep you on track so you don’t forget what needs to be done on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, which in turns keeps you motivated towards your goals.

4. Stop checking your email all day long.

I was pretty bad at this one for a long time. I checked my email many many times a day. Because I know that opening an email that offered 50% off something from my favorite store would usually end with me taking out my credit card, I started listening to that voice in my head that said, “you don’t need that”. Now I don’t check email nearly as often.

It may not seem like we are spending that much time checking our email, the time and focus it takes to switch back and forth from one task to another or one thought to another can add up. Have you ever opened your email to look for a specific item and then 20 minutes later, you forgot why you opened your email in the first place?

For these time saving tips, I suggest setting aside a specific time every day to check email. You can even make it a game and say that you can only check email after you finish your to do list, or unload the dishwasher (any task will do).

I also tell Alexa to set a timer for 15 minutes on the Echo Dot 

The idea is that when the timer goes off, I must close the email.  You may want to work down to only checking your email just a few times a day, or even once a day. (I did not just write that did I?)

5. Stop watching so much television.

Did you know that the average person watches tv an average of 35 hours per week? I love a good tv show, but seriously?  That is equivalent to a full-time job. When my kids were little, I admit, the tv was on a lot more than it is now. Some people have the tv on even when they don’t watch it to keep them company.

At the beginning of this post I wrote that I talked to a person who got a lot done every week and asked her how she does it. Well, she no longer owns a television. Can you imagine what we could do in a day by watching half of the television we watch?

I have replaced my television watching with learning about blogging and working on this blog. There is so much to learn when it come to having a blog. I need all of the time I can get.

6. Organize your personal finances.

Time saving tips seem to spill over into every aspect of life. When we stop wasting time, our finances get a little better and vice versa. When I spent less time reading emails from my favorite stores, I started spending less money. Organizing finances may include things like creating a budget, and having a filing system for your bills.

Setting up autopay on your bills can be a great time saver. If your bank or credit union has an app, that is a great way to see and track your finances on all of your accounts.

7. Stop procrastinating.

Procrastinating is a big fat time waster. Sometimes we would rather do ANYTHING else besides the task at hand.  Usually that “anything” is watching TV, or cleaning an area of your home you have already cleaned 20 times that week.

We procrastinate for many reasons. Some reasons may be the fear of failure, anxiety, stress, or not having a system set in place.

I have a full-time job, so when I get home from work, I don’t always want to jump on the computer and research my next blog post or post something on social media.

When we figure out why you are procrastinating, we can then create an action plan to take part in one of the most helpful time saving tips.

When I walk in my house after work, I tell myself that I just need to spend 15 minutes on my blog.  I tell Alexa to set a timer for 15 minutes and get to work. When that 15 minutes is up, I am usually in the middle of the task and then I don’t want to stop.

Find out what works for you and see where it takes you so you can stop procrastinating.

8. Stop diving into social media.

I am actually new to social media. I didn’t have a Pinterest, Snapchat, or an Instagram account until this year. I very rarely used Facebook and Twitter. But that has changed since starting this blog. I can see the fascination with social media. It would be nuts to ask anyone to cut out social media all together.

However, according to Statista, globally, the average person spends 135 minutes a day on social media. That is over 2 hours a day. That is a lot of time.

Social media has also been linked to increased depression. You are seeing a sort of fake side to most people’s lives. They are showing you their best and it isn’t always real. So If you find that the time you are spending on social media is impacting you in a negative way, then consider closing those accounts or spend less time on them.

You can use the good old timer trick and set your timer for 15 minutes and when that time is up, you move on to something else.

9. Stop multitasking.

There is really no such thing as multitasking. Only a very small percentage of the world can actually do two things at the same time. Instead our brain shifts from one of the activities we are participating in to another and not giving really either activity 100%. So when we are on the phone and driving at the same time, our ability to drive decreases by about 37%

 

Our brain switching back and forth from one activity to another takes a lot of brain power and is not really healthy for us in the long run.

10. Stop hitting the snooze button.

How many times have you hit the snooze button before getting up? This has actually never been a problem for me. I guess I am one of the lucky ones. When I was a kid, my alarm clock didn’t have a snooze button. If I turned it off it was off. I would have to reset the alarm. That was too time consuming, so I never used a snooze button.

When I got older and finally had an alarm clock with a snooze button, I never saw the point of using it. I actually don’t know where the snooze button is on my alarm. I am pretty sure it has one though.

Sleeping for those two minutes after your alarm goes off isn’t going to change your life. There are actually many scientific studies proving that hitting the snooze button does nothing good for you.

Try putting your alarm clock across the room. Maybe set your alarm for the time that you actually need to wake up. That way, you get your adrenaline going and you are ready to hit the ground running.

Be positive and grateful.

This is one of the time saving tips that may be hard to implement, but being positive and grateful will put a better spin one having a better day.

Instead of focusing on the negative like feeling guilty about missing an appointment or that you are a failure because you were late to your kids’ soccer game, take some time to be grateful and happy that you are doing your best.

We are all a work in progress. We can all work on these time save tips that will help us be more productive. Negativity is a big time waster, because it keeps us from finding ways to move forward and be productive.

What are some ways you save time? Do you have time saving tips that help you get more done in the day?

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