7 Steps to creating more time in your day

At this time of the year, we may look back nostalgically to our childhood and memories of long hot summers. As we grow older we may think that our time is not our own. You are in charge of you and you can reclaim your time if you want to. I find with my coaching clients that time is something that most of us want more of. But where does all our time go? What do we spend our days doing? Here are 7 steps for taking control and gaining your time back.

  • Keep a time diary for a week. Be honest with yourself, how much time do you really spend on facebook, twitter or watching the television when you really could be doing something else? Write down what you do and when you do it. Start from the time that you get up in a morning to the time that you go to bed. Log all your activities and note down how long that you spend on each task. It’s a bit like an old fashion time and motion study but on you.

  • Analyse your time diary to find out what you really spend your time doing. What does this tell you about yourself and how you manage your time? What or who are your time stealers? Do you spend your time endlessly checking your emails or are their certain people that take up your time? What is it that you do that takes up your precious time? Once you have established what it is that takes your time you can decide what you want to do about it. Sometimes it’s a case of a simple ‘no’ to someone who you always say ‘yes’ to or having a simple to do list each day.

  • Work out what your goals are and when you want to achieve them by. Know what it is that you want to achieve.

  • Develop an action plan based on your goals, identify your time scale for achieving your goals.

  • Writing a to do list can be a good idea and if you priorities your list with a simple 1, 2 or 3 with number 1 being the most important task that day, this will ensure that you always do what you want to do. It may be that you are not being realistic about how much that you can realistically fit into your day.

  • Having a weekly plan can really help to get things done. This is in addition to your calendar and ‘to do’ list. It is a time table in which you not only write your task but when you are going to do them and allocate how much time you want to spend on each task.

  • Get a kitchen timer and use it to get your most important things completed. Set the timer for 20 minutes or whatever amount of time you want to spend on a task. This is a good strategy for the things that we perhaps want to do and keep putting off e.g. the ironing or writing an article. See if you can beat the timer. Set it for a period of time and see if you can do in that time.

So now that you have more time what are you going to do with it? Coaching can help identify what it is that you want to do. It can also help you to identify your priorities and long term goals and work out how you are going to get to where you want to be

The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Life Coach Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

Share this article with a friend
Show comments
Image

Find a coach dealing with Work/life balance

All coaches are verified professionals

All coaches are verified professionals