Finding Ways To Save Time And Accomplish More Toward Goals
You want to be successful, no matter what kind of goals you set for yourself. But the reality can often be hard: we seem to have less and less time in a day. Inevitably, this leads to difficult decisions, such as whether or not you should even go grocery shopping with the three minutes you have left in your lunch break.
It's too easy to get mired down by this balance of time and work — until eventually it overwhelms us completely.
Commonly, we tend to focus on the "more" — and that's a good thing. You should always strive to be productive and do more things. But at the same time, it's equally important not to get too caught up in the "more" or else you'll burn out (and your goals will go unaccomplished).
I've been there myself — I watched my own life spiral for no reason other than needing more time whenever I got too busy. So here are some useful tips for saving your time (and still accomplishing your goals).
Limit your cellphone usage.
If you're a smartphone user, it's essential that you limit your usage to specific times. Like I said, your time is limited. And if you're using your phone as a sort of all-purpose productivity tool (with social media, shopping and video games on top of email and texting), it can be hard to consistently get things done throughout the day.
So if you want to use your phone for the things it does best — like taking images and texting — try this: do not use your phone for anything except that. There are apps for this, such as Freedom . For instance, Freedom turns off all notifications from Facebook on its own — including likes (and un-likes) from friends.
If you want to be more productive on your phone, try automating some of those functions with Tasker . (Tasker is Android-only, but you can use it on your iPhone.) You can do a lot of things with Tasker, such as create an alarm for Facebook notifications that only play when your phone is locked (so you don't have to unlock it every time), or adjust how your phone looks based on how much time and effort you put into work.
You can automate many other things as well — learning new skills automatically, setting up recurring bills in your bank account and more.
When you're through with your work, put your phone on Airplane mode.
Once you're done with your phone and all of its other functions, put it back in airplane mode. The next time you need to make a phone call or send a text message, turn on airplane mode and jump right back into productivity — you'll have saved yourself 30 minutes of "down time" that you wouldn't have needed otherwise. [For Android users and iPhone users, check out this article's suggestions for how to set these up. — Ed.]
But remember — it's still work. If you want the job done, do it the right way (and the first time).
If you're working on something specific, learn to automate it.
Whether you're writing a report, making a YouTube video or just doing research online, there are many things that can be automated when doing work. Learn to use keyboard shortcuts and macros to speed up your work and make it easier for you.
Also, try to find ways to automate the work itself. For instance, if you're doing research online, you can make a keyword list that automatically saves all the pages you find in a specific file (such as an Evernote notebook). Why do this manually? Save your time for more important things.
Plan out your day and week ahead of time.
Time is one thing we have plenty of — but we don't plan enough for it in advance. The result? You spend more time doing things than planning out how to get them done.
Instead of getting caught up in simply planning for "more," try to actually plan out your week. Use the tactics here to make sure you have planned time saved, and then schedule your tasks accordingly (again, after understanding their time commitment). [For more information on how to keep track of your time, check out our article on this subject.]
By planning ahead and setting goals for when you have the task completed, you'll save yourself a lot of stress and worry by forcing yourself to actively work toward your goals. If everything is already planned and accounted for, there's no guessing what needs to be done and when.
Make a habit of doing things early in the day.