This week I thought I’d put together a list of useful tips and hacks that have helped me make the most of my time. Of course, this isn’t just about getting the maximum amount of working time out of your day – the main objective here is to allow you to be as productive as possible while you’re working, so that you have more time for the things that are most important to you
Make calls while on the move
If you make a lot of phone calls as part of your work, consider making calls while you’re moving from place to place. There’s not much else you can do while walking or driving so this is a good opportunity to make use of otherwise dead time. Obviously it goes without saying that you should use a hands free device if you’re calling while driving, and should only do this if it is safe and legal to do so.
When I was running a covers band, if I had a long car journey I would queue up a list of agents to call in my phone and call them one by one over the course of the journey. I often had dozens of relatively short phone calls to make and this was a good way to get through them in a situation where I knew I would have privacy.
Utilise commuting time
Related to the above, but this is more if you’re using public transport. When I go into the office I normally spend about an hour each way on the train, time that in the past I would have spent scrolling social media. These days I normally get my laptop out and do an hour or so of work before I get in. The fact that there are fewer people trying to contact me at that time (and having no phone signal on the train) helps as well. Going in a bit earlier to make sure you get a seat is well worth it. At the very least, it’s a good chance to read or listen to something useful or uplifting.
Get an ad-blocker
Ad-blockers for your computer or phone are really useful for reducing wasted time from distractions. After all, the whole point of ads is to divert your attention. If you’re a little more technical, you can also use these browser plugins to block certain parts of web pages that aren’t necessarily ads, but that are still distracting. I use stackoverflow.com in my work as a software developer, and it’s really useful, but the sidebar on the right with “popular” or “related” articles is a perennial time drain, and so I’ve blocked it from ever appearing.
Unfortunately I haven’t found any really good mobile ad-blockers as iOS and Android make it pretty difficult or impossible for developers to create browser extensions, so you normally end up having to download a separate browser, which is often more hassle than it’s worth.
Distractions are a topic for a whole other post, but I’d highly recommend removing anything from your daily routine which diverts you into time wasting or just plain negative behaviour.
Know your personal peak times
I’m a morning person, and I am much more creative and productive in the morning than in the afternoon. I know that if I start work at 7:30 and finish at 5 then I’ll get a whole lot more done than if I start and 9:30 and finish at 7. For me, the morning has the added benefit that fewer people are online and I get fewer Slack and email messages before 9am, so not only am I at my most alert, I’m also at my least distracted. For me the afternoon is the worst time, so if at all possible I’ll try and get out to do a bit of exercise or schedule meetings during this time so that the interaction with others can keep me engaged.
Maybe for you the afternoon is where you do your best work, or the evening. It obviously depends on the nature of your work and family life, but try to tackle your toughest problems when you know you will be in your best mental state
Order things online
One thing that baffles me is that people still do grocery shopping in a large physical store, which usually involves driving there, pushing the trolley around looking for things, queuing, unloading the trolley, driving home, etc. You’re looking at a couple of hours of your life spent on doing something that would take 15 minutes if you did it online. The cost of delivery is usually between £1 and £4, which is more than outweighed by the time, effort and petrol of going to the shop yourself. The only genuine argument against that I’ve heard is that you can pick the specific fruit and veg that you want if you go to the shop yourself, but frankly this is almost never a problem with online shops, and even if you get the occasional dodgy cauliflower, it’s easily a price worth paying for the time you’ll get back.
Get off social media
Controversial possibly, and it does depend on whether you use it for work or if you derive any real personal enjoyment from it, but for most people social media is pretty much a waste of time. If you’re keen not to sever the connection entirely, I would suggest posting the odd thing on Facebook or Instagram when you’ve got some genuinely interesting life event that people close to you will want to know about, and not idly scrolling more than 5 minutes per day at the very most. Keep LinkedIn for when (and only when) you want to look for a new job, and get rid of Twitter entirely, unless you’re a celebrity.
In fact, get rid of it even if you are a celebrity.