“I don’t have enough time.” “I’m too busy.” “There aren’t enough hours in the day.”
On average, I hear at least one of these expressions twice a day.
And quite frankly, I’m a bit tired of it. So I decided to make it my
personal mission to rid the world of these phrases.
Okay, not really. That’s probably too ambitious of a goal. But I
would like to help people realize that they do in fact have enough time
to, lets say, go to the gym, start a new project, read a book, spend
more time with their family, or whatever else they may be skipping out
on.
You see, I’m one of the many people that is incredibly pressed for
time. I’m a Software Engineer working full-time at my present company
and I recently began working on a new venture part-time. I also make it
a point to go to the gym at least 4 times/week, spend time with my
family, and read for pleasure. So, needless to say, time is not easy to
come by. And I’ll often get asked “Anil, how the heck do you manage to
do all these things?!”. Well, it’s really quite simple:
I make efficient use of my time!
I know, that sounds like a very obvious and somewhat anti-climatic
answer. But let me break down exactly what I mean into three simple
items:
1) No more sleeping in!
And yes, this includes weekends. Some people can operate on 6 hours
of sleep, and don’t have as much a problem with this one. Others, like
me, need a good 8 hours/night. So, I follow the old adage: “Early to
bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”. I can’t
absolutely guarantee the wealth, but I can assure you that sleeping
early and waking up early every day of the week will result in a
productivity spike.
Especially on weekends! You’d be amazed at how
much more you can accomplish waking up at 8am every Saturday and Sunday
as opposed to waking up at 10am. Use the extra 2 hours to complete some
errands, go for a workout, or whatever else you may have planned for
the day.
2) Don’t waste time!
Let me give a specific example for this one: working out at the
gym. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people complain about
not having enough time to work out, and then seeing these same people at
the gym take two hours to complete what should’ve been a 45 minute
workout. I won’t go into details with regards to effective ways to work
(that’s a topic best left for another article), but in short, most
workouts can and should be completed in 45 minutes. Don’t waste time
chatting at the gym. Don’t spend an hour on the treadmill when 20
minutes of high-intensity cardio could do the trick. And if
weightlifting, don’t take 5 minutes between sets. The same theory
really applies to all aspects of your day. Evaluate what you’re doing,
and if it can be done much more effectively, then do so!
3) Multitask!
My personal favorite, and one I use, well, every minute of my day.
At work, if you’re waiting on something to complete (a long download or
upload perhaps), work on something else in the meantime. In my case,
for example, if I’m waiting on some software I’ve written to compile,
instead of just sitting around, I’ll answer emails or begin looking into
and preparing for my next task. It may only be 10-15 minutes at a
time, but doing this throughout the day ends up saving an incredible
amount of time (on average, it increases my productivity by about 2
hours/day).
And that’s about it! Simple, yet effective. I follow these three
tips and am able to fit everything I need into my daily schedule, and
leave room for some down time at the end of the day
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