When you’re a boss who is making moves in her academics and career, 24 hours just isn’t enough time to include the other important things in life, such as caring for your relationships, from platonic to romantic and self-care. While we all strive to be productive with our day, sometimes we don’t know where, when or how to start. Well, let me suggest some ways to add more time to your day like magic so that you can tackle your to-do list like a boss.
1. Make a realistic and manageable to-do list
This is an absolute must. It is counterproductive to pile tasks upon tasks on your to-do list, and it will often make you feel unproductive instead of the alternative. Why? Because you might not have been able to complete everything you wanted to do, even if you were actually productive throughout the day.
What you should consider doing is making time for what’s most important to you and determining what needs to happen first before you can do anything else. One way you can do this is by creating meaningful goals for yourself. They could be focused towards your career, character, relationships, health, etc.
After determining your goals, the next step is to figure out the actions that need to be taken to attain them. For example, you may wish to become a better student, take better care of yourself and strengthen your relationships. The steps you can take include allotting 2-hour blocks to simply focus on studying and nothing else and then taking 30-minute breaks in between studying. During these breaks, you can practice your self-care by putting on a face mask or de-stress by reading a book. You could also Facetime your best friend, significant other, a family member or any of your loved ones to catch up and talk. What these steps have in common is that they apply to what’s most important to you, which is your studies and your relationships.
If you find yourself saying “I don’t have time for this” to certain things, then in reality they don’t have any meaning to you. It takes time and practice to determine what your priorities are, but once you figure them out, it becomes easier to come up with productive things to do in your day.
Note: Do not put too many things on your to-do list. As mentioned earlier, you could be the most productive person in the world but feel like you haven’t done enough because you only completed part of your mile-long to-do list. Do not equate being busy to productivity. You could make yourself busy throughout the day by performing menial tasks that don’t align with your goals, but that doesn’t mean you were productive. Cut down your list so that it only has the absolute necessities, and if you have extra time, you could look into other things that are next in importance. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin!
A helpful tip that will enable you to do all this is to have a planner. It is an amazing tool for you to plan out your daily to-do list while providing an overview of your week.
2. Create a meal-prepping plan
Save time and money by meal prepping for the week. CGD London’s On the Menu Meal Planner is the perfect tool to help you be on top of your meals each week. It’s a small and sturdy pad that comes with 50 pages containing a meal plan calendar and a shopping list on the same sheet. The pad is also perforated along the top and middle so that you can simply tear out your list and take it wherever you go.
I would recommend planning out your meal for the week during the end of the week and making your necessary grocery shopping that weekend. Feel free to cook whatever elaborate dishes your heart desires, but if you want to save some time and money, opt for simpler dishes that taste just as good. Some examples of easy-to-make recipes are:
-
Salads: contents may include lettuce, spinach, kale, grape tomatoes, red cabbage, carrots, avocado, dressing
-
Pasta: spaghetti, chicken alfredo, macaroni and cheese, baked ziti
-
Sandwiches: ham/turkey/roast beef with cheese and lettuce, BLT, PB&J, avocado toast
-
Wraps
-
Fruit and veggie box: celery, carrots, cucumbers, oranges, grapes, strawberries, apples, pineapple chunks, blueberries
-
Smoothies: fruit smoothies, green smoothies (fruit with kale and/or spinach), protein shakes
My advice is to cook one week’s worth of food, store them in Tupperware containers and place them in your fridge or freezer until it’s time to take them out. That way, as you’re leaving for work or class, you can just grab one and go without having to worry about spending unnecessarily on takeout later. It’s a win-win for your hectic schedule and bank account!
3. Wake up and go to bed earlier
Not everyone can say they’re a morning person (and if you are one of these people, go you!), so waking up earlier might be a difficult (but not impossible!) thing to do. Not only will this be good for your health, but this can also add much more time to your day by giving you an early head start on your tasks. However, this doesn’t mean you should keep sleeping later in the evening. While it is great to wake up early and be a go-getter, don’t do so at the expense of your well-being. If you went to bed at 1 a.m., don’t feel obligated to wake up at 5 a.m. so that you can be productive. Your sleep is also incredibly important for a healthy physical well-being. Seven hours is the optimal amount of sleep you should be getting, so if you plan on being up at 5 a.m., try aiming for 10 p.m. as the time to hit the bedsheets. If 5 a.m. or 10 p.m. sounds too early for you, you can try sleeping at 11 p.m. and waking up at 6 a.m. instead. No matter how early you wake up, make sure you still get your seven hours of sleep.
4. Plan your outfits ahead of time
One way to cut down on wasted time is to plan your outfits for the week ahead of time. While it may seem like it takes a couple of minutes to choose something to wear for the day (or maybe even 15-30 minutes for all you stylish fashionistas out there), these precious minutes could be put into more productive things. Have a mental plan for your outfits in the upcoming week, or, if you’d like, write them down on a notepad in case you forget.
Once you have your outfits planned out, try laying out your clothes, shoes and accessories on your chair or have them hung on your closet door so that they’re ready for you to change into the next morning. You will save precious time that could be put into other tasks like making breakfast for yourself, morning meditations and so on.
5. Don’t multitask. Focus on one thing at a time.
So what exactly is multitasking? You’d be surprised to hear that there’s three different types of multitasking:
-
Performing two or more tasks simultaneously
-
Switching back and forth from one task to another
-
Performing multiple tasks in rapid succession
Unless you’re an accomplished multi-tasker and somehow have it all worked out, multi-tasking can be counterproductive. Rather than spreading your focus on too many things at once, it’s better to set an amount of time where you can focus on one task at a time. This will ensure that you do your task well and you give it the full attention it needs, which conserves energy. Multitasking is more taxing on the brain’s energy reserves because you’re constantly shifting your attention from one thing to another. Additionally, our short-term memory benefits from single-tasking because we’re not continuously attempting to remember where we left off and on what task. You’ll save a lot of time and energy by focusing on one task at a time.
Some other personal benefits of single-tasking include increased self-discipline, protection against distractions and improved attention span. In terms of our relationships with others, it also improves our communication with others by allowing you to fully tune in with what they say (an admirable and respectable trait to have), making you a thoughtful, respectful and present individual.
Time, in a way, is like money: It has much value to us, and it’s something we want to have a lot of. However, it is also unlike money. While you can eventually earn back the money you spend, time is something you can never earn back. Once it’s used up, it’s gone for good. Every action you make has an impact on the amount of time you have left in your day, and it’s up to you to figure out how to make the best of it.