Make Everything in Life Easier
Learn how to free up more time for yourself by becoming super efficient.
We all wish we had more time to accomplish the things we enjoy, whether spending more time with our families or pursuing our interests. However, despite our best intentions, we never have enough time.
This is where the summaries come in. In this overview, we'll teach you how to find time in your calendar and mental space to spend most of your time doing what you want. We'll centre this advice on three fundamental goals: optimising, automating, and outsourcing. By focusing on each, you'll be able to increase efficiency in everything you do, from financial management to health maintenance.
1. Track your life to discover where you may begin saving time.
Do you know about the 80/20 rule? If not, here's a recap. According to the 80/20 rule, you can accomplish 80% of your goals with only 20% of your time and energy. This rule applies to anything you do, including your academics, work, and fitness routines.
As the guideline says, you should devote most of your attention to this critical 20 per cent. But how can you determine which 20 per cent of your time and responsibilities to prioritize?
You should start tracking. Tracking your work and time will help you see where your time is being spent effectively and where it isn't.
Now, this sounds fantastic! But who has the time to live their busy life while still observing it? Fortunately, there are a few resources that can help you track your time more efficiently.
First, there is rescue time. It's an application that tracks what you do on your computer throughout the day. If you utilize it, you can see which websites or programs are taking your time. RescueTime will then assist you in limiting access to them. The problem is solved!
RescueTime is an excellent approach to monitoring your productivity. But what if you want to monitor your health as well?
An old-fashioned paper journal is an excellent method for tracking your health. Keep a journal and document everything you consume during the day. In addition, you may acquire a pedometer or smartwatch to track your steps, and you should weigh yourself daily. It may seem like a lot, but the more you learn about your health every day, the faster you'll be able to improve it.
When you've tracked your life and determined where you're spending and wasting your time, it's time to improve it. But how do you do it? How do you create a daily routine that works? Consider it an optimization of your procedures. Consider IKEA as a role model. Each IKEA product includes highly optimized assembly instructions, whether a coffee table or a geometric lamp. These instructions have been reduced to their essence: a few simple, language-independent steps.
Approach your life in the same way that IKEA approaches its manuals. Whatever the activity, whether drafting emails or planning meetings, you should keep it simple and get it done as quickly as feasible.
2. Create an external brain to free up valuable space in your own.
We all want to think of ourselves as excellent multitaskers with fantastic memories. But we aren't. Most of us don't have enough mental space to hold all the knowledge we need to remember. We all need an additional brain. But this is impossible, correct?
No! It is not impossible at all. Everyone can have an additional brain.
Several new technologies have arisen to assist us in recalling all of the important dates and facts. Evernote, for example, is an app that allows you to take notes in various formats, including text, images, handwriting, and web-based. It's also free and has no storage limitations. The author currently has almost 4,000 notes in his Evernote!
Consider Evernote to be a backup for your brain. Neuroscientists have even demonstrated that Evernote organizes information like the human brain, connecting similar thoughts into intricate, interconnected networks.
Another way to stay on top of all your chores is to hire your virtual assistant. Today, you can employ one or more people and assign tasks to them online. In general, virtual assistants are classified as either on-demand or devoted.
An on-demand assistant service is comprised of a pool of assistants. Say you have a task that has to be completed, such as proofreading a document or updating a PowerPoint presentation. Whoever is available in the pool will do it. For $25 per month, a company called Fancy Hands will assist you with up to five tasks. For $95, you can seek assistance with an infinite number of monthly chores.
On the other hand, dedicated assistants will complete all your responsibilities individually. This indicates a more robust bond; they will get to know you and eventually take on more challenging duties. Chatterbox provides a dedicated assistant for several monthly hours for only a few hundred dollars.
Why not check them out and start saving time and mental space?
3. Customize to save time and money!
Assume you have a terrific idea for the perfect bedroom shelving unit to meet your demands. You know you'll have to build it yourself, which includes buying materials, borrowing tools, and putting in hours of prep and cleanup. It sounds like quite a project. If only there was a more straightforward and less expensive solution!
Yes, there is 3D printing.
3D printing allows you to effortlessly manufacture your own personalized products.
Take Shapeways. It's a platform where you can simply submit a 3D model and have it printed for you.
For example, he created a simple sketch when the author wanted to design a bespoke bracket to mount his new MacMini to the wall. He utilized the online outsourcing platform Fiverr to find someone who could construct a comprehensive 3D model. He then emailed this model to Shapeways, and a week later, the completed bracket arrived in his inbox.
Consider this if that sounds like a success: he used the Shapeways e-commerce site to sell his MacMini bracket. He earned $400 from selling six of them.
But that is not all. Customization will not only save and earn you money but will also allow you to have more free time.
Consider Vitamins On Demand. Vitamins on Demand is a service that collects and organizes all your prescriptions and supplements into individual packs each day. It means you can say goodbye to packing your trip suitcase with pill bottles and worrying about whether you have them all. Instead, grab the necessary amount of packets and head out the door!
Want another example? Consider the laborious effort of choosing a suit that fits. If you want to cut that time in half, join Indochino. This company creates bespoke clothes and will walk you through the measuring procedure, guaranteeing you have measurements you can use repeatedly to get a suit that fits perfectly.
4. Take control of your workweek.
When Tim Ferriss published his best-seller The 4-Hour Workweek, everyone knew there was some exaggeration involved: you can't write a book if you only work four hours per week! Nonetheless, The 4-hour Workweek emphasizes a key point: you must decide what to do and when to make your workweek your own.
The first step toward taking control of your workweek is determining which hours of the day are most productive for you. Knowing this will automatically increase your effectiveness. Some people prefer to work at night, and others prefer to work in the morning. Some people enjoy working a little bit every day, while others want to get a lot done quickly.
Everyone works differently, so discover what works best for you and focus on working during those times.
Next, determine what is slowing you down. External circumstances, such as a consistently late supplier or indecisive clients, are frequently to blame.
In these circumstances, reducing your time interacting with clients is the solution. Giving external clients shorter time frames will make your day more productive and force your clients to be more efficient. They can thank you later!
Scheduling meetings is another aspect of your workday that takes up a lot of time. On average, does it take seven emails to organize a meeting? Obviously, this is far too many. Fortunately, tools like Calendly, as the name implies, can help you plan that meeting the first time.
The software lets you make your calendar public so that you and your coworkers can schedule convenient meetings for everyone. Simple yet effective.
5. Errands pile up; remove them!
You'd be surprised if you knew how much time you spent doing errands every month. But we rarely consider errands like this. A quick trip to the local store for toilet paper or dish soap is no big deal, right?
However, these errands accumulate and can significantly disrupt your day. So, if you want to be more productive, stop running errands!
How should you get started?
One excellent option is to sign up for an online delivery service. For example, Amazon's Subscribe & Save delivers staples such as toilet paper, razors, shampoo, and laundry detergent to your door at predetermined intervals.
You may go through two tubes of toothpaste every month; arrange for those two tubes to be sent to you at the end of each month, and you will never waste time repurchasing toothpaste.
Though toilet paper and toothpaste are apparent necessities, you may have various other essential products delivered. For example, I ensure that my smoke detectors always operate by scheduling an order of nine-volt batteries every six months through Subscribe & Save.
Some errands cannot be automated. You know, the ones that catch you off guard, forcing you to run out and complete them before it's too late. Well, thanks to outsourcing, you can save time on these.
TaskRabbit is an excellent example of an internet outsourcing marketplace for short, unforeseen chores such as a quick drive to the grocery store or a rush to repair your computer or automobile.
Here is an example of how the author used this service:
His nephew, who lives in Los Angeles, requested a slide for his second birthday. He lives in New York, so he hired TaskRabbit to hire someone in Los Angeles to buy the slide from an IKEA in Long Beach, transport it to my nephew's parent's home, and install it. A wonderfully memorable gift.
6. Keep track of your finances with the latest tools.
The first summary discussed the importance of recording your time and eating habits. However, sometimes spending time tracking everything is only occasionally advantageous. Trying to track your finances, for example, might cause strain and tension.
Keeping track of what and where you spend is difficult, especially if you have many bank accounts and credit cards, not to mention loans, mortgages, equities, and bonds.
So, use these new tools and spend less time fussing about your budget.
TrueBill is an excellent tool for organizing your finances and monitoring your financial health.
Simply provide TrueBill with your bank account, loan, and credit card logins, and they will notify you when a balance is approaching zero if there has been a large deposit or withdrawal from an account and ensure that you get paid.
TrueBill can also give you a classified and detailed picture of your finances, allowing you to see how you spend your money and time. The organization can even recommend budgets based on your previous spending patterns!
BillShark is another innovative new tool for reducing stress and starting to save. BillShark only asks for a few personal facts, such as your bank account information, driving patterns, how frequently you use your telephone, and how much you spend on other services like movie streaming and magazine subscriptions.
Based on this information, Billshark recommends cost-effective options and estimates how much you could save over two years.
Don't be surprised if you discover you're saving more than you thought: when the author utilized BillShark for the first time, he found he could save over $14,000 in two years!
7. Give yourself restrictions to improve your quality of life.
We've all been there: a desk piled high with papers, a floor only accessible via a short passage through a jumble of belongings. And when you're surrounded by so much stuff, it's impossible to find exactly what you're looking for when you need it.
But there's no reason for this headache! You may overcome this by establishing boundaries for yourself.
Begin by choosing an upper boundary. This will help you find and keep track of your belongings.
Consider the author's electronic gear collection, which previously filled an entire closet. Over time, his closet got overcrowded, and locating a specific cable or device required hauling the whole mess out of the closet and onto the floor. He saw things had gone out of control and resolved to take action.
He said goodbye to his electronics and sold most of them on eBay. What was left fit into a single box, which became his top limit. If he buys a new electronic equipment, something else must go. This keeps his hoard reasonable and neat and allows him to always find what he needs.
You can use upper limits to restrict activities you may be overindulging in. Still, you can also use lower limits to ensure you are doing more things that improve your quality of life, such as exercising, meditating, and travelling.
For example, the author establishes a lower limit of at least one trip every month, at least 30 miles of running per week, and cooking meals at home thrice weekly. Setting lower limitations for your leisure time in this way ensures that your time is only sometimes consumed by work or other less critical responsibilities.
8. To stay focused, organize your chores into batches.
Have you ever experienced the frustrating experience of starting something and then being interrupted by a diverting text or email? It destroys your focus and makes you annoyed.
There is a way to keep your focus from getting destroyed like this. It's called batching.
Batching is the basic process of collecting related jobs and executing them in batches rather than individually. This makes it easy to focus on what you're doing right now.
Some people employ batching by deciding that they will only respond to emails within the first 10 minutes of each hour rather than as they arrive. Another example is paying the week's bills on Fridays rather than as they come.
Of course, once you start batching, you realize just how much time particular tasks require. Take note if things are taking longer than they should, indicating that you need to optimize.
If you discover that you need to reduce your administrative workload, eliminating superfluous paperwork is an excellent place to start. Sure, there's a lot of discussion about living in a paperless world, but we still have to deal with paperwork daily. Fortunately, a few excellent online solutions can help us reduce paperwork even further.
Postal Methods can assist you if you ever need to transmit a document via snail mail. All you need to do is upload your paper. The company prints it for you, places it in a stamped envelope, and sends it through the mail. This saves a lot of time, and who enjoys licking stamps anyway?
9. Health is the ultimate productivity secret.
It's as easy as this: getting enough sleep and eating well will help you decide how much energy you'll have to perform what you desire. No amount of productivity software in the world will change that!
When you don't get enough sleep, your body produces ghrelin, an unpleasant-sounding hormone. Ghrelin stimulates appetite and reduces leptin levels, another hormone that regulates metabolism. When our metabolism malfunctions, we will indeed become weary.
If you want to enhance your sleep, two simple measures can assist. First, take D-vitamins with your breakfast every day. Second, avoid using gadgets emitting blue light, such as TVs, iPads, and computers, in the hour before bed.
Starting a healthier lifestyle is also simple. You should know what to do. Just eliminate the fats.
Wrong!
Many still view fat as the enemy, yet sugar is the offender here. Our brains cannot function without fat, and excessive sugar stops us from receiving vitamins A, D, E, and K. So stop spending your time on processed foods and sweets! Start looking for natural alternatives and increasing your diet of "good" fats like olive oil and avocados.
Once you've ensured that you're getting enough sleep and eating correctly, it's time to consider getting your body moving. Claiming that you are too stressed to exercise is just not an excuse! The truth is that exercise reduces stress, and a decent fitness regimen will help you cope better every day.
Create your own training plan that includes three forms of movement.
First, a strength and skill component should be similar to rock climbing or parkour.
Second, high-intensity interval training should be included, which consists of a short period of maximal exertion followed by an interval of active rest.
Finally, you should engage in mobility training, such as yoga or a good old-fashioned stretch session.
Final Summary
Though life nowadays appears stressful, there are ways to cut through the clutter and reclaim your time. With easy strategies and creative new tools and services to guide you, you can quickly save time for the things you enjoy. Always remember to optimize, automate, and outsource.