We live in a busy world where we are always on the go, and we all need more hours in the day, or so it feels. Here are some great not so obvious time-saving tips you can use at home.
You’ll either love or hate this one…
Make Your Bed to be more productive
What? No, I’m not your mom!
So why am I telling you to make your bed?
Because gorgeous, I want you to have a super productive day, and making your bed has been proven to boost productivity!
You see… the army uses this technique so that you start the day on a positive step – as soon as you leave your bedroom you have already checked off something useful on your to-do list, you have already accomplished something. It is a teeny-tiny mindset hack that actually works.
Admiral William H McRaven even wrote a New York Times bestseller, Make Your Bed: Little things that can change your life…and maybe the world on the subject, so you don’t have to just take my word for it.
Plus it’s so much nicer to crawl into a bed that’s been made rather than to have to fight the bedsheets when you are tired!
Before you come at me with the futon whacker…
It might be that you are like me, and prefer to air the bed before making it. The principle is the same, make the effort to fold back the covers and fluffy up your pillows. A 3-second job but one that feels more accomplished than just kicking everything off and you stumble of out bed!
Tidy Your Desk to get more done
We are all different and our personality type often defines the state of our desk, which are you?
The clutterer
Your desk is messy and disorganized to the untrained eye. You are creative and expressive but not as productive as you could be.
The minimalist
Everything has its place and you only keep what you need at hand. You are organized and thrive on structure and planning. You don’t do well if you have to fly by the seat of your pants.
The techie
You have to have the latest gadget and preferably multiple screens. You believe in using the right apps for the job to save you time. You get frustrated with Hotmail users and anyone who still owns a fax machine.
The kitchen table
You are working from home around your family and just making it work. You are used to the constant interruptions and distractions but know that you would get more done if you had a space to call your own.
No matter which one you are (except type B because they will always do this) … try this 5-minute hack to be more productive…
When you are wrapping up for the day, plan to finish your work 5 minutes early, then just take those 5 minutes to tidy up your desk or workspace.
Chuck away any rubbish, (and ahem, note to self, discarded post-it notes) clear away anything that you have finished with for the day and put away anything you have had out that you don’t need on the desk all the time.
Keep a notebook of things that you need to do the next day, on the desk, so you can jump straight in when you start the next day.
You might be one of the creative people who like to work in a creative ‘mess’ – come on, you know what I mean!
But for our brains, looking at all that when we are just starting the day can send our poor brains into overwhelm. So even if you have a project on the go, just tidy up a bit so you can easily pick up from where you left off.
Bonus point!
Take a few minutes and really think about what you use on a day-to-day basis. Those items should be within easy reach of your desk or live somewhere on the desk. Anything else needs putting away.
Instantly feel better in the morning…
Clean The Sink to make more time
I know many people will rebel against this idea but hear me out…
I want you to imagine you go to bed, tired, been a busy day, you can’t be bothered with washing up the dishes, and you kid yourself that the saucepan needs to soak overnight. You’ll deal with it in the morning.
You have a good night’s sleep, you wake up feeling rested and ready for the day, and you walk into the kitchen and see the piles of dirty dishes.
How does that feel?
Does that ‘Ready to tackle the world’ feeling that you had 2 minutes ago suddenly take a kick to the gut? Yup.
Now, let’s try again. This time you are tired, it’s been a hard day but you grit your teeth and deal with the dirty dishes, didn’t take that long after all. You wake up feeling rested and ready for the day, walk into the kitchen and you can almost smell that cup of coffee before it’s even brewed…
That tiny tweak when you tackle a crappy job can make a HUGE difference in your mood and attitude to the day.
If you can delegate this job, even better!
A home for everything to stop losing time
It takes on average seven minutes to find a misplaced item. Just three misplaced items a day and that’s twenty minutes of your life gone. Poof just like that.
The biggest reason for misplaced items is that they don’t have a home.
Think about the items in your home that always lives in the same place, maybe you always hang your bag in the same spot when you come home. Do you ever misplace your bag at home? Probably not and when you do it’s because you left it somewhere different.
Now imagine if you did that with everything you own.
This is why minimalism works so well, less stuff, easier to make homes for everything.
Also, think about what happens when you can’t place something, you get annoyed, it makes you late, it changes your mood, and often that gets passed on to other family members and vice versa.
If everything has a home it’s easy to tidy up, it’s easy to find the item when you need it and it saves you from buying multiple items that do the same job.
It might feel like a huge task to do the whole house so start with baby steps. We work on this in the Clear The Clutter program.
What is the most common misplaced object? Make a home for that. Let everyone at home know about it. Then move on to the next item.
If you have got to this point and you are thinking, yes, this is all well and good but I need more help…
Then you are in just the right place!
You can join us in The Wonder Mom Success Club for daily check-ins and a community of moms who will help you along, I am also in there daily. Or you can take it up a notch and join SPARK Mastermind which also includes 1:1 sessions, group mastermind calls, and weekly workalong sessions. These are perfect for those who work from home but miss the office!
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