Five Simple Steps to Free Up Your
Time

Time is precious. Time is money. Time is a lot of things. And whether you consider yourself
very time efficient or not, there are probably many ways you could free up a good chunk of
time in your life. In this short guide, we’ll explore five simple steps to free up your time.
Let’s dive in!

1. Create a List of Your Priorities
   One step you can take to make your life more time-efficient is to prioritise your day-to-day tasks. You should consider what tasks need to be done first and schedule accordingly. That way, you can get the most important work out of the way first (whether in relation to your
   job or/and tasks around the house).
   That way, you can leave the less important or perhaps even unnecessary tasks for later in
   the day and decide whether or not to finish up and relax for the day or complete a few more
   tasks.
2. Take Breaks When You Need To
   It’s important to take breaks when needed to prevent burnout. If suitable, you could employ
   the Pomodoro technique for tasks where you work for 25 minutes and take short 5-minute
   breaks. This technique is shown to increase overall productivity.
   In general, ensuring that you take adequate breaks and don’t work for particularly extensive
   time periods is important if you want to keep your productivity up.
3. Manage Social Media Time Better
   Scrolling on social media can take up plenty of time for people nowadays. If you’re a fairly
   avid user of social media, there are steps you can take to avoid it wasting your valuable
   time.
   For one, you could remove social media apps from your phone. Beyond that, if you find
   yourself engrossed in the comments section of social media sites and news or video
   platforms like YouTube, you could install a plugin on your laptop/PC to hide or block
   comments. You’d be surprised at how much of a difference it can make!
4. Batch Tasks
   By batching tasks, you can get more things done more efficiently while also keeping your
   mind focused on one type of task at once. For instance, you may want to batch brainstorming, research and outline work all at once rather than spreading it out over the day and mixing in other tasks between them. You can apply the same logic to domestic tasks such as doing the shopping and undertaking various errands at the same time.

5. Ensure Your Deadlines are Realistic
   Don’t fall into the trap of setting unrealistic deadlines. By doing this, you’ll put added
   pressure on yourself and find it difficult to stick to your schedule as deadlines near.
   Moreover, you might find that you simply can’t meet these deadlines, even by scrambling
   and reorganising your schedule at the last minute. Of course, you don’t want to push back
   your deadlines to the point of holding you back in your career. However, where possible,
   don’t push yourself more than you need to. It may sound good on paper, but it’s how things
   play out in reality that matters most.
   
6. A Few Other Ideas
   • Here are some additional ideas worth considering:
     • Pay attention to where you procrastinate and take steps to reduce it.
     • Similarly, you should reduce distractions in general, whether physical distractions (e.g., a cluttered environment) or digital distractions such as phone Google notifications.
     • Hiring a professional cleaner to declutter your home for you or/and improve its general organisation is a great way to free up time.
     • If possible, ensure your days off are truly days off and leave your work tasks for the other days of the week.
     • Drop tasks and outsource others where you can.