Our schedules today seem to be busier than ever. Between long work days, getting kids to and from school functions and extracurricular activities, and handling home responsibilities, it can be difficult to find time to do things you enjoy. Like golfing, dancing, or just sitting for a moment and taking a deep breath.
However, having a lot of time obligations and constraints doesn’t mean that you can’t find a few minutes every day to engage in your favorite hobby, get some much-needed exercise, or schedule that relaxing massage. Here’s how to do just that.
Step Up Your Online Game
There are approximately 1.79 million digital buyers worldwide, which signals that, as a society, we’re pretty familiar with online shopping and how it saves time.
Yet, Supermarket News reports that 87 percent of consumers still prefer to purchase their groceries in person, an activity that, on average takes 41 minutes per visit and that doesn’t even take into consideration time spent driving to and from the store.
Shopping online for these staples can really save time over the course of a year, particularly if you tend to stop more than once a week. Try to find other things you can buy online as well and you may be able to open even more time.
Quit Multi-Tasking
While it may seem like handling multiple things at the same time can help you cross items off your to-do list faster, multi-tasking often has the opposite effect of slowing you down.
The reason for this is because, by not focusing on just one thing at a time, each individual task actually takes you longer to do. This lack of focus also reduces the quality of your final product, negatively impacting your results and potentially threatening your work.
A better alternative is to set aside time to do just one task before moving on to the next. In the end, you’ll likely find that you get more done.
Get Comfortable Asking for Help
If you feel like you have to do everything yourself, either because you’re super independent or don’t trust anyone else to do things the way you like, you can free up a lot of time by asking others for help.
This isn’t always easy to do, but once you do it a few times, you may find that you enjoy your free time enough to face the discomfort.
To start, simply accept help when it’s offered. Once you get used to that, it isn’t as big a stretch to start asking for help when you need it.
Stop Procrastinating
When you procrastinate, you usually wind up touching the same item on your to-do list multiple times before actually getting it done. Like email, for instance.
If you open a message, then set it aside to handle later, you wind up reading it a few times before taking care of it. While it doesn’t seem like much, this can really add up over time.
So, once an item appears on your to-do list, handle it immediately if you can. And if you can’t, place it on your schedule at a later date so you don’t have to look at it again until then.
