We all get the same twenty-four hours a day. Yet some people seem to be living a charmed life and find a way to devote more time to enjoying what they want to do, as opposed to what they feel they have to do each day. Only you can decide what to do with your time. Here are a few methods to stake your claim on the hours in your day and waste fewer precious minutes on tedious tasks. Then you can enjoy spending more time on what’s important to you.
Covet your Creative time
- Get up Early or Stay up Late. Only you know when you’re the most productive. This sought-after time is when you discover your productive rhythm and tasks are completed effortlessly. Committing to even a half hour each day can make a difference. You can produce more—and often better—during this creative time.
Here’s more information on determining and utilizing your most creative time of the day. - Make it Happen. Hook up with a like-minded buddy and share your productivity plan. Together you can ensure neither is indulging in procrastination during your planned time.
- Schedule this time on your calendar
- Be accountable and check in with each other with an email or text. Guilt and peer pressure do wonders for incentive.
- No excuses. Skipping once or twice might sound like a good idea, but there’s always an available excuse. Make this time your priority. If necessary, reduce your scheduled time. Even ten minutes will help you work toward your goal. Keep the habit fresh and you’ll always be ready to dive back in.
Organize Your Time on the Computer
- Race against the clock. A big time suck for many people is email and social media. Set a timer for a half hour, or an hour, and use that time to alternate between working on specific tasks and social media.
- Organize your emails with folders and star the most important and save them for later
- Clean out those old emails festering in your inbox that you might like to read. If it’s too hard to get rid of them, put them in a shiny new folder you can label ‘Check out later’. If later never comes then they weren’t that important.
- To expedite your email organization, try changing the order of your emails. Sort them into ones that are starred, by sender, or most recent.
- Plan ahead and schedule your social media. Using Hootsuite, or Roundteam so you aren’t interrupting your productive time.
Click For more tips on email management.
Kill Two Birds with One Stone—Multi-Task
- Listen and Learn. All those podcasts and webinars you want to listen to?
- Save the replay and then play it while you: sort email, post on social media, research, edit, or write—while you’re listening.
- Energize with Exercise
- Have a treadmill? Make a DIY treadmill desk and get out of the chair for some much needed movement while editing, writing, reviewing emails or listening to podcasts/webinars.
- No treadmill? Sometimes a walk around the block will get creative juices flowing so you can return to work fresh and inspired.
Here’s an example of a DIY Treadmill Desk.
- Sneak in snippets of creativity. For when you physically have to be somewhere but your mind wants to play—let it. Stockpile those snippets of inspiration. Here are a few fun methods to keep your creative writing juices flowing on a dull day.
Those Stolen Minutes Add Up
- Inspiration can’t be forced, and it often strikes at the least expected times. Be prepared to jot notes and ideas on a tablet, your phone’s notepad, or even a napkin will work in a pinch.
- Be ready. Make a ‘go-to’ bag that includes all of your essential supplies.
- If your priority is writing the be sure to include pens, tablet, a portable laptop table and take it all with you. Write on your lunch break, while your kids are in activities, or pull out your supplies during television commercials.
- Stop perfectionism. Most people are their own harshest critics. Let your writing sit while you work on something else. Return to it, and do another pass through, and then either seek another opinion, hire a proofreader or send it out.
Make Your Time a Priority
- Incorporate one new step a day, or each week, to change your routine until they become habits.
- Track a few days to determine how you divide your time. Determine where you might be wasting time, or where you can carve out a few minutes which could be better utilized and begin making a new habit.
- Hire someone else to help you write articles or posts for your social media or proofread what you’ve completed.
Change your mindset. Whether it’s writing, exercising or planning time for a new endeavor, don’t call your new endeavor a hobby. You do a hobby when it fits in your schedule. This is your new job—make it part of your schedule. If you only go to work when you feel like it, you won’t succeed.
You have twenty-four hours. Can you carve out an hour to commit to what’s important to you?
