3 Ways to Get More out of Your Time

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When you think of what it means to have a fulfilling and successful life, you might come up with a dozen or more different factors that would contribute to having your "ducks in a row" and feeling truly content with your circumstances.

Most people will want a degree of success in their professional lives, good relationships with their loved ones, an active social life, health and a decent level of fitness, and so on.

One of the major things that just about no one ever feels like they get enough of, however, is time. You routinely hear people complaining that if only they had an extra twenty minutes a day.

But are we all really so strapped for time as we make out? Could part of the issue be that we're just not making the best possible use the time that we do have, and taking the right steps to make sure that we get the most out of the time that's available to us?

Here are some ways to get more out of the time you already have.

Use digital services to streamline your professional life

Ideally, our work lives would be fun, fulfilling, and rewarding - both emotionally and financially. This a great waypoint for us to strive towards, but for many of us, our professional lives are hounded by busywork and admin tasks that we can barely stand doing, but have to deal with in order to get to the "real" stuff.

Luckily, many tools exist today that can help us to streamline our professional lives and cut out some of this admin work, thus freeing up more time for more meaningful work, or even for personal activities.

Rapid Quote is, for example, a quicker system for quoting electrical contracts - a task which would traditionally take a good number of hours to achieve.

Come up with strategies for capitalising on those small gaps in your schedule and low-attention activities

Have you ever noticed how much of your day you spend on tasks which place really small demands on your attention, all things considered? Domestic chores are a good example - you likely spend the majority of your time vacuuming, daydreaming about what's for dinner.

One way of getting more out of your time is to find ways to squeeze more into these low-attention activities. One great option is to start listening to audiobooks during chores, drives, etc.

You could also keep a notepad or book on hand for getting basic reading or planning done in those occasional 5-minute slots that you find yourself with during the day.

Schedule your days in advance to better utilise your time

A lot of time is lost through indecision and unfocused attention. Time-blocking your day - that is, schedule how you're going to spend your time, using a service like Google Calendar, can make all the difference here.

When you schedule tomorrow in advance, you'll know exactly what to do from the moment you first step out of bed, onwards.

This, in turn, boosts your productivity and increases the odds of you having free time at your disposal to spend with family or friends.