CREATE AN EXTRA 90 MINUTES IN EVERY DAY
THESE LIFE TIPS WILL ALLOW YOU THAT EXTRA ‘ME TIME’ YOU NEED EACH DAY
30 MINUTES SAVED PER DAY
TURN OFF THE TV AND THE COMPUTER HALF AN HOUR BEFORE BED Small steps can make all the difference – try this for a week. Turn off the TV and your computer half an hour before bedtime and use that time to do something else. It could be reading or meditating. Not only will you get to sleep faster, and get a better night’s rest (the bright light from the screen can affect sleep), you’ll truly have that time to yourself. Before you know it, you can move on to switching off an hour before bedtime to really make good use of that wind-down time.
15 MINUTES SAVED PER DAY
25 MINUTES OF POWER ON A TASK Pick a task you need to do daily – it could be answering emails – and dedicate that time to just doing that task – no distractions, no checking social media. Just emailing. Set a timer for that 25 minutes and then take a break. They call this the Pomodoro Technique and it can dramatically improve your productivity, because it helps you stay focused on the task at hand. Need impetus to get going? Visit the helpful website, tomato-timer.com.
15 MINUTES SAVED PER DAY
SET THE ALARM FOR 15 MINUTES EARLIER Sure, it’s an obvious way to add more time in your day and at first it might seem that those 15 minutes of extra sleep are missed, but you can really use that 15 minutes all to yourself – it’s your quiet time. You might want to put on a meditation podcast or app, listen to some of your favourite songs, walk to the local cafe for a coffee or do some yoga. Besides, research has shown that morning people are more proactive, so an added bonus is you will be more willing to take action no matter what the day throws at you.
10 MINUTES SAVED PER DAY
LEARN TO SAY NO How much time do you waste per day doing things that others could help you with. If you’re always the one that seems to look after other people’s children, run errands, or volunteer your time in ways that is causing you added stress, then simply tell those that are not sharing the load that your week is overbooked as it is and you can’t do it.
20 MINUTES SAVED PER DAY
WRITE DOWN YOUR WORRIES Ever said: ‘There aren’t enough hours in the day,’ and then procrastinated due to stress and worry? Set aside a few minutes every day to write down anything that is bothering you. Once it’s on paper, it clears your head to move on with your day and it can help improve performance. It’s proven to work. According to a University of Chicago study published in the journal Science, students improved their performance by writing about their worries immediately before an exam began.