🦩3 Ways to Stop Wasting Your Time

Stoics say: The present is a precious moment. To rush through it is profoundly arrogant and reckless. "Memento mori," soak it in.

So, what's the practical application? How we view time impacts our entire life, including work.

In our part 3 of productivity, we're sharing the last tips to help you gain more control of your day and move away from the hurried and overwhelmed life. And it starts with a simple 2-letter word.

3 Ways to Stop Wasting Time

1. The Power of NO. Say NO more often (gracefully and politely, of course). The more NO's you say, the more room you make for a "HELL YES!". As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits said, "More effort is wasted doing things that don't matter than is wasted doing things inefficiently." Learn how to say no with this 7-minute video (sample phrases included 😉). 2. Make 'Do Not Disturb' Your BFF. On average, people get interrupted every 11 minutes during the workday, and it takes 25 minutes to refocus after each interruption. Turn off your notifications. Schedule time in your day to check your notifications, text messages, and emails (I know this is a big one for most of us). Try doing a small window of 15 minutes at the start of your day to make sure nothing’s on fire. 90% of the time, things aren’t urgent. And then tackle your priorities.

Also, do your colleagues and clients a favor and group your questions and/or communications in one email with clear deadlines on when you would like a response. 3. Book 25- or 45-min Meetings. Cut down the length and number of meetings you set during the day. Like we mentioned last week about Parkinson's Law, meetings expand to fill the time you’ve set aside for them. So just set aside less time. This will also allow you to take 5 to 15 mins in between meetings to take a break, regain your clarity, follow up, and wrap up loose ends.

ICYMI, check out Productivity Part 1 & Part 2.

Our Subscribes' Productivity Tips (AND WINNERS!) "My time-saving tip is to spend 30-min on Sunday scheduling EVERYTHING for the week. It eliminates the guessing of when priorities will get done, catches double bookings and corrects in advance, and has me, my husband, and my accountabilities in sync!" — Michelle Jaeger "For managing my task list, I use the tasks that are integrated into Google Suite. I can pin my task list on the right side of my email inbox so that it is always visible. It also puts the tasks on your Google calendar in a green color on the day that it is due. The green is so you don't confuse it with an appointment, or a meeting." — Jim Zerr