Three Simple Ways to Save Time During Your Busy Day

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Finding enough time in the day to accomplish everything you need to do to is no small feat when you have a family. The trick is to find ways to save time when you can, without dropping the ball. Even with the best intentions, it’s not easy to get everything done, especially as a single parent, or if both parents work full-time.

If you’re feeling run off your feet, try not to be too hard on yourself or become overwhelmed.

Try these life-saving, time-saving hacks and create a few spare minutes in your day. (As any parent knows, a spare minute is not to be sniffed at!)

Automate Where Possible

One of the best ways to create more time in your day is to cut out as many seemingly-small, repetitive tasks as possible.

While you might not think that you spend much time fiddling with your thermostat, for example, if you add up those minutes over the course of a week, a month, or even a year, chances are you’re sacrificing hours of what could be family time on a menial chore that could easily be accomplished by a smart device.

The golden rule when it comes to automation is if you find that you’re doing the same thing more than once, you can probably find a smart device to do it for you. And if you can think of a smart device that should exist, you can bet that an innovative company out there has had the same brainwave.

Home security companies have been quick to provide time-saving security systems that offer a host of other benefits, and manufacturers of the machines we use every day at home—from washers and dryers to vacuum cleaners—have been hard at work creating products that do their work unsupervised.

Go Online For Everything

Whether you drive to work or take public transport, nothing adds time to an already stressful commute like needing to stop at the shop for a couple of essentials for the home or your family’s health.

To save yourself precious time, try investing a couple of minutes at the beginning of the month for a quick stocktake of items like shower gel, Brita water filter refills, vitamin and mineral supplements, and other essentials that could be bought online.

Planning in advance for your family’s monthly requirements means you’ll be able to source many of the items online without the worry of extended shipping times or urgent detours on your way home from work.

Limit T.V Time

Of course, T.V can be the most appealing pastime at the end of a busy day. What parent doesn’t like to zone out for a couple of hours and watch a Disney movie with the kids?

But if your T.V habit does not constitute family time, and you’re watching T.V. or movies every night as a routine, you may not be getting much relaxation out of it. The low-level stimulation offered by screen media means your brain is not given a chance to completely switch off.

What’s more, T.V time can pass really quickly, and before you know it, you’ve spent hours not really relaxing, and not really doing anything else, either.

Instead of watching T.V., try spending your evenings doing other relaxing activities (that you might otherwise feel that you never have time to do) like phoning your friend, or taking a walk around the block.

You might find that you’re more energized the next day to accomplish the heroics of being a parent.

Whether you’re run off your feet or go through especially busy periods when you can’t hear yourself think, these tips will help you create a little extra time in your schedule.

 

Jeff Campbell
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