Thomas Westover - Time Management Hacks: 10 Ways to Do More with Less, Change Your Habits, Increase Productivity and Accomplish More

Time Management Hacks

10 Ways to Do More With Less, Change Your Daily Habits, Increase Productivity and Accomplish More

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Declutter your spaces

Chapter 2: Declutter your mind

Chapter 3: Create a schedule

Chapter 4: Set timelines to complete your goals

Chapter 5: Streamline your everyday processes

Chapter 6: Avoid distractions

Chapter 7: Plan ahead

Chapter 8: Get up earlier

Chapter 9: Experiment with your routine

Chapter 10: Be flexible

Conclusion

Introduction

Congratulations on downloading your personal copy of Manage Your Time: 10 Ways to Do More With Less, Change Your Daily Habits and Routine, Increase Productivity and Accomplish More in Life . Thank you for doing so.

The following chapters will discuss some of the many ways to manage your time more effectively. In this fast-paced internet age we live in, people are required to do more and more each and every day. Without good time management skills, we lose time and money. There truly can be enough time in the day to get things done if tasks are managed efficiently.

You will discover how important it is to schedule your time wisely and streamline your work and personal schedule to include more. Even if you dont feel that you are bogged down with work, improving efficiency and cutting time off of tasks will lend more time to do the things you love. Who wouldnt want more time like that?

This book will explore a number of ways to improve your productivity in order to enhance your overall performance. People who are more efficient earn more, climb the ladder faster at work and have a better quality of life. Those who live their life with a plan and with purpose on a daily basis have the ability to balance work and personal tasks while still having time to take care of themselves and do things they love. Wouldnt you love to be one of those people?

There are plenty of books on this subject on the market, thanks again for choosing this one! Every effort was made to ensure it is full of as much useful information as possible. Please enjoy!

Chapter 1: Declutter your spaces

Improving productivity begins with assessing your environment. Take a look around. If you are home, look at the way in which you have organized things. Do you know where to find something should you be looking for it, or are daily tasks bogged down by finding the things you need to complete them? Take the kitchen for example. If you were to bake a batch of cookies for a bake sale, without looking would you know where your cookie sheets are? Cooking spray? The flour and sugar? If not, it is time to organize your spaces.

The goal here is to organize the spaces in which you live and work so that everything has a designated spot, and in which everything has a purpose. No task in your home should begin with a scavenger hunt. We quickly become overwhelmed and exhausted by simple tasks that are bogged down by these details. In fact, lots of projects fail to even get started as the prep work is too daunting.

Also, when your mind sees clutter, it causes mental clutter in the brain. The brain prefers to look at calm, streamlined things instead of trying to make sense of the chaos. Give your mind the environment it needs to function at its potential, instead of thinking about rearranging all of the clutter.

The task of overhauling your entire space may seem a bit overwhelming, but go ahead and get yourself organized. To make it more manageable, take it one room at a time. Start with either the room you use most often, or the worst offender when it comes to wasting your time. While it may take a good deal of time to get your spaces whipped into shape, the payoff in time and less aggravation is priceless.

If possible, set aside a good chunk of time, like a day or weekend to complete this task. Fire up the coffee maker (if you can find it) and hunker down for a day of organizing fun. Practice being efficient by giving yourself time limits for each room.

Get rid of things. Plain and simple. Organizing a lot of items in a different way really serves no purpose. Keep things in your home or office that you actually use on a regular basis. Everything else is just a door stop. Consider throwing away or donating old clothes you havent worn, kids toys that are collecting dust, or old magazines you will never re-read.

Think about what type of organization would suit your home or office the best. Closets are best organized with hangers and cubbies to put things, and offices do well with labeled filing cabinets to find important documents. It may be a good idea to invest in some storage solutions, like plastic bins and labels, just dont get carried away. Avoid bringing in more clutter in hopes it will be a solution to your problem.

If committing an entire day to this venture is not possible, take steps every day to get yourself more organized. Take a look at where you struggle to find things most and start there. If it takes more than one minute to figure out what you will wear to work, start by organizing your closet. If making dinner often turns to takeout because you dont know where your roasting pan is, tackle the kitchen. Taking just five or ten minutes every day to organize the junk drawer or your bathroom cabinets will save you time and aggravation in the future.

Remember that it is not enough to get organized, we must stay organized as well. This means picking up after ourselves on a regular basis. Put things back in the designated spot in which you found them so you will know where to find it next time. Build a few minutes into each day to collect things that are out of place and put them back.

When it comes to work, organization may become a bit more difficult. We often share workspaces with others, making it nearly impossible to control the clutter all of the time. Do what you can with any space you call your own. Use filing cabinets to store paperwork you dont often use but need to keep. Store items you use every day in your desk drawers for easy access. Keep tools like pens and pencils, staplers and hole punches on the desk for easy access. Set up your computer so that your mouse does not need to hover over a pile of papers to work.

To go a step further, you can also adjust your desktop to have only the program icons you use on a regular basis. On your internet browser, keep your most-used websites in your favorites bar for one-click access. Dont put social media pages in your favorites to avoid distractions. More on that later.

For those of you who work in the trades, organizing your tools is a must. If you are a mechanic, you likely have large toolboxes full of things you use every day, and some used just once in a while. However, you choose to organize it, make sure you know where to find everything to streamline your job. This is especially important for those who are paid by the job, not by the hour. Increase your income by increasing your job efficiency. You bet this begins with organization!

With spaces you cant control, like break rooms or meeting spaces, get help from your co-workers. It will be easy to explain to them that keeping the office tidy and clean serves everybody, and encourage people to take ownership of their own spaces. After all, if every person in your office suddenly becomes more productive, your job will become easier as well.

Organizing your spaces will not only save you time, it will save your mind. Think of all the extra things you could get done every day if you didnt waste time searching for the tools needed. Looking for things can become quite exhausting, and leaves less brain power to be more productive when it really counts.

Chapter 2: Declutter your mind

Now that your workspaces are clutter free, it is time to instill some focus in the brain. In order to reach our maximum productivity potential, the brain cannot be focused on too many things at once. We will have already taken a major step in relieving this as our environments become more conducive to organization and clarity.