Important instructions on how to save time for busy people

Your life is always busy, and I'm sure. However, the arrival of the holiday seems to add more crazy and busy schedules for everyone. You want to have a Christmas party with family members, friends, and colleagues, buy gifts, make decorations, watch Christmas performances, listen to carols and Christmas ringtones, shovel snow (unless you live in Guam like me), make dessert, roast turkey and other things.

This is enough for you to give up this holiday!

However, this cannot be changed. I 've sorted out some small ways I like to save time-I use these methods in my daily life and find they can make your work more efficient, it makes your schedule easier and easier. If you are a busy person (who is not in this day ?), These methods may be useful to you.

Why use these tips? First, we can keep you calm during busy hours-we will feel a lot of pressure when our schedule is full. Next, it is equally important to arrange time for things that you think are the most important. For me, the most important thing is my family, writing, and exercise. For you, you may have other things you want to schedule. Below is how to do it.

Tips
Most people spend most of their time at work, so we start from work. If you have a long list of "to do items"-or worse, you do not have a list of "to do items"-you can do the following:

1. Do less. Long term readers know that this is my favorite efficiency tip-Simplify the schedule: do less, but focus more on important things. This will greatly improve your work time efficiency and reduce the necessary work time. What should we do for tasks you have not done? For more information, see the following.

2. Delegate. If a task needs to be completed, but is not one of your most important tasks, and can be completed by others, delegate it. If you find someone else who can complete the task, or even do better than you, and assign such a task, you can even cut off the tasks in your "items to be done" list.

3. Set the work time limit (or adjust the work time ). If you work for more than 8 hours a day, you can set an 8-hour work period for yourself. This forces you to concentrate on the tasks that must be completed within this time limit. If your daily work time is 8 hours, try to limit your work time to 6 hours. You will find that you must prioritize, work more efficiently, and waste less time as much as possible. Only in this way can you complete the work within this 6-hour period. In most days, I have to schedule 4 to 5 hours of work for myself. What if you cannot reduce your work time (maybe you are asked to work a certain amount of time every day )? Then, let's see if you can make your work time a little advance or lag behind the public's work time. In this way, you can take a bus when the traffic is busy, which will reduce the traffic time you use, or you can work in almost no one's office, and you can definitely do more work.

4. The most important thing is done first. Select two or three items that you need or want to complete today. In other days, you may want to push back these important things (maybe you won't finish them at all), but if you finish these things first, then you will be very comfortable with the rest of the day. In fact, after you finish the most important thing, your work on this day is even completed. If you have such freedom, you can even say that your day is over, because the rest of the work can be done tomorrow.

5. Ask your boss to give priority to you. If you cannot control your schedule or "Do Things", talk to your boss. Tell the boss that you want to make your work more efficient, but today you only have time to do X things... so ask him to help you pick up the things you want to do. Tell him that if you try to finish everything today, you will become inefficient, and you may not be able to finish so many things or do better. In fact, this sort of priority is supposed to be done by yourself (refer to the first suggestion) If you have this freedom.

6. batch processing. Do not interrupt your business days from time to time by small tasks that are entangled together. Group the same tasks and resolve them at one time. For example, do not reply to emails all day, package them, and spend one time (or two times) each day to process all emails. Complete all paperwork at a time. Batch Process all calls. Finish all the errands at a time. This type of grouping can save a lot of time, allowing you to focus more on important things.

7. Focus on one thing and finish it. Do not process several things at the same time. Set aside a whole period of time to do only one thing until it is completed. For me, this usually means setting aside half a day or one day (I will try to divide my project into manageable parts) to complete a task and, if possible, try to finish it. This usually means that you need to prepare all the necessary resources and information in advance so that you do not have to search for them again, or wait for these tasks when you are ready to actually work. This also indicates that I need to clarify my schedule so that I can do other jobs well in advance, instead of arranging other things for this period of time. After that, you need to focus on doing this and try to finish it. This is usually the most efficient way to do things.

8. Avoid meeting. Not all meetings are a waste of time, but there are indeed many meetings like this. If you spend a lot of time attending the meeting, but are more willing to use the time for practical work, instead of listening to other people talking about things they could have done by sending you an email, try and see if they can avoid such meetings. In this way, you can do more things. More

9. Avoid long conversations at work. We usually have long conversations with colleagues without productivity-such chats are usually irrelevant or work-related. Sometimes it may be a long phone porridge. Even though I like to talk to the colleague sitting next to me, just like talking to others-this is important for maintaining good relationships between colleagues and friends-but in fact you can use this time to do other things. I personally prefer to finish my work and then go home with my family. So I try my best to concentrate on my work and do not talk too much, even though I need to make exceptions from time to time.

10. Learn to say no. This is critical if you want your calendar to be simpler. We receive many requests every day, and all these requests require our time. If we always agree to these requests, we will give up our time and choose to ask others to do something. However, if these requests do not conform to our priority, then we usually have a lingering strength. So I learned to say no. This often makes you feel uncomfortable, because we are afraid that this means we're letting others down. But you still need to learn to tell people that you don't have time to do what they want, and they usually understand it.

Time-saving computer tips
1. If possible, disconnect. This is my favorite computer tip. When I really want to concentrate on a task and do want to complete a task, I will disconnect from the network. Sometimes it means to close my browser, Sometimes it means that I have to disconnect my wireless network, and sometimes I will unplug the cable. Whatever method you use, disconnecting the network is a good way to get things done. Of course, you will eventually want to reconnect to the network, but when you disconnect, you can get the whole block of time to process the transaction. This period of time is quite efficient.

2. Use quicksilver and autohotkey software. Mac users can use quicksilver, while PC users can use autohotkey. I use both of them and find that they are an indispensable tool for achieving things effectively. For example, we often need to access some documents, programs, folders, and websites. You can set a one-click access hotkey for these files. You may need to spend a little time learning how to set up (you can use Google to search for related guides), and setting a hotkey may take several minutes. However, once configured, you can use them to process transactions instantly. You can also combine these hotkeys, for example, the hotkeys used to send emails or adjust the image size, or the hotkey used to do other things-I set a hot key that is frequently used between the left and right. If you increase the time saved by each month, you can say that they have helped me save a lot of time.

3. keyboard shortcuts for emails. Similarly, your email programs basically have keyboard shortcuts. If you have not used these shortcuts, you should learn to use them. You can use shortcuts to open, send, archive, search, and operate emails. You can quickly process a bunch of emails. If you add shortcuts to frequently used text or signature attachments (by using quickersilver or autohotkey software), you can reply to emails quickly, it's even faster than killing a bunch of Oreo cream sandwich cookies.

4. Email Filter. Let your email program help you complete your work. I use the Mail Filter of Gmail, but apps like Outlook or mail. app, or some other programs you may have, all have the same filter function. Learn how to use them to filter and set your most frequently used mailboxes. You may notice that you will continue to receive many emails of a specific type within a certain period of time. For example, I usually receive some statistical and financial reports related to my work. But I will set tags for them and archive them using filters so that they will not be able to enter my inbox. Then, if necessary, I can read these reports in tags (or folders) without reading them when browsing the inbox. At the same time, I also use filters to automatically delete those linked emails and joke emails (I know this method is heartless, but I am bored with these emails), and for Facebook, Twitter, notifications of PayPal and other services are archived.

5. restrict the use of IM, Twitter, forums and other social media channels. You can spend a whole day chatting with others, or using Twitter, logging on to an online forum, or other social media. Although these tools are useful, they may take you too much time if you do not limit them. Set limits for yourself-for example, schedule an hour on your calendar every day to deal with these social affairs. In this way, you will have more time to do other more important tasks.

6. Do not worry about archiving. I have written some articles about this, but I don't believe it anymore. Everything I do now is digitalized, whether on the network or on the hard drive of my own computer. I learned from Gmail that you can archive some things and then search for it without any effort (I have been doing this for the past two years, and there is no difficulty in searching these items ). So now I am doing this for everything, including documents on my hard drive, files in Google Docs and spreadsheets, and other types of network documents. Now my archiving time is almost reduced to zero-and I used to spend a lot of time archiving every day.

Family tips
1. Keep things in order. I like the orderly family and work environment, not only because they have a better aesthetic feeling, but also because: 1) this helps you focus on what you are doing without being distracted by visual clutter; 2) more peaceful and relaxed; 3) saving time. How to save time? In an orderly home environment and work environment, you can easily find the desired items, clear and operate them more easily, and reduce the need for reconfiguration and classification, time spent searching and clearing a large number of sundries. More

2. Keep things in their original position. Similarly, saving time by having everything in its own position. Your home may be neat, but you may not know where to put everything. Let things have their own location, and put them back when you don't use them. Make this an important habit in your life-to prevent you from returning to the original place after you use up something. This may take several seconds to do so, but it saves time for cleaning afterwards, search Time (think about how many times you have lost things and spent a long time searching ?), And make things more clean and orderly.

3. Teach the Children to organize the data by themselves. If you are a parent, you will know that when you have a child who hasn't grown up and crawled around the ground, it makes everything messy every minute of the day, it is not easy to keep a clean family. Let your children develop the habit of organizing things behind them after playing when they are very young. For example, they take out a bucket of blocks and make it all over the ground-it doesn't matter, but when they play, they help them pick up everything and put it in the bucket, then place the bucket in its original location. Some of my younger children like to sing a song "organize, organize, everyone, and every place" when doing the cleanup. Turn this into a fun game! I have 6 children, which saves us a lot of time to organize things behind the children.

4. Make preparations on the eve of the festival. Whether you are single or have a family with many children, every morning may be a very hasty process for you. On the contrary, you can prepare everything on the eve of the night and make it a daily task you have to do every night, so you can better start a new day. Technically, this may not directly save your time, but it will allow you to focus more time on important things in the morning, instead of making a rush to complete your daily worksheet.

5. Don't watch too much TV. I used to waste my whole day watching TV, so I know how much time TV is "empty ". On the contrary, limiting the time you spend watching TV-maybe one hour a day watching TV-uses the time you originally planned to watch TV for more important things-with the person you love, exercise or write your dream novels.

6. Plan the weekly menu. If you plan to eat something (even lunch) every day of the week, you can save a lot of time. First, you can go to the grocery store to buy everything you need at a time-in fact, if you plan to repeat your menu for the week next week, you can make a two-week shopping at a time. Second, you can prepare food in advance (refer to item 2) to make it easier to package food into work meals. Third, you no longer need to worry about what to eat every night-it is listed on the menu attached to the refrigerator.

7. Cook more food. I like to make large batches of food, which is especially useful if you have a big family. I cook a lot of chili powder, vegetarian soup, pasta solid noodles, and other foods at a time, and eat the remaining food for lunch or dinner (sometimes it can be lunch or dinner several times ).

8. Do all the errands at a time. This is the same as the batch processing in the previous work section (this is consistent with the previous and subsequent suggestions ). Add all the work items you need to run errands to your weekly work list, and do this in a single day. Plan routes so that you can drive as little as possible and quickly complete these tasks. This method saves a lot of time compared to running errands.

9. Handle banking on the Internet and finish it once. I like to do this once a week or even every two weeks... I first prepare all the bills to be paid (in fact, most of them have already been set up to be automatically paid through the bank bill payment system), and then reconcile with the online bank statements, pay the bill, check my automatic savings transfer, and so on.

10. One-time cleaning. Although I like to keep things clean at any time, there will always be cleaning, wiping, and cleaning the bathroom. One-time cleaning can save a lot of time to do all of these tasks. Each person in our family is responsible for different parts of the family, and the cleaning is completed as soon as possible. This can be done in 30 to 45 minutes, so that the rest of the day can be relaxed. Haha!

11. l exercise now. If you don't have much time to exercise but want to maintain the shape, you can try grouping gravity training. However, to make exercise intensive, try to make more groups within a fixed short period of time. For example, do the import, weightlifting, and gravity squats (5, 10, and 15 for each training )... do as much as possible in ten minutes (20 minutes if you think there is no problem ). You need to find the appropriate group for different exercises, or you can search for some methods on the Internet to combine different exercises to challenge yourself. Do not perform too intensive training at the beginning-if you are a newbie, try a group of fewer times first, but do not do it too quickly.

12. Create a large calendar. The daily affairs of my family members are organized by a large calendar attached to the refrigerator (I also deliberately stay consistent with our large calendar because I like this big calendar ). All things are listed on our calendar: Parties, meetings, school events, football matches, music lessons, birthdays, Volunteer Days, and other things. This ensures that we will not place our personal schedules too crowded, and we will try our best to stay consistent with our schedules, in this way, we will not miss the conventions and events listed on the large calendar. This large calendar also saves time, because we don't have to look at their different schedules for a unified action.

13. Ask a nanny or exchange with someone to take care of the baby. If you are a parent who has no time to do things, hire a nanny so that you can have time to do things. Or replace with others to take care of the baby. My sister and I did this, for example, we took care of the child for her for a while, and then she took care of the child for us for another time. This is good because we have more time to do things, and our children can play together.

14. Consider hiring a person. Sometimes it may be better to hire someone to do things, especially if you spend more time than the Commission you pay for that person. For example, if it takes me five hours to maintain a large backyard (a large courtyard), I can pay a commission to hire someone to do it, because I can earn more money through work within five hours. Other things you can hire someone else to do are: Other household maintenance projects, car washing, errands, laundry, tax filing, etc. As long as you do it yourself, it is not cost-effective.