Do you ever feel like there’s not enough hours in the day? You’re not alone. A great many people feel overworked, stressed to the max and generally unable to relax. When you’re stuck between jobs, household chores, the school run and other time-draining tasks, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Here are some ways that you can reclaim some critical hours during the week and free up some time for you!
- Analyse your week
If you can’t monitor it, you can’t measure it. To understand where all your time is going you need to do a thorough log of all your activities during the week. Jot down everything you do during the day and how long it takes you. You’ll then easily be able to see what’s taking up the most time, or where you could shave some valuable minutes. Every little helps and it could all add up to an extra half an hour where you can put your feet up and enjoy a cup of tea.
- Adopt a to-do-list
One way to achieve more out of your day and free up time later on is to adopt a to-do-list. You can list all your priorities in once place and then highlight what is most important or urgent so that you can focus your energies in the right areas.
- Take breaks
Believe it or not - you will get more work done if you spend less time working. Studies show that one of the most effective ways of working is the so-called Pomodoro Technique. Said to improve focus and increase creativity it encourages people to work in 25-minute periods, taking a 5-minute break after each period. After four of these 25-minute periods have passed you then take a 15-minute break. After employing this technique for 7-20 days users reportedly notice a profound difference in their ability to handle their workload.
- Reduce your exposure to distractions
Once people begin to observe their daily tasks, social media is frequently reported as one of the major drains on time. The instant gratification of checking social media feeds on websites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – even just a couple of times every hour – can add up through the day. One way to check your social media less frequently is to turn off your notifications on your mobile phone for everything apart from calls and texts and only checking them at the end of the day.
- Group similar tasks together
Another way to free up lots of time is to group similar jobs together. Whether it’s making phone calls, doing the ironing, sorting through belongings, paying bills or something entirely different. If you prepare everything you need for that particular run of jobs, then you will be able to blast through it much quicker.
- Plan your weekly shop and your meals
A big source of food waste and wasted time comes from not preparing yourself for your weekly meals. If you plan out exactly what you’ll be eating for the week then you save extra trips to the shop or supermarket to top up on what you have you in your cupboards. If you want to go one step further, you could even prepare your meals for the next 7 days one night a week and freeze them ready for you to take to work or quickly dish out in the evenings.
- Multitask
When it comes to household chores you can get much more done if you take on mini-chores as you pass through the house and especially if you can encourage your whole family to adopt this approach as well. For example, if you have to pick up some bread from the shop and the dog also needs taking for a walk – why not do both together? It sounds simple but if you do this regularly it can be very effective.
- Be well rested
It might sound counter-productive but going to bed early is one of the best ways to get the most out of your day. A calm, rested brain is likely to handle day-to-day tasks much easier than one which stayed up all night binging on Netflix dramas!
We hope you find a few of these things effective in reclaiming hours from your busy schedule. Have any of these strategies worked for you? Want to share your own tips? Tweet us at @TimeForYouGroup or visit our tips and advice page for more inspirational content: https://timeforyou.cleaning/tips-and-advice/.
