9 Tips To Squeeze An Extra Hour Out Of Each Day

Most people with a normal frame of mind would like to get as much done as possible in as little time as possible. Some even focus their objectives on getting EVERYTHING done within the day. “Everything” of course, is subjective and means different things to different individuals.

But when you have your work, family, friends, and yourself to balance, it’s not easy to be productive. “Easier said then done” is a very appropriate idiom to use in this case.

The best that most people can hope for, and can realistically achieve is to squeeze an extra hour into each day. Even though that can seem like an easy task to accomplish on paper, time management is one of the lifelong challenges that everyone struggles with in life.

But really. If you are aiming for an achievable 1 extra hour a day instead of a near-impossible 8 extra hours a day, all you need is a little discipline and some golden nuggets of time management tips to reach that personal objective.

And here are 9 great ideas that can help you do exactly that.

1) Stop using snooze on your alarm clock

Whether you are using your smart phone or a typical alarm clock to wake you up in the morning, it will most likely have a snooze function that your hands just cannot get enough of pressing.

I can’t pinpoint when this feature in clocks started… because all my alarm clock don’t have this neat feature when I was in school. But the snooze is probably one of the least recognized inventions in the last century that is making a huge impact on our daily lives.

So addictive this function is in an alarm clock that a lot of people actually set their alarms to go off as much as an hour before their required wake-up time so they can snooze their way out of bed.

And many people still get to work late even though they had woken up early… because they overdosed on the snooze.

If you stop using the snooze function altogether and start getting out of bed as soon as your alarm goes off, you are already getting additional time into your day.

Anyway, you feel just as tired as waking up immediately as you do if you snooze.

2) Turn off instant messenger notifications

It’s hard to imagine that anyone at work does not have instant messenger these days unless we are talking about a third world country.

To tell you the truth, I still cannot believe how willing consumers are at spending hours each day following chats and finding cute emoticons to respond with.

I use 3 different mobile apps for instant messenger. And I find it a chore to be notified all the time about messages that don’t require my immediate attention. I admit that I could be the exception as I’ve witnessed people loving every minute of seeing notifications pop up on their smart devices.

I can’t deny that there’s a social element behind this. Having people talk to you (even though it’s actually in a group) can do wonders for one’s feeling of self-worth.

But if you really like to put that goal of squeezing out more time out of your day, start making use of the “switch” to turn off notifications. You will still receive your messages. Just that you will not be distracted by it. You can then go through the messages when you have a little idle time.

You don’t even need to turn every notification off. You can just turn off notification for chats that are more trivial.

3) Delete one of your social media accounts

The worldwide marketing machine has convinced us that we need many different account on different social media platforms to do different stuff. But you can probably intelligently tell that you really only need one.

If anything, I feel that we are becoming a slave to social media platforms.

Make a decision to delete one of your accounts. Your friends will still be able to reach you on another platform. They could very well already be sharing the same things on all the platforms anyway.

Seriously… they all do pretty much the same things.

This can save you a lot of time by eliminating the time wasted in viewing, browsing, replying, and responding to posts on social media.

See for yourself how much time you can save and how much more peace you get in your day. And if you like what you are getting, start deleting more accounts.

Do the same with instant messenger.

4) Schedule time for checking emails

Although instant messenger is slowly and surely being invaded by work topics, the ultimate time-killer in terms of work is still emails. Companies these days are so dependent on emails that many even demand that their staff carry around portable email readers.

If you constantly put yourself in the firing line of emails, you will constantly have new tasks to complete. But the magic with this is that if you find less time to check your email inbox, the less time you spend on new tasks

It’s one of the weirdest laws of the workplace.

So try scheduling three 1-hour sessions throughout the work day for sieving through your emails.

And 1 more tip.

Immediately delete any email that is not within your job scope. If you keep them in the archives, you will just be wasting time to read it again and again just to check whether it concerns you. Just destroy them and forever be at peace.

5) Outsource some of your work

Outsourcing is one of the biggest industries that has emerged from the world wide web. And it would be a shame if you don’t take advantage of this booming industry.

The internet has allowed people to connect all over the world. And freelancers and even full-time workers in less developed countries are more than willing to do all types of micro jobs for you at a low affordable price.

Some are even willing to work for as little as $2.50/hour. And these are not child labor we are talking about. Further more, $2.50 can go a long way in their rural home towns.

Some of the common jobs that are actively outsourced include:

• writing
• data entry
• design work
• transcription
• translation
• content formatting
• etc

Some of the reputable places to find workers to hire include Freelancer, Upwork, and Fiverr. Make good use of them.

And who knows… using virtual workers efficiently might cause your productivity to explode in the eyes of your boss and he would stop sneakily do things to make you quit anymore.

Just take note not to hire them for stuff that involved sensitive corporate information. Leaking confidential information or top secrets can get you fired.

6) Do things once, and do it right

This is one of the things that waste the most time from a personal point of view.

Very often, in an effort to read fast, I scan through text to grab the gist of reports, presentations, and articles. But very often, I’m unable to absorb the information of importance. I then go back and scan again with my eyes. And again, I fail to digest the gist.

The pattern repeats itself over and over again.

So much time can be saved if I just read through the content properly the first time.

The same can be said of countless mini-tasks.

The point is that if you do things right the first time, you will save a lot of time from the shortcomings that come up later when you didn’t do it right.

7) Get a wireless headset

This little technology made a big impact early on in my career.

Carrying a phone around in one hand is not the most ideal state to multi-task. Even though having 1 hand free can still enable you to do something while on the line, it’s not as effective as having both hands free.

And even if you are one of those people who cannot multi-task, using a wireless or Bluetooth headset can allow you to go rest on the sofa. This can cut short your rest time that you will use during lunch if you had not rested.

You won’t realize how big a difference a wireless headset can make on your productivity until you use it.

8) Have 1 takeout meal a day

Eating is one of the things that we cannot get away from everyday. For most people, we do it 3 times a day.

But what we don’t often realize is the time we waste from meal consumption.

For example, time is spent on traveling to the coffee house, parking the car, queuing and waiting to enter, waiting for food to arrive, small talk before during and after eating, and the list goes on.

You might spend even more time into your meals if you are in a situation where you prepare your own food.

There might be good reasons for you to eat at restaurants or cook your own dinners. But these things can really burn up your time unaware.

Start giving a trial to having 1 takeout meal a day. This should not make a big impact on your daily eating habits. But it can save you a lot of time. You might even save money with this arrangement.

Look at it this way.

If you do takeouts for breakfast, you can either sleep later or get to work earlier. If you order deliveries for lunch, you skip the lunch hour crowd and get to finish off any leftover work that might potentially spill into after office hours. And if you get takeaways for dinner, you don’t have to waste time with the long queues and get to reach home early to spend time with your kids.

You see, it makes total sense.

Try replacing a meal with a takeout each day. If you experience a positive impact on your time, consider keeping it a habit.

9) Change jobs to one located nearer to home

The average employee spends between 1 to 2 hours traveling to and from work everyday. It might be worst if you drive during peak hours in city traffic.

It can be a real time killer.

I guess you don’t need to be reminded that the shorter your travel time, the later you can get out of bed, and the later you can turn in at night, resulting in more time you get to use during the day.

Although switching jobs can seem like a drastic change to embark just to squeeze more hours into your days, it makes a lot of sense when you are in a situation where you value your time more than anything else.

For example, moms who prefer to spend more time with their children tend to hesitate less if changing jobs meant that they get to spend more time with their family.

Keep a lookout for job vacancies closer to home. It does not necessarily have to be a career downgrade. Sometimes, good luck comes to people who look out for it.

And you have no reason to feel guilty about quitting your job.

Finally

I’m pretty sure that the time efficiency tips listed above will be useful to a lot of people. But at the same time I just want to send a quick reminder that you must absolutely try to avoid the biggest pitfall of squeezing more time into your day.

And that is using the extra time you carved out for yourself to make you even busier!

I don’t know about you. But I try to be more productive so that I can have some extra time for myself. And even just so that I don’t have to rush the pace of everything I do. So if you do grind out an extra hour into your days, you should review what you are doing if you use those extra hours to take on more work…