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Adding More Hours in the Day

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 at 8:36 AM Category: Business, Life Tips, Links, Meryl's Notes Blog No comments

Many of us ask how we can find more time in our busy days or if we can add another hour to the 24 hour clock. Well, the 25 hour thing won’t happen anytime soon, so the best we can do is look at our current schedule and chop time there as Lifehack gives 21 ideas for adding more hours in the day. I won’t rehash the list and instead share my experiences. Three kids, a spouse, my business and volunteering forces a girl to be wise with her time.

1. TV – My TV viewing habits differ from my kids’, but they’re not learning from my actions. I don’t just watch whatever is on TV and whittle away my free time. I select shows I enjoy and tape them for viewing at my convenience, not the network’s. I still have shows from April that I’ve yet to watch. I usually watch them while doing laundry or exercising as both have to be done.

2. Internet – One thing I rarely do — get my news from the Internet. I read the newspaper every morning, which has a start and end point. Reading news on the Internet could go on and on. If something happens during the day, then I’ll look online.

3. Games – Thank goodness I have the opportunity to review games. I hardly ever played games because of my busy schedule. When Mark Wegner asked if I would review games for him — he created a monster as I review for Gamezebo, too. To avoid temptation of getting carried away with an addicting game, I load them on the laptop not my work computer. Now instead of cutting into my work time, games sometimes cut into my sleeping time.

4. E-mail – This is one of my worst habits. However, I’ll get wrapped up in a project and not think about checking e-mail for a while (which is more like an hour, not half a day).

5. Chores – Well, I’ve put organizing systems in place, but I run into a problem that’s hard to control — the rest of the household. No one cares about organization like I do — not even the spouse.

6. Listening to books – I wish I could do this as I think it’s a marvelous way to multitask while riding in the car or stuck in the waiting room. I carry a book or a PDA with me at all times, so I can read or use an application on the PDA that I’m reviewing whenever stuck someplace.

7. Prioritize – Focus on getting higher priority items or those with a nearing deadline done before the rest. Even those with a deadline about a month away — plan ahead for those. For example, I’m judging many PDA-based applications for Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine awards for all of August. Prioritizing means looking at how much I need to review and the time left. It would be unwise to wait until a week before the deadline to start reviewing. If I do this, it’d require spending all of my time on reviewing when I still have to get client work done. So I planned ahead and do a little each day.

What do you do to help make the most of your time?

Tags: getting things done, schedule

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