Time Saving Tip: Match your task to your natural energy level.
When planning your day, or deciding what to do throughout the day, take into consideration your natural energy highs and lows. It’s more efficient to do some tasks during certain times of day than others. Some of your tasks require you to be at the top of your game…and some tasks can be done well even when you’re in an energy lull. Here are some examples.
Morning is my golden writing hour. Ideas flow more freely, and therefore, I’m a much more efficient (and entertaining) writer when I write in the morning. The afternoon hours are better for tasks that require action and interaction—for tasks that allow me to get up and move around or interact with other people. The afternoon is an ideal time for me to schedule organizing appointments with clients or to do repetitious tasks such as emptying the dishwasher or folding a load of laundry.
Take Action! Give task matching a try. Take a look at your to-do list and consider your natural energy fluctuations. You’ll get more done—and enjoy yourself more—when you match your tasks to your natural energy cycle.
Now it’s your turn. Do you have a time saving tip to share today? If so, please post it in the comments section! Remember, every comment you leave is good for one chance at a spot in It’s About Time, and you can share as many tips as you’d like. Thanks for sharing! Here’s a quick recap of all the ways you can enter to win.
1. In the comments, share a favorite time saving tip. OR…
2. For a second chance to win link to this giveaway on Facebook. OR…
3. For a third chance to win, tweet this giveaway with a link on Twitter. OR…
4. Do all three for three chances to win!
Make sure to leave a separate comment for each thing you do—posting your time saving tip, linking on Facebook, or Tweeting. You’re welcome to enter everyday—so keep the tip sharing, Facebooking and tweeting coming. 🙂 Remember to post by 2 PM today for your chance to win!
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I try to batch all of my kitchen jobs together … while the dinner is cooking, I prepare lunchboxes for the next day, empty the dishwasher, empty the bin, make a grocery list etc. Then I dont feel as though I am in the kitchen all day!!
I’m also a morning person, but I don’t feel like I can get anything done then- mostly because it will wake up the kids, and then no one’s happy. But to make the most of that energy, I get up around 5 and go to the gym. It’s my one time the whole day I have to myself, and getting a workout in the AM energizes my day and helps me accomplish a lot more than if I’d slept in. When nighttime rolls around and I’m exhausted, I settle in with the tv and do all my laundry folding or ironing. It’s a nice reward to watch something fun while getting something done.
I do a ton of multi tasking at work. I tend to have a lot of conference calls which are idle time in some ways…so I sometimes do personal stuff while on these calls such as making my grocery list or meal planning or todo list once I get home. It allows me not to be distracted as I would be if I were to do actual work. I have done this before and than been lost.
I plan ahead and make my list of meals and shopping items for an entire week. I coordinate meals so that I can use the ingredients more than one time in the week and not waste any food. Then I recycle my weekly menu for another week in the future. This way I’m not having to constantly create new menus and shopping lists.
This probably sounds nuts and more than a bit selfish, but I went crazy this last school year w/all my kids activities and me doing nothing while I watched them. Those hours add up! I would finally get home, get dinner, homework, and reading done… it would be after 9:00 at night when I was facing bills, laundry, chores, and getting up @ 5 was daunting w/no exercise or down time built in. I was feeling fried, grumpy, and starting to get resentful. I finally started to “plan” for my kids sports practice… bills one night, blog reading another night (thank goodness for the Google Reader app), maybe school work a different night. One week I even drug my lapdesk w/me and worked on my mothers day scrapbook present for my mom each night. I got some weird looks from other parents, but I didn’t care! I was using that time and not going stir-crazy. Full disclosure… I really do love watching my kids… but 6 days a week w/nothing getting done was driving me nuts!
Adding mundane activities or events to my calendar. I will add anything and everything to my calendar from take back library books to go grocery shopping to make a phone call to scheduling a small nap.
If I don’t, I feel I won’t get it done. Also, it provides a designated time for the activity so I’m not worried about completing it.
I’m more productive in the morning, so I’ve been getting up a half hour earlier in the morning to get things done at home. I’ll pay bills, catch up on email, declutter my counter, take out the trash, etc. These are things I used to leave until after work – and they wouldn’t get done. Then I’d find my whole weekend was spent trying to keep up with my household stuff.
I tend to try to do all I can in the evening for the next day–clothes out,socks with shoes, packback by the door, table set for breakfast (if I am home that day. Anything to start the day out smooth! Another thing I love is my washer has a timer feature. I often set it to wash a load of towels at 4:00 AM so when I get up I just toss them in the dryer and can re-fluff when I get home. After putting a load in the dryer in the morning, I then put a load of clothes in the washer and set it for 3:30 PM so that when I get home from work, that load is ready to go in the dryer. 2 loads of laundry a day this way makes it a lot better than doing it all at once! Now, if I could just figure out how to get it all put away! 🙂
I also posted on facebook—THANK YOU!!! 😉 Jen
It’s funny you mentioned this. I used to be a very early morning person. I could get up at 5 and get tons of stuff done before 7. I’m finding now though, I’m a 10-noon kinda girl, or sometimes I get bunches done from 7-9pm.
getting things done first thing in the morning is a great thing for me as well – getting up at 5, accomplishing things and then, when you check the clock and it’s only 8, you already did sooo much! ;->
My time-saving-tip is probably weird but I found out that when I put dishes in the dishwasher grouped (forks with forks, small plates with small plates etc) and hang wet laundry neatly (the linens already folded in half, the shirts straightened etc), I am much faster when I unload the dishwasher or take down the dry laundry because I don’t have to sort them anymore / just fold them a little bit as they are “prefolded”. Plus, I save time on ironing because the clothes have less wrinkles. So in a nutshell: doing the preparation mindfully and carefully (which doesn’t really take longer) saves me time later on.
…tweet, tweet… ;->
…and facebooked it…
Aby, thanks for the giveaway, it’s a great one! Whoever wins it – have a wonderful time!