Do you feel like you’re always busy? Like you just don’t have enough time to do all of your work and enjoy your life? That means it’s time to make some adjustments.
The main thing you have to keep in mind is that time is a finite resource. It’s the only thing that you can’t buy more of and many people don’t want to think about that, but the only way to get more time is to be aware of it.
So I’m going to dive deep into how you can change your mindset about time management and start getting more hours out of your day. By the end of this article, you’ll have enough time to work all day, relax in the evening, and do something that you’ve been wanting to do, like take cooking classes.
Start looking at how you spend your time.
You won’t really know where all of your time is going until you look. This requires a lot of honesty on your part because you have to account for what you are doing every hour of every day.
I know when I first did this I wasn’t happy with what I saw. I couldn’t believe I was watching 3+ hours of TV every day! Another thing I noticed was how much time I was wasting daydreaming throughout the day. There were just hours of time not being spent on anything in particular.
That’s why you have to be honest. Without knowing what you’re spending time on, you won’t find the time you want. The first thing you need to do is keep a time journal. You can use a spiral or you can do it on your phone.
Just have something where you can write down exactly what you were doing each hour of the day. Keep track of every thing you do for about a week and then look at what you did. Do you see any time that you could have used for something else?
You have to learn which things you need to do versus what you want to do. This might sound corny, but it’s one of the most useful things you can do to get control over your time.
Look through your time journal to see the things that you need to do every day. That includes things like sleep, work, basic hygiene, etc. Those are non-negotiable tasks because you can’t do anything else unless these are done.
Next look at all the stuff you didn’t need to do, but you did anyways. You could have watched Hulu, played video games, spent time shopping online, etc. Those things take up a lot of time, but they are things you could skip if you needed to. These are negotiable tasks because you don’t have to do them to accomplish anything.
Keep your time journal going for another week or two to get a clear record of how you spend your time every day. That will help you find any habits that you can break and it will help you figure out where all of your time has been going.
Doing a time analysis is a good exercise for everyone. Whether you have kids or not, whether you have a regular work schedule or not, your time is going somewhere and you do have time that could be used for something else.
Once you know what your habits and patterns are, you start to see places you can get extra time. It will be a hard transition at first because you have a routine and routines are hard to break, but when you do it, nothing will be able to stop you from getting what you want.
Make time for the important things.
I’m going to be honest with you. This is the part where you’ll have to break your routine and change some of your habits. It sounds easier than it is because your routine is how you are and how you have been living your life every day.
You’re going to be telling yourself to start living a different, better life and you’ll get some internal kickback. A part of you will resist these changes and that’s ok. It’s normal and you’ll get past it.
Here is where you start prioritizing your daily tasks and sticking to them. Until you finish everything on your priority list for the day, you can’t do anything else. It sounds harsher than it really is. All it means is that you have to build up your discipline.
Your priority list for the day doesn’t have to be crammed with everything you want to get done this week. It just has to have 2–7 things that will move you closer to where you want to be.
To-do lists are nice, but a priority list is the best. You won’t get bogged down with a bunch of little things to do. You’ll have your two or three things you need to do for the day and that’s it.
Let’s say you are trying learn web development as an example. So your priority list for the day could be something like this:
- Go to work (8 hours)
- Study web development (30 min)
- Practice web development (30 min)
This is a basic example of what your priority list can look like. You always want to have an amount of time attached to what you are doing for the day. That will help you keep track of how efficiently you work.
Keeping your priority list short and focused is how every successful person has become successful. You have to figure out what you want and start making it a priority. When you do that, then it’s only a matter of time before get what you’ve been working for.
Making time for the important things not only helps you reach your goals faster, but it helps you work smarter. You know exactly what you are trying to accomplish for the day and you know how much time you’re spending to do it.
That gives you a double whammy of accomplishment and discipline so you get two benefits out of one change. The key to changing your mindset is how consistent you are. In the beginning, it’s fun to start a new routine and a new way of scheduling your time.
Although towards the middle, things start to change. You might start to miss some of the old things you used to do even though you see how much progress you’ve made. Well hang in there. Once you make it through the rough spot, you’ll have a much better time.
Learn to say no.
A lot of people have a hard time with this one. I know I did in the beginning. You can’t let people waste your time. Period. When you constantly say yes to everyone and do things that won’t get you closer to your goal then you are wasting your time.
That’s not to say you have to say no to everything. Building and maintaining your relationships is the most beneficial thing you can do for yourself, but you have to watch it.
You don’t need to go out for dinner with your friends every other day nor do you need to do things just because someone asks you to. This will make some people upset and it might make some people stop talking to you. That’s ok. The people who want you to succeed will learn to accept it.
And this is only temporary! Remember that. Once all of your priorities are taken care of and you’ve done something to get you closer to your goal, you have all of that time left to do whatever you want.
You also need to learn to say no to yourself. There will be times you finish all of your priorities earlier than you expect and you will be tempted to keep working. This is not ok. When you are done for the day, you are done.
I remember I used to cram every minute in my day with some type of productive work. You know what that does? It leads to burn out. Anything you are trying to do will take time so learn to practice patience. Trust me, you don’t want to deal with burn out.
On the flip side, you need to learn to say no to laziness. After you finish all of your stuff like going to work, getting groceries, and cleaning up your place, it’s overwhelmingly tempting to not do anything else. It’s much easier to go out to eat, watch tv, and hang out with friends instead of practicing your web development.
It feels like a big sacrifice at first, but once you finish your priorities you’ll have a lot more time and money to do the things you like. Saying no takes some nerve at first, but when you realize you don’t have to go to your friend’s 12 year old’s cello concert, it’ll feel so good.
When you realize you are getting your daily non-negotiable tasks out of the way and you still have time left over to work on your goals and relax, saying no gets a lot easier.
Now you know everything you need to get at least an extra 3–10 hours out of your week. It requires you to make some changes in your life and these changes will take time to adjust to, but when you do, you’ll never look back.
If you’ve considered learning web development to make more money, you can download my free HTML tutorial. Over 250 people have already used it to get started. Why wouldn’t you use it too?
