How to save time for you.

How to save time for you

start all projects with enthusiasm

Belief is the best guarantee, however, if you are not committed to doing whatever it takes to complete a project successfully – do not start it in the first place.

Talk about a waste of time and energy! This is a problem many entrepreneurs and creative people face. Failure is best seen as a learning opportunity and why learn the hard way.

Remember to get yourself a good coach, they will help you put your goal in your timeline.  With the steps required to achieve success written down, this will save you time.

Follow your heart, but only if it is in the right place.

Screen your calls

Voicemail is a godsend when you are busy and on other calls.

It would be heaven if you could afford a Virtual Assistant (VA) to take your calls for you or even cheaper to have a family member assist you.

I can highly recommend Home – I’m your PA : The virtual assistant company that likes to make you smile. (imyourpa.co.uk)

This will certainly help you out with your time.

Remember every call could be a potential business.  I find my online booking system, which my potential clients can use repeatedly, saves me time yet I am still in control.

Put a time limit on activities

I have an alarm on my phone and work for 30 minutes to an hour, then move around – do some washing or put dishes in the dishwasher.

Having a break actually helps you get more done.

When time gets busy organise your shopping, limiting it to one day a week, not little bits every day. 

Working for yourself you can work all the hours god sends you, ask yourself would you work for a boss until the early hours of the morning?

Remember to take time for yourself.

Ignore missed calls

If people cannot be bothered to leave you a message when you are busy – ask yourself why you should waste your time chasing them.  If they do not pick up you are wasting more time calling them to leave a message.

Remember playing phone ping pong is a game you do not really want to play. If someone does not leave you a message you were not important to them, so why should they be of importance to you?

Keep a time diary

Keep a logbook of your time, noting where time is wasted – for instance on social media – by getting distracted!  (Yes, I know we are all guilty of that.)

Being self-employed you can let your client know how many hours you will be working on their case, especially when you make the program bespoke to them and their needs.

When you measure – you can track various activities and what you can track you can control.

Are you on top of your day or not?

Remember put your priorities into perspective of what is important to YOU.

Forget about time altogether

When you have a day off on holiday forget about time.

There is a saying “time flies when you are having fun”, so when you are enjoying life with family and friends or by yourself on annual leave – forget about time.

Remember never to be a slave to time during your downtime.

Date Night

More crucial than ever when you are in a relationship – having a date night is vitally important. You don’t even have to spend money … you could have a night in, cook a meal, have a takeaway, watch a film or listen to your favourite music.

Even if it is just sitting down talking or going for a walk together, it is having that quality time with each other.

Remember to spend quality time with the people that are important to you, it could be your parents, it could be your partner, your children or even, if you are lucky enough to have them around, your grandparents.

Block out distractions

Mobiles and computers can be the bane of your life when you are working with the nuisance of notifications.  When you are in-work mode turn them off or have them silenced so they are not a distraction.

Remember you are unable to do the big things when you are distracted by the little things.

Does it matter?

People may disagree with what you are doing and that you are so focused on what you want to achieve in your lifetime.

If it matters to you then keep going – never let others steal your dream.

Remember that everything you do and decide, that you devote your time and energy to doing is what you want to do and is up to you. Questioning everything you do can therefore sheds light on your motivation and inspiration in the first place. Time also has a way of showing you what really matters.

Ignore ‘right–mood’ procrastination

I have a friend who called it ‘right-mood’, when I said “what do you mean?” she said, “I suffer from procrastination.  When the summer months are here, I am full of energy but when the winter comes, I just stop doing things and procrastinate”.

We are all different – some of us procrastinate due to the job being too hard. That is why I always say, “eat the ugly frog first.” Once that job is done the rest of the day  will flow more easily.

When the job is difficult or challenging, you may feel that you have failed – this is only a setback – keep going.

Failure is only feedback that something you do is not working right and we have just got to go back to the drawing board and work out where we went wrong.

Remember adopting this can-do attitude will help you to learn as you go along.