Save time – 100 actionable time-saving tips that you can use NOW to save time

in #productivity6 years ago (edited)

Save time – 100 actionable time-saving tips that you can use NOW to save time

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( This post is also available in my blog, feel free to visit https://lifeston.com/how-to-save-time/ )

We all know that time is truly valuable, but we sometimes do waste time with being aware of it, wondering how we can save time.

Therefore in this post, I will list out 100 actionable time-saving tips in 5 areas to help you save a lot of time and avoid time wasters.

I hope you will gain back valuable time which will be more meaningful if spent elsewhere.

Without further ado, let’s start !!!

Daily Life

Cut shower time
Showering for too long is bad for our skin anyway

Have a set of versatile cloth that can match with another effortlessly
save time on clothing

By doing so, we can save time by just randomly grabbing any clothes from the wardrobe and the clothes will match each other effortlessly

Watch less TV and movies
save time on TV or movie watching

TV and movies may not help you achieve your dream and will consume a lot of your time. If you are looking for forms of entertainment that are more meaningful, you can refer to my post.

Use more online shopping
Then you don’t need to go out. Time saved.

Don’t read news
Most of the news does not affect our life

Organise your stuff
save time by organising your stuff

You will be able to find what you need faster, so you can save time!

And a clear environment gives you more space to work.

Put yourself in a good mood in the morning
save time by putting yourself in a good mood in the morning

You will have the energy to do what you need to do faster, cutting the time needed.

Wear a watch instead of checking your phone
Drawing your phone out of the pocket every time you need to check your time is a waste of time. This helps you save time multiple times a day !

Why don’t we just wear a watch that allows us to check time almost instantly?

Find delicious meal recipes that are quick to make
save time on cooking

Reduce meal preparation time.

Organise your tools
Avoid spending time searching for the tools you need

Use multi-tools
Avoid time wasted in switching between different tools or searching for tools

Have cable organizers
Let you find the cable you need immediately. No time spent on searching!

Quit fidgeting
Avoid being distracted

Pay for service that is reasonably priced instead of spending a lot more time to find a free alternative
Your time worth more than the money spent!

Use an automatic coffee maker instead of having a coffee run
An automatic coffee maker can deliver a good cup of coffee without you interacting with it. Save time every morning.

Use an alarm app that is difficult to turn off to ensure you wake up in the right time / the time you need to wake up
You won’t waste time on extra hours of sleep that your body doesn’t need

You won’t miss any opportunities / be late and hence won’t need to spend time compensating for the trouble oversleeping cause.

Have a workout plan
By exercising systematically, you will be fit and gain strength in the fastest way

Work

Prioritize
Focus on what is important. Do what is the most important FIRST !!!!

80/20
Center all your effort in the 20% of tasks that brings 80 % of the benefits/satisfaction

Timeboxing
Arrange your task in different periods ( boxes ) of time

Set a limited amount of time for your work
save time by motivating yourself to work faster

Force yourself to work more efficiently

Don’t read unnecessary materials
ONLY read what you need and what help you in achieving your goals.

Reading unnecessary material doesn’t provide you with the information you need !!! It only wastes the time that you can use to do something productive.

Learn Speed reading
Save time when reading

Optimize sleep
Only with proper sleep can you refresh your mind and reinvigorate your body, so that you have the energy to do what you need.

And since we have to sleep anyway, why don’t we make the process more efficient and get more out of the same amount of sleep

To help you do so, I have made a sleep optimization guide.

Make good use of commute time
save time by taking advantage of your waiting time

The commute time wasted on doing nothing does add up.

Use the time to read books, listen to audiobooks, organize your phone, talking to our friends and family, or come up with a business idea that will generate you extra income…

( refer to my what to do in your waiting time post )

Outsource
Let others do the tasks that aren’t worth your time

Sharpen the tool that you need to carry out your job duty

Use rest time between work session wisely
save time by using the rest time to do something helpful

Use the time to effectively recharge yourself / get ready for what is coming next.

This will save you time in your next work session since your productivity is boosted.

Give up on things that don’t work / worth the time spent
Keep working on things that don’t work won’t help you achieve anything

Stop investing any time in them !!!!!

use a digital note for easy organization and access
save time by using digital notes

Hence, you don’t need to spend extra time organizing your notes into different categories and you can add new information to anywhere on any page you want.

You can also read your notes on the go and search for any page of notes you need.

For this, you can use OneNote or EverNote.

Learn to use note taking apps to handle your job better
We all need to jot down some information in our job or study, so it is important to learn more about the functions of note-taking apps that we use in order to maximize our efficiency when taking notes, hence letting us save time.

Boost productivity.

Don’t procrastinate.

Procrastination will drive you to do something not important instead of doing what you need to do.

Time spent on doing what doesn’t matter = wasted

Save time by doing what is useful!

Build momentum by doing the most difficult but important task in the morning
You will be more motivated to do other tasks since you have done the most difficult one — what can’t I finish?

And finishing the most challenging work will often help you to go on with other tasks.

Plan your day, to do list
save time by planning

You will know what you need to do and focus on them.

Check whether what you do is meaningful \ effective before starting to do it
Avoid spending time on meaningless stuff

Focus when you are working
save time by concentrating on your work

Focus = high productivity and fewer mistakes made

Don’t waste time learning skill you don’t need

Build habit and routine
Your mind will automate the series of tasks you want to do every day after a habit or routine is established, so you don’t need to think about them. You save time when you need to do this series of tasks due to the automation.

Capture random idea
save time by not missing any of your helpful ideas

Never miss a valuable idea that can help you solve all the problem faster / accomplish more within the same time.

Use a fast writing pen

Have a File transfer method between devices
Prevent time being wasted on the file transfer process.

You can go to https://send-anywhere.com

Link/ message transfer between devices
You can use Pushbullet for this.

Check email only when it is necessary
save time by checking email less frequently

find mentors/guidance to help you
Save your time of struggling

learn to type fast

write an outline before you write anything
To be able to come up with sentences to write faster and organize your essay in no time.

use Pinterest to find inspiration instead of googling online
Pinterest is a platform where information is presented in vivid and compact images.

Ask for others’ assistance when there is a problem you can’t solve
save time by asking for help

Don’t waste time struggling

Have a Not-to-do list to remind yourself of time wasters to avoid

Use the pros vs cons method to make decisions quickly

Mind mapping
Keep your idea more organized.

allow you to discover areas of ideas that you have never thought of

This saves time for brainstorming sessions.

Learn methods of thinking and innovating
Think and create new idea faster.

Train your logical ability
Never have time spent wasted due to thinking error

Train your memory

Use pocket to save useful articles/material to read later
easy organization for articles you want to read

Use flynx to avoid time wasted when waiting for a website to load

Use OneNote for research
Markdown your source when researching instead of spending a lot of time to reverse engineer the source afterward

Markdown your source when researching instead of spending a lot of time to reverse engineer afterward

Have good sources for research
You won’t waste time reading material that is not useful or misleading. Therefore you will finish your research faster and save time.

Ask questions in forum or Quora
save time by not being afraid to ask

Have others guide you or help you solve the problem

Apply and practice what you learn instead of forgetting it overtime
Practicing turn information into useful knowledge and experience. It also helps you consolidate your knowledge

No need to learn something again.

Just read book summary when a book is not full of value in every single page
Some books just have a lot of useless information

General

Don’t waste time worrying about sth that doesn’t matter /you can’t change

Worrying doesn’t help. You can’t change it anyway

Have passive income
No need to spend time making money. Save the time for what you truely want to do !

Take action to improve a not ideal state
save time by taking huge action

You won’t waste time living a life you hate

You will be in a more positive mood since you will be proud of yourself that you took action and you will also be encouraged by the reward along the way

In this way, you will get more things done

Achieve financial freedom
save time by freeing yourself financially

Not wasting time in jobs that are meaningless to you.

You can refer to my step-by-step guide to achieve financial freedom

Keep your body healthy
save time by being healthy

There will not be a time that you feel so I’ll that you can’t work

Have a bucket list
Becoming more goal oriented will ensure that you only work towards and only do what will bring you maximum satisfaction ( your bucket list items )

This will save time on your journey of life

Don’t overthink about what others think
Most of the time, what is in other’s mind doesn’t matter

Take action
Knowing all the knowledge in the universe will get you nowhere if the information is not implemented

Tech

Turn off notification access of all that you don’t need notification from
Don’t let the unnecessary notification disturb you

Have a fast phone
Your phone is the electric device that you use the most

Have a fast internet
save time by having a swift internet

Your device needs to work under an internet so as to access the fiction you need

Smartphone automation
Use apps like IFTTT, tasker, automate. To automate some function of your phone

Organise your apps such that they are easy to access
Struggling to find apps you need can be a waste of time

Use the fastest browser
save time by using a speedy browser

Time saved on waiting pages to load.

Look for tricks to speed up Windows
Gain extra free speed on windows

Use flow to type in your phone
A much faster way to type on your phone

Make good use of speech to text

Unsubscribe from YouTube channel you no longer watch
So that your YouTube free will only be filled with useful video

Unsubscribe from unnecessary email service
You will only receive important email, use cleanfox

play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.cleanfox.android

Invest in tangle-free earphones
Tangled earphone takes very long time to untangle

Use SSD
Much faster than traditional hard drive.

Use Gboard
You can search for something when you are trying without switching app

there are also great Voice typing and flow typing features.

play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.inputmethod.latin

Have good communication gateway with college
Make cooperation easier

Allow for faster idea exchange. More effective communication

less dangle
No more time wasted on finding dangles and packing the dangles into your bag

Buy electronic gadgets that have all the ports you need or buy an all-in-one dangle.

Check social media only for a limited amount of time at a fixed time period
Social media is a great distraction and we may get lost in it

Use Grammarly
Automate grammar correction

Have useful chrome plugin
Make browsing faster

Use a password manager
Auto password fill in, password save

Never need to deal with forgotten passwords or weak passwords being cracked

My favorite password manager is LastPass

Pick a laptop with a fingerprint scanner
A Much faster way to log in

Master word, powerpoint, excel
Edit the document much faster

Learn programming
save time by letting programmes work for you

Use program to automate your task. ( learn Python to begin with )

Organise your files into folders
You can always find what you want

Don’t download software you don’t need and uninstall the unnecessary software
Don’t let them slow down your PC, preventing you from locating what you need

Use digital payment instead of cash
Faster payment

Relationship

Avoid argument when Possible
You need to spend more time fixing your relationship after an argument

An argument doesn’t solve problems/ resolve conflicts

Don’t get angry unless it helps you

Getting angry will make you make mistakes that you will need to compensate for later

don’t use online dating
You often can’t find true love there

These are my time-saving tips. What is yours? How do you save time? Comment down below !!

And if this post helped prevent wasting time, you can help others save time by share this post with them.

Afterall, as the saying goes ” Time is money” !!!

For more tips in productivity and life, you can also read my other posts
https://lifeston.com/post/

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To me the best way to save time is to have priorities and stop procrastinating :)

Yes. That's true