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Create an extra 2 hours a day!

Train yourself to be more productive in a day and do all the important activities you planned for.

1. Identify your Time-wasters

Try tracking your activities in detail for a week. Note down all the activities, the time started and time finished. After a week, you'll be able to use this information to analyse your use of time and pinpoint where you've been undisciplined. Use your insights to do things more efficiently in future.

2. Identify the key activities that will generate your results

Many of us spend way too much time on unproductive, time-wasting activities. When we consciously choose to focus on the activities that will give us the results we want, and weed out the rest, our 'to do' lists become much shorter! What will you stop doing to create more space in your life?

3. Set clear daily objectives

Become clear on what's important to you and set objectives around these key areas of your business and personal life. Be realistic about what's possible and allocate time-frames around achieving each objective.

4. Plan and prioritise

Once you've identified your objectives and key activities, prioritise them and create action plans for getting them done. By writing these objectives down, prioritising and scheduling them, we significantly reduce the sense of overwhelming stress that we feel by just working with a 'to do' list.

5. Avoid procrastination

There are many reasons why we procrastinate, including an 'all or nothing' mindset. Get started by breaking down your tasks into much smaller steps, and commit to achieving just one.

6. Hold effective meetings

Ensure you always have a written, prioritised agenda and that a copy is provided to each attendee in advance, to allow them to prepare beforehand. Also, set start and finish times and stick to them.

7. Focus and concentrate

Stay focused and concentrate on the task at hand and give 100% of your attention. Don't multitask. By jumping from one activity to another leads to confusion and overwhelm, as you leave incomplete tasks behind you.

8. Control interruptions

Create and exercise strong boundaries so that others will appreciate and respect the value of your time. Discourage unscheduled meetings or visitors by asking people to make an appointment with you. Allocate a few 'quiet periods' in your day or week when you don't allow any interruptions.

9. Get organised

Any time spent getting organised now, will save you time looking for things later. Create and use systems both in your work and personal life. Automate whatever you can, for example, regular monthly payments, so they'll happen without you. Use technology to activate reminders, use standard templates, checklists and scripts for regular tasks and processes.

10. Delegate/outsource

Get clear on any tasks that you're currently performing that can be handled by someone else. Don't limit what you can delegate only to the things that you're not good at. Even if you're good at a task and like doing it, consider how much of your valuable time could be freed up for other, more important tasks, by having someone cheaper than you doing the task for you.

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