Don’t Confuse Being Busy with Being Productive

Are you so busy being busy that you don’t have time to be productive?

We must learn the difference between being busy and valuing our time to be more productive.

Life is more than running around like a chicken with your head cut off.

Do you work lots of overtime and still don’t have time for everything you need to do? 

Are you one of those people who would love to have 28 hours a day?

Unfortunately, you also have only 24 hours like everybody else on this planet.

Oh, and I’m sorry, I forgot: There is no such thing as time management!

You can’t manage time.

What you can do is use your time wisely and manage your priorities.

Everyone who comes to me and most of my friends says, “I don’t have time to_________ (fill in the blank).”

Don’t Confuse Being Busy with Being Productive

The fastest way to gain time is to watch one hour less of TV every day.

That’s 365 hours a year, which equals an average of 30 hours a month!

What would you do with seven extra hours a week?

Would that be enough time to take a college course?

Or maybe enjoy a hobby like painting?

Read some books that can help you with self-development.

Could it be more time you spent with your family?

Another trick to gain more time is getting up earlier.

Set priorities and choose how you invest your time to combat being busy

Set clear rules about when you are available and when you are not available, and don’t let other people steal your time.

The funny thing is that the more you value your time, the more you will have of it because people will also value it.

If you allow people to interrupt you all the time, you’re essentially showing them that your time is not very valuable, in which case you will not be able to work effectively, no matter how many hours you work.

Recent studies have found that each 5-minute interruption at work takes 12 minutes because your brain needs 7 minutes to refocus! 

How many interruptions do you have per day? 

10?

12?

Imagine how much time you can gain back when you decrease the number of interruptions.

Every 3-minute interruption costs you 10 minutes.

Let’s say you get interrupted 12 times in one working day: 2 hours gone!

In a month, that’s like having an extra week!

Don’t let employees, friends, or clients interrupt you.

Set those clear rules NOW, and make some rules about social media too!

Social media and e-mail are two other time stealers. 

Setting fixed times for your social media activity and checking emails is another means to gain a lot of time.

Planning and saying “no”

I started gaining a lot of time at work when I learned to say “NO.”

My personal number one time-saving technique is taking 30 to 60 minutes on Sundays to plan my week. 

I put my personal and professional goals for every week in my excel sheet.

And don’t forget to schedule some free time, relaxation time, like power naps, reading, meditation, etc., and some buffer time for emergencies.

I also take 15 minutes every day to plan my next day.

In this way, I give my subconscious mind a chance to work on it already while I sleep.

This works!

When I start the next day, I don’t have to think much: I just go to work.

Some more time-saving tips

• Make a to-do list with the date and the time the task takes.
• Limit your phone calls to 5 minutes per call.
• Be aware of the result you want for each call that you make.
• Work against time, and you’ll get your work done faster (set an alarm clock and work against it)
• Write 5 things you want for the next day each evening and list them in order of priority.
• Create blocks of time (90 minutes blocks).
• Track your time. Take a look at how you currently use your time by tracking your daily activities.
• Do the unpleasant things first.
• Stop being busy and go for results.

Be careful with the following time robbers

• Lack of information for completing a task.
• Doing everything yourself (Is delegating an option?).
• Getting distracted easily (Focus and set boundaries!).
• Phone calls that are too long (Put a 5 minutes limit).
• Spending  a lot of time searching for files (Get organized!)
• Doing things the same way and not realizing there could be a more efficient way of doing it.
• You have to be reachable all the time and everywhere (Really?).

So what are you going to do next?

Will you insist on the excuse that you have no time, or will you start making time with one little thing at a time and experience the change for yourself?

What are you going to do?

Remember it’s all about decisions and habits!

Action Step:

Write down 5 things you will start doing NOW!

Taken from my book “30 Days – change your habits, change your life,” which, on one beautiful day in March 2015, was downloaded on Amazon 36.842 times in 24 hours while on a Kindle Promotion and changed my life forever 🙂