You know the drill; wake up at the crack of dawn, get the kids to school, commute to work, work an 8-12 hour day, commute home… You get the picture. Even for the folks who work from home, there can be so many activities that suck time from your day. Our lives are often filled to the brim with the things we have to do and there’s little room left for the things we want to do.
In an effort to help you (and me) find more time for family, friends and heck maybe even a vacation, here are some tips to save more time every day:
- Stop searching: I cannot tell you how much time I’ve lost searching for the key to the mailbox, or my ID card or my cell phone *sigh*. Avoid this aggravating activity and place your important items in the same place every. single. day. That way, when you’re ready, you can just grab and go. For the ladies who switch purses with every outfit, put your important everyday items in a small clutch that you can move from purse to purse.
- Get ready the night before: I am not a morning person. Seriously. I am probably the crankiest and slowest moving person ever before 10 AM. One of the things that helps me most is getting everything prepared the night before. That means, picking out and ironing clothes, getting breakfast ingredients together, programming the coffee maker… Pretty much anything I’m going to be too groggy to do at 6 AM.
- Fast forward: How much time do you spend watching your favorite shows? 45 minutes? An hour? Well, use your DVR and cut that time in half! This way, you can skip all the commercials and get right to the juicy stuff. Oh, and save time.
- Clean up every day: This sounds counterproductive but hear me out. Spending 10 or 15 minutes on light cleaning every day will save you from having to spend hours cleaning after the mess has built up.
- Listen to your books: For me, this one is more about using time wisely and controlling my road rage. If you’ve got a list of books you’ve been meaning to read but just don’t have the time, why not download the audio book and listen to them while you’re in the car or out running errands? Lots of times the books are read by the authors themselves which gives it a lil something extra.
- Don’t be last minute Lucy: Whether you use an app on your phone, an outlook calendar or an actual paper calendar, keep track of everything you need to do and everywhere you need to be so that you spend less time stressing and rushing.
BMWK – What time saving tips do you have to add to the list?