Not a very imaginative title when compared to my last posting (’Free’ time?) so what do I mean this time by ‘Free’ time!? This time I thought I’d share some proven and effective methods of saving time, so, in this sense, the time thus liberated is ‘free’ as it is something extra that you have gained that hasn’t cost you anything.

Before I confuse myself (any further) I’ll crack on with the tips and ideas for saving / making time:

1.) Wake up, get up!

If you’re awake then get out of bed and go greet the day full on instead of cowering behind duvet for a random amount of time!

2.) Economies of scale…

This is a manufacturing concept which basically means that the cost of producing a unit reduces with the more units you are producing i.e. the ‘per car’ manufacturing costs of producing one car would be much higher than the ‘per car’ manufacturing costs of producing 10,000 cars (hence the idea of ‘mass production’ to make things more cheaply). So what? Well the concept of economies of scale has an analogy in terms of time saving too in that similar tasks should be grouped together or done in bulk rather than a little and often i.e. do the dishes once per day rather than after every mean… do a weekly shop run rather than a daily shop run… cook a big batch of food rather than only one meal at a time etc.

3.) Speed read…

Reading is an important, enjoyable and informative part of most people’s lives… if you read faster you can either read more in the same time or read the same amount in less time.

4.) Avoid telly like the plague…

The television is a sort of time black hole… it sucks lots of time out of your day without any return. If you have a fave show or there’s an educational programme you want to see then no prob, but watching TV just to ‘kill time’ will do exactly that. TV is to easy, making watching it an occasion rather than the first thing you do when you get in your house.

5.) Avoid non-value adding communications!

Do you really need talk about the weather, the price of eggs or what so and so did on East Enders last night? No point starting the day chatting idly if it means you’re going to end the day harried and late!

6.) Procrastination…

I ‘ummed’ and ‘aaahhhed’ for quite some time about procrastination but couldn’t decide what to write

7.) Drive as fast as you can…

I don’t just / necessarily mean travelling everywhere at mach two although this would obviously save time (assuming you lived!)… I also mean don’t travel in rush hour traffic unless you have to as this is extremely inefficient, also, use a toll road if it’s going to be quicker. Don’t travel at all unless you need (/ want) to i.e. would a phone call be ok rather than a face to face? Can you buy it from the corner shop rather than trekking into town? Will they come to you rather than you going to them?

8.) Automate processes…

Very little of what we do is unique activity i.e. most things we do during our average day are things we have done before and will do again, going to work, doing the shopping, sorting your accounts etc. Of these things that you do there will be plenty of tasks that you could reduce the time taken to do them by automating all or part of the process or developing some short-cut. For instance, have a check list of all the items you might buy

9.) Pay other people to do mundane stuff / stuff you’re not good at.

If you don’t like gardening, book-keeping, washing your car, fixing your roof, decorating etc etc then don’t do it, let someone else do it for you.

10.) To Do!

Keep a to do list, prioritise it and clearly mark what you are going to do today and by when, this will motivate you to meet your targets and you will accomplish more than you would do if you just had a long list of tasks to complete without any deadlines.

11.) Practice saying ‘No!’

A lot of people spend a lot of time doing a lot of things that while they didn’t exactly volunteer to do them they nevertheless failed to say ‘no’ when asked ‘Would you mind just doing xyz for me please?’… the people doing the asking can be colleagues, friends, family, anyone! Obviously, I’m not saying say ‘no’ to every request for help but I am saying be mindful of your own workload and be respectful to yourself and your own agenda by saying ‘no’ if undertaking a task for someone else is inconvenient or will throw your schedule out.

12.) Be prepared and happy to delegate.

Not a comfy choice for all you control freaks that want things doing in your own particular way or to your own exacting standards. Chill out, if you can give work to someone else to do it doesn’t matter if they have different ways of working, if the outcome is (roughly) the same then let them do it! This covers everything from tasks in the workplace through to getting your kids to do chores round the house… yeah right!!

13.) Use a fat pipe…

If you spend quite a bit of time online then get broadband if you haven’t done so already as this will reduce the amount of time waiting for pages / files to download.

14.) Touch typing…

I would have saved about 15minutes typing this post if I was half decent at touch typing… rather than waste any more time here then I guess I’d better act on one of my own recommendations!

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