How to Find More Time

You probably know that the very title of this article is a contradiction.  Can there be more time?  Did anyone discover more than 24 hours in a day?  Was it hiding somewhere and we just didn’t know about it?

Of course, we know that there isn’t such thing.  But there IS such thing as using the time that you have more productively.  In other words – how to achieve more results and better results within the same amount of time that we all have in a day.

Here’s how.

1.       Act vs. React.  One of the worst situations that we can find ourselves in is reacting to something.  We didn’t know it was coming.  We didn’t anticipate it happening during a day.  So we suddenly are in a reactionary mode, where things are spinning out of control, time is going by, and the planned to-do list isn’t diminishing.  To be in the state of acting ( vs. reacting) takes planning.  Planning takes some time.  So the first tip is to take the necessary time to plan your day, your week, your month, your year.  Be sure each day has time planned in for the unexpected.

2.       When planning, use a calendar.  They say that setting goals without a timetable is like dreaming.  Same logic applies to planning.  To create a plan without aligning it with your calendar is like writing a long college term paper on “alienating identity in post-modern literature”– after all that work, you wonder what was the point.  Your plan needs to have dates next to each line item.

3.       Make only 1 to-do list.  How many of you have a to-do list?  How many of you have multiple to-do lists?   How many of you have multiple to-do lists AND have additional post-its, scraps of paper, napkins, perhaps with additional reminders of what needs to be done?  The key to being productive is keeping ALL of your to-do’s in one place.  It should be a simple table with 4-5 main categories, in which your tasks fall.  Everything that comes up during the day, should go onto this to-do list (not on a   scrap, post it, or napkin)

4.       Don’t do it as often.  Ask yourself:  how many times a day do you check your email?  How many times a day do you check your phone voice mails?  How many times a day do you check your texts?  How many times a week do you check your mail?  I challenge you to cut that number down in half.  Or better yet even more than half.  For example I check my mail only once a week. Yes, that physical mail comes into our mail box.  Only once a week.  I can’t tell you what a relief it is! 

5.        “When will I do it VS. I have to do it”.  I hear it time and time again:  “oh, yeah, that marketing thing, I really have to do it.  Someday, definitely. “  Or “I know I need to be doing more networking, I’m really going to do it”.  Make an appointment with yourself right now, put it into the calendar, and respect that appointment with yourself.  Get into the habit of asking yourself “When will I do it?”  vs. saying “I have to do it”.