We’re all too familiar with feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day. Between work, family and personal commitments, it’s hard – and sometimes impossible – to fit it all in. Through trial and error we’ve found a few game changing time management practices that have helped us avoid feeling like that as frequently — although of course we still have those days! Read on below for our recommendations for how to best use your time so that you feel more productive and hopefully a little less hectic. 🙂

Prep for the Week Ahead

Mondays are often spent clearing our inbox, playing catch up, and trying to get organized for the week, leaving little time to actually cross off to-dos on our list. This makes us feel behind going into the week rather than on top of things. To avoid this, we like to carve out and hour or two on Sunday to prep for the week ahead. We take a quick look at our inbox and flag items that need immediate attention, review our calendar and schedule “working hours” in between meetings and activities, and write a to-do list to start tackling on Monday morning. This boosts our productivity for the week and gives us more time on Monday to get things done! We also like to plan and prep our meals for the week on Sunday which opens up a few more hours of productive work time and takes away the evening guess work and last minute grocery store runs.

Start with Your Biggest Task

We’re guilty of procrastinating from time to time, especially when it comes to big projects. This means we end up spending more time worrying about a project than getting it done — not good time management! By flip flopping this habit and getting our biggest, most time consuming task out of the way first, our calendar opens up and gives us more time and energy to tackle other to-dos. It also opens up more head space and helps us to avoid anxiety about a looming task.

Identify Your Goals

Often times we put energy and time towards things that in the moment feel urgent or necessary, but aren’t actually helping us achieve our short and long-term goals. To avoid wasting time on meaningless to-dos, write out your goals for the week as well as your larger, long-term goals. Once you’ve established your goals (these can be both personal and professional), create a to-do list prioritizing items that are pushing you towards those goals. The less important items can be postponed until a later time or delegated.

Delegate

We recently talked about delegating on the blog, and how it can be super helpful in achieving both your personal and professional goals. If there are to-dos on your list that need to get done but aren’t things that you yourself have to take care of, consider asking for help.  This might mean hiring or training someone, which is a big time commitment initially but will pay off in the long run. Whether it’s a task at home like organizing or cleaning, or a to-do at the office that could be outsourced, taking these items off of your plate will open up hours on your calendar to take care of priorities that are propelling you towards your goals.

Put Your Phone Away

Social media is one of our biggest time management enemies. Opening Instagram throughout the day can become an unhealthy and inefficient addiction. Even if we have the intention of a quick 5 minute Instagram break, too often it results in 15 minutes or more of mindless scrolling that leads to other rabbit holes. Try putting your phone in the other room or on airplane mode while you focus on important tasks. Allow yourself 1-2 times a day to check your Instagram instead of it being a habitual pattern. The minutes spent looking at social media add up and could be taking away hours of productive time each week!

Keep Track of Your Hours

It’s easy to spend more time than necessary on projects without realizing it. Try tracking how you spend your hours for one week to see if how you are actually allocating your time lines up with what you think. You might find that you’re spending twice as much time than you had initially planned on a project, and not nearly enough time on another to-do that needs more of your attention. Once you have a true measure of how you are delegating your time, you can make adjustments to focus on those goal-fulfilling tasks.

What are your favorite time management tips? We’d love to hear them in the comments below!