You're busy I get it!
You're probably even too busy to read to the end of this post - but i'll keep it short and sweet so stay with me ....
What if I told you that I could help the average 40 year old gain an extra 14,600 hours? If you're 20 then you'd be on to gain an extra 21,900 hours!
Would it be worth that 5 minutes now to read this and make some changes?
How do you feel when the clocks go back? An extra hour in bed! An extra hour to be with your family, work on your business or do something you love?
What if I told you that I've found a way to do this, and not only on the day the clock goes back but EVERY SINGLE DAY for the rest of your life?
I've worked with some of the best companies and individuals in the world and helped to change how they work for over 15 years. Using psychology, automation and streamlining I have helped them to become much more efficient saving them THOUSANDS of hours and MILLIONS of pounds.
"Time is a currency you can only spend once so be careful how you spend it" Harmon Oldnyo
Spending time is therefore really precious and it's time we saw this for what it is. Once you make some simple changes and get your extra hour of freedom a day you'll need to decide what to do with it.
First of all you need to decide what you want to do more of with your extra hour which will help you with your motivation to change:
Will you spend more time with your family/friends?
Will you spend time on yourself?
Will you spend time on your business/career?
Will you use it to earn more?
Will you seek out your purpose?
Once you have this motivation clear in your mind then it'll be easy for you to make the changes.
Making these changes will not only give you more freedom, it'll improve your energy, focus, health and your zest for life.
A word of warning though this will only work if you put the focus in to make the changes and you keep up with them (It takes 21 days to form a habit and only a minute to break one).
Spend 5 minutes a day doing these 5 things and you'll gain an hour back:
1. Schedule your time
Use an online calendar or even a good old fashioned filofax like I do. Get everything scheduled in your diary. I also have a weekly planner which I fill out on a Sunday night where I put the 3 most important tasks in there each week. I like freedom so filling out a daily planner doesn't work for me as so I build in flexibility, for example I always leave Monday mornings and Friday afternoons booked out for planning time for me. Schedule in: Time for work, family, you, fun and learning and use the time like you would book meetings between you and someone else and most importantly stick to them.
Time Saved: 10 minutes per day
2. Be Disciplined with how you spend your time
People say to me all the time "It's hard to stay disciplined" but you'll find that once you start scheduling your time it'll be easier to be disciplined as they come hand in hand. If you work at home, keep your office hours like you would at work, get dressed for work and have a sign on your door that you don't want to be disturbed. Set work times on your phone or computer and set limits for apps on your phone. Also learning to say "NO" to things which you don't want to do will be hugely important in being disciplined with your time. Having discipline will save you upwards of 20% of your time in a day.
Time Saved: 10 minutes per day
3. Be More Efficient
How many tabs do you have open now? Be honest....... The fact is the brain cannot cope well with multitasking and you'll end up wasting more time. When you flick between tasks it can take you up to 20 minutes to get back into what you were doing previously. DON'T MULTITASK as the brain isn't wired up for this and it can actually take you much longer to get work done if you do this. Use an online timer such as the pomodoro tomato technique to batch your work up into 25 minute slots. This will boost you on to complete tasks and you will get to the end of your day feeling much more positive as you've not spend 3 hours on you tube looking at cute dog videos on you tube without realising it!
Time Saved: 20 minutes per day
4. Streamline what you do
There's probably at least one thing that you do that you think to yourself "why am I doing this" or "why does this take me so long"? (If not a million things!). It's time to Marie Kondo your world! Marie Kondo's Netflix show has made her famous worldwide for organising your house. It's now time to ORGANISE YOUR MIND, your work, your habits and how you do things. Could you move things around so you have your printer near you if you print a lot? How about getting rid of some of the paper that you use and using an online app instead? When you streamline your life and work you'll be amazed at how much time you can get back.
Time Saved: 15 minutes per day
5. Find out what you're good at (and delegate the rest)
Take a free online strengths test ( http://www.viacharacter.org) and finally find out what you're good at. Your top 5 strengths will be the things that you're amazing at and the ones towards the bottom are the things you may not like or be strong at and may take you longer. For example your creativity may be towards the bottom of the list, get someone else in your team, family or get a virtual assistant to be creative for you. You will be able to do things ten times faster using your strengths than the things you're not so strong at so focus on these and delegate the rest.
Time Saved: 5 minutes per day
"Time is free, but it's priceless, you can't own it but you can use it, you can't keep it, but you can spend it, once you've lost it you can never get it back"
Conclusion
Now that you know how to create an hour from just 5 minutes of effort, why not implement this into your own life starting with your diary or your planner.
Love
Nikki xx
Resources You'll love: