One of the most common complaints for people who operate their own business is that there simply isn’t enough time in the day. Well, obviously there is no way to add more time to our days, but there are some things we can all do to have more working time in our days.
The first thing we can do is sleep less. For some people this isn’t an option because they are already going on the least sleep possible. But if you get more sleep than you need, then try staying up an hour later or getting up and hour earlier. You just have to figure out which one is for you. Some people are more productive at night while others are more productive in the morning. So figure out when you do your best work and extend that part of your day by an hour.
You can also try adjusting your sleeping patterns rather than shortening them. In other words, you can try shortening your day at one end and lengthening it at the other end. For example, if you are a morning person and you find that you can only stare at the television and veg-out for the last couple hours you’re up, then you should go to bed an hour earlier (rather than waste it watching television) and then get up and hour earlier to work.
You do have to be careful when toying with your sleep though. You don’t want to get so little sleep that you aren’t productive while you’re awake and working. So make sure you still feel refreshed and ready to go when you wake-up.
The second tip for creating more time in your day involves something we mentioned in the first tip – watching television.
Television is a giant mind sucking machine that takes up more of our time than any of us would like to admit. In fact, many of us probably don’t even realize how much time we waste plugged into something that does nothing more than (at best) entertain us.
Try this experiment, right down all the time you spend watching television in one week. Chart every single minute. Then multiply the hours by 52. Then multiply that by a modest income like ten dollars an hour. What number did you come up with? Five thousand dollars? Ten thousand dollars? More? Now multiply that by the number of years you’ve been watching television as an adult. Make you sick? Just think about what you could have accomplished or the money you could have made while you’re sitting in front of the television.
I’m not going to tell you to throw your television out the window and never watch it again, because I do think it’s useful to help people unwind and/or relax. But don’t spend more than an hour or two in front of the television. Spend less if possible.
One more, big, no-no involving the television: Many people have laptops that they work on while watching television. Others have their desktops in the same room with the television. Do not waste your time or effort trying to work with the television on. It might make working easier but what you’re actually doing is making things take three to four times longer. So when you’re working – work. And then you can just watch television when the work’s done.
We all complain that we don’t have enough time in our day. But just by adjusting our sleeping patterns and our television watching habits, we can all create at least another hour or two of work in our days.
