04 Nov How to Waste Time to Be More Productive

If you’re the king or queen of multi-tasking and are constantly stressing over your growing to-do list, these tips are for you! As you read through them, you may feel like they would cause more wasted time, but you’ll be surprised by how effective they are in the long run.

Giving away time to save time seems too good to be true; these time-saving “hacks” seem as though they would cost time but in reality help you save it.

Scheduling

Many of us waste a lot of time scheduling (and rescheduling) meetings. Often it’s due to the mistaken perception that we need to have total control over setting up your own meetings. We may not want an open calendar to delegate or believe that an assistant may be too costly. A virtual assistant can make the cost barrier an easy one to overcome. As for the control challenge, it’s best to start small. Once you see how much time and energy is freed from someone else managing your schedule it will get easier and easier.

Purposeful Interruptions

We are often told that to be the most productive we should eliminate all distractions. What if we’re missing something? Naturally, having a mobile phone beeping every two minutes isn’t good for concentration, but sometimes it is easy to get stuck on projects and start chasing our tail. During those times, a “routine” interruption or change tasks to start a new activity might provide a mental break and ultimately help you to be more productive.

Unplugging

We’re constantly connected. Even without rolling out the laptop and logging in, we take our work home in the form of emails, texts and social media from our smartphone. Sometimes going offline forces you to actually think about solutions to problems. Being offline challenges your mind and may help lead you to new ideas and innovations that you may not otherwise have developed. Naturally, it provides the much-needed mental break from technology that we all crave from time to time!

What about you? What unconventional time-saving tips work for your business? Share by commenting below!