As the years roll by, life seems to get even busier. Our most precious commodity is often our time with most people often wishing for a few more hours in the day. Technology continues to play a vital role in bringing efficiency to our daily lives and helping to reclaim some needed time.
In fact, research indicates that technology saves the average person around two weeks a year – or almost two and a half years over the course of our lifetime. The main time savers are the tools most of us are already using – self-service checkouts, online banking and shopping, and mobile traffic updates. It’s certainly worth ensuring you are making the most of these to free up your time. Set up online shopping lists and automating bill payments to cut down on time spent on everyday tasks.
To take your time-saving efforts even further, there are a myriad of applications available to help you create efficiencies in your professional and personal life. Let’s look at the best ways to stop wasting your precious time and then look at specific applications that may be of benefit.
Taming your email
Email is certainly nothing new, but it’s easier than ever to manage with the right tools. What is relatively new is the number of email management applications you can use to gain efficiencies. If you juggle multiple accounts or feel overwhelmed by unread emails, tools like “Clean Email” can automatically delete old messages and organize incoming one’s for you. Many people are also finding that checking and responding to emails just few times a day, instead of constantly, helps them to stay focused and productive.
Avoid distractions and stay focused
When it comes to distractions it can be hard to stay on target 100 per cent of the time. However if you find that you are spending too much time on online diversions, apps like “Freedom” and the aptly named “Selfcontrol” work to block irrelevant content on distracting websites.
There is also a growing trend which moves away from multi-tasking and suggests it’s more effective to focus on one thing at a time, giving each task your undivided attention before moving on to the next. If that’s an approach that you find challenging, there are several apps you can use to help you keep focused. If you find you jump from one thing to another and end up with a stack of half-finished tasks, apps like “Focus Keeper” provide discipline and the motivation to complete tasks within certain time blocks.
Save time by being aware of time
Another way of saving time is to become more aware of where your time is being spent – so you can identify and reduce wasted time. While it can be a little confronting to find out how much time you spend checking your social feeds, apps like “Rescue Time” are great for keeping you on target. Rescue Time tracks what you’re working on and suggests the best times for uninterrupted work and when you’re losing focus. When you’re trying to tackle too many tasks the prompts also help you to prioritise.
Get organised and outsource
Making the most of your time is all about getting organised. Apps that help you to break down your hectic life into tasks and ‘to-do’ lists also help you to prioritise and make sure nothing gets dropped. “Remember the milk” allows users to manage tasks, share lists and allocate them to others so it’s a useful tool to keep your whole household or team at work organised.
It’s important to put a value on your precious time and sometimes that means getting assistance with all the low-value tasks in your life that get in the way of what you really need to do. There are heaps of apps like “Fivver” or “Airtasker” that can help you to outsource all sorts of annoying, time-consuming jobs.
Next steps
The first step is to review your time and start exploring how technology might be able to help you to be more efficient and reclaim some of those lost hours.
For further support, connect with your local Nexia adviser. They can discuss possible efficiencies to improve your personal situation or business operations, so you can save time and focus on your other priorities.
