Finding Time

[Gewyne]

Hello there

I have started to come out of the fog that was life until a couple of weeks ago. I have stared to make some small changes to my life and have read numerous articles (including many on here).

One of the key things is finding time. I have managed to find some wasted "time windows" such as my 30 minute snooze time before waking up, and the 20 minutes wasted whilst wandering around cooking in the evening.

Has anyone else found any "bite size" time chunks in their daily routine that they have then been able to put to better use they could share with me ? I am sure I am overlooking many.

[smartile]

Hi Gewyne,

I have a suggestion to increase the frequency of your "bite size" time chunks.

When you look at your tasks for the days and weeks ahead, ask yourself this valuable question:

"Does this task/action move me towards my 1, 5 or 10 year goals?"

If the task does not, then stop doing it. Consider that the actions that don't move you toward your long term goals are not worth spending your time on. I have found this exercise valuable because it helps me prioritize what's important and what's not. When I do this I find I have alot more spare time.

Want to learn more? Check out my post,

How to Super Charge Your Productivity

To your success,

Stephen Martile — Personal Development Made Simple

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Gewyne

Has anyone else found any "bite size" time chunks in their daily routine that they have then been able to put to better use they could share with me ? I am sure I am overlooking many.

- Driving time - could use to listen to audiobooks.
- Aerobic exercise time - could use to listen to audiobooks or to visualize my goals.

[Keith]

Since you didn't specifically mention: Have you looked at TV time and Web-surfing time? These often eat a huge chunk of our day without our realising...

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Keith

Since you didn't specifically mention: Have you looked at TV time and Web-surfing time? These often eat a huge chunk of our day without our realising...

Oh yeah, that's another way I've saved time. We canceled cable several months ago, so no more random tv watching during the day. I also back during the summer cut off all tv news and then later all internet news reading, so that saved a good bit of time.

I'm still working on the web-surfing time

[Gewyne]

Thank you.

I had missed my driving and commute as a time resource, currently I only listen to the radio. This weekend I will by some audio cd's and try to put this time to better use - so thank you seeker

I do not watch much TV anymore - I have two programmes I watch every week and that is pretty much it. However I do feel that I replaced TV with the computer . I spend to much time online, I have gone to some great lengths to cut this out (I stopped my subscription to the game World of Warcraft which was eating up 2 hours a day at least, and instead of going to forums serveral times a day only go once a dayto read/reply to threads). I am sure there is more I can do - thanks keith

smartile - Yikes, I can see where your coming from. That is going to take a bit of thought. Right now i can see several possibilities - i think i will ponder these over the next few days as my mind is racing and needs to settle.

Thanks for your help guys.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Gewyne

Thank you.

I had missed my driving and commute as a time resource, currently I only listen to the radio. This weekend I will by some audio cd's and try to put this time to better use - so thank you seeker

You're welcome . One thing I am currently doing is I'm subscribed to Simply Audiobooks - Audio Books on Tape and CD | Simply Audiobooks For $37 a month, I received up to 3 audiobooks at a time via the mail.. I put them on my ipod and then send the audiobook back and get more. It saves a lot of money compared to buying audiobooks all the time. Only downfall is that you have to give them a list of 10-15 audiobooks, and they choose which one to send. So one particular audiobook I've wanted I've had to wait 3 months to get - However, in the meantime I've gotten a lot of other really good audiobooks, so it was still a good deal for me.

I stopped my subscription to the game World of Warcraft which was eating up 2 hours a day at least

Congrats! I also stay away from online gaming or my productivity is zilch.

[beautyscientist]

I have a habit that on the surface seems like a time waster. Every morning I have a ten minute break where I spend exactly 10 minutes drinking a cup of tea and reading a book in Portuguese. 10 minutes on any given day isn't enough to improve my Portuguese very much though over the years I have been doing it I have reached a reasonable standard. The biggest benefit is that it splits my morning into two manageable chunks of time and therefore gives me a deadline at 11 to get some tasks finished.

The interesting thing is that when I started it, this deadline was a fairly arbitary one without much emotional impact. Now 3 years later I have really got this habit embedded and the mid morning break is something I couldn't miss if I wanted to.

[Adrian]

For smaller chunks of time where I'm sitting around waiting on something (5 to 10 minutes), I tend to brainstorm more effective, creative solutions for my current goals, or sketch out future goals I'd like to accomplish one day. For larger amounts of time (20 to 30 minutes or more), I tend to take on a small project that could be completed within that time, and finish it. (Such as... read a chapter in a book, do some blog advertising research, etc.)

[Jcs]

Originally Posted by Gewyne

[..]I stopped my subscription to the game World of Warcraft which was eating up 2 hours a day at least [..]

At-least 2? /jealous