5 Time Saving Tips for your Weekly activities

As a to-do list ordinated person, I love sharing time saving tips for your weekly activities because I know how important time is and how savvy we need to be when it comes to managing it. Over 8+ years ago when I first entered the corporate world, I struggled with coming up with the same activities that I did weekly as part of my job. This did not make sense to me and I knew there was a better way for me to get the hang of it all and I started searching and testing out solutions until I found what worked for me.

We lead such busy lives these days, often rushing about to complete ABC and never truly have time to unwind and just smell the coffee. I hope that the 5 time saving tips for your activities that I share in this post will be helpful to you in how you manage your workload on a weekly basis. Most of the tips I share in this post are those that I experimented with until I found what worked. Now, between my blogging and corporate work, I have a million and 1 deadlines but these time saving tips have been serving me for many years.

5 TIME SAVING TIPS FOR YOUR ACTIVITIES

Over the last 7+ years of balance my full time job and blogging, I have learned the hard way without preparation and planning, you will burn the candle from both ends and it ain’t pretty. Working a 9-5 gig Monday to Friday means I am busy every morning and shattered every evening and the weekends I use to recuperating. But then I looked it another way, 9-5 means I have time in the morning, evening and the weekends to pursue other passions aka blogging.

It was not as easy having that mindset shift and putting my energy where I truly needed to spend it. Of course I am still tired but I have learned how to plan and unwind on a Sunday night ready for the week ahead. Although the change in mindset played its part, I still had to experiment a lot to workout how best to spend my time and energy and what activities I can do to help me make the most of the limited time I often found myself with.

WRITE A TO DO LIST

As a to-do list oriented person, I thrive when I put my plans together on paper and start ticking them off one by one. I have found that if you want to save time on your activities you need to write then down so you know what they are and tick them off as you work on them. We can all multitask but not everyone can multitask correctly and often it is easy to forget things when it has not been written down, this is why I recommend having a to-do list.

Depending on the type of person you are, you can write it on a post-tick note, stick it on the fridge or track it on your portable devices. I am better with using paper and pen, writing them down and sticking the to-do list somewhere visible like the fridge door or my work desk where I can easily see it and always reminded on what I need to work on. Every morning I write down what I want to accomplish that day or that week and review every evening before I go to bed.

Allocate Time to Each Activity

After I write down my to-do list, I make a point of allocating time for each activity on my list. Whether I am working my 9-5 or blogging, I always allocate time for each activity for example I allocate maximum 2 hours to this post. I find that when I allocate time to activities I actually work faster and force myself to stick to the allocated time. This works best especially for my blogging work where I am charging people per hour and I need to know how much I spent on researching, writing, scheduling social media and the like.

When it comes to my day job, I have scheduled 90 minutes every morning to go through my e-mails, write my to-do and plan my desk. I also use this time to catch-up on activities that I did not manage to accomplish the day before. It is so important to have that time instead of just jumping straight into meetings the minutes I switch on my work laptop.

Plan Ahead

I am a planner by nature, I allocate about 2 hours every Sunday to planning my week ahead everything from what foods I want to have for lunch that week and what projects I want to force my attention on. It is also a good time to review the projects and the deadlines that I have coming up for that work. I find that when I plan ahead I am able to accomplish more goals and stay on top of all my deadlines.

I recommend finding a day when you are least busy to plan ahead and for me that is often Sundays and it could be thee same for you. Sit down, write down everything you want to accomplish in the coming weeks, allocate time but don’t forget to allocate time for the unexpected. I always block an hour to two every afternoon for anything that might pop up that I need to manage that very day or in a shop period of time so that I am not struggling.

Hire someone to do things for you

As a blogger I have a virtual assistant to help me with social media and promotion of my content. I don’t often have the time to research, write, proof read, create graphics, schedule social media content and more so I hire someone who can do that for me whilst I focus on creating content. If you are in a position where you can hire someone to help you with some activities, I know it costs money but it saves valuable time and I highly recommend it

When it comes to my day job, I am fortunate to have someone dedicate to helping me with my work. I am a control freak when it comes to my work and I want to do everything and I want everything done right and often my way is quicker. It took a lot for me to realise I needed help and that I could delicate to someone and just have oversight and didn’t have to control everything myself.

Prioritise according to Importance and Deadline

As part of my planning my work for the week ahead, I prioritise according to importance and upcoming deadlines. In corporate, it is so easy to get boggled down with meetings every single day that often things slip through the cracks if you don’t plan and prioritise. And to ensure that this doesn’t happen to me, I always plan everything in advance, I track things in my daily and weekly planners as well as set timers on my phones to remind me of when something is coming due.

When it comes to blog work, I use my planners and phone calendars to track what is coming due and last minute items that I need to manage as and when. I must admit, when I started blogging, I had no planning I just went with the flow and blogged when I felt like it. I was not consistent with my blogging and often felt rushed to publish a post when I remembered. Now, I plan my content weeks in advance, research and write the post a week in advance so that I am not rushed when a new opportunity arises that I need to make a priority.

And there you have it, my 5 time saving tips for your weekly activities.