Get back 10 hours of your week with these simple steps

We all want more time in the day and the week.

But do you know how to actually make that happen?

Your time is precious and your most important resource – use it wisely.

The aim of this post is to give you back 10 hours of your week, but this is just a rough estimate to the power of time management and focus.

Remember Parkinson’s Law here – work fills to the time allocated to it, so be selective with the activities you give over for your time and make sure the time is not under or overestimated where you can.

// Concentrate on Essentials ONLY

Write down your Main Goals (clean house, feed kids, everyone at school, create profits from a side business etc) and Write a step by step guide to achieve each of those goals.

Everything Non-Essential miss out for one week – the house will survive if you don’t have four flavours of Soup to offer the household or you don’t manage to pick the right time to go to the post office with the letters to post.

Also write down how much time it takes roughly to achieve these essential tasks for your family, and plan when you will do that in your day or week.

Be sure not to underestimate your time, but rather make it more peaceful by giving yourself more time if possible to achieve each task.

ACTION – Remove all else but the essentials for one week and see if the house still functions fine.

Plan to only do these essential Personal Main Goals for the rest of the month and note the difference in your well-being.

// Schedule your Goals first, and leave spare time

Now that we have spent time figuring out exactly what the true essentials are for our family and our home, develop a schedule for those Personal & Household Goals only.

The amazing thing is that when we focus on the goals and activities that make us happy or are best for us, then you free up the rest of the time for fun activities instead.

Set a time you will clean/how you will clean; the times you will cook/how you will cook (meal plan/take away/prepping ahead), and when you will exercise and look after yourself so that you and your home are working on peak condition.

After all, it should be in your plans to make sure you are as healthy and fit as you can be, and for your house as well.

By making time for these activities that you know will bring order to your home, you will make sure those are completed first of all before anything else.

// No Minor Details allowed

Do you ever run like a headless chicken all day and week long only to look back and wonder what the devil you did with your week or where the time went?

Don’t fill your days rushing around doing small tasks that don’t give you fulfillment or make a true difference to your home or well-being.

Don’t major in minor details!  That includes our homes and our lives.

// Delegate like a Pro

You are not a martyr and so we shouldn’t put up with doing things we hate whilst the ones around us live a better life with no responsibilities.

It can be emotional and stressful to initially get rid from your diary all the things you don’t enjoy or are not essential, but the more you do it – the more you will enjoy saying no to commitments that don’t bring you joy.

Stop doing useless stuff in your life.  Period. 

Write down your top 5 tasks you don’t enjoy and delegate them for one week.

Whether that means hiring a cleaner for the day, sending out your clothes to the dry-cleaner, asking your partner or a friend to do the school run so you can go to the gym instead for example.

Try to delegate as much as you can and see if you enjoy it more.

// Single task only for the win

Multi-tasking, even when you believe you can do everything at once, does not work.

You will achieve less in the long run.

Focus on one task only till completion and even better set times each week for that task.

I like to plan my week and day ahead by writing in my day planner the activities that are my most important for that week -like spending time with my family, exercising, self-care, cleaning, cooking, fun activities for the weekend plans, working my day job, creating in my side jobs etc.

When I plan the week and glance ahead at it, it lets me feel confident that my week will be successful and filled with exciting activities to look forward to already.

Plenty of free time also left to feel inspired and do random fun activities too – or even have a nap!

Did you know Smart People tend to underachieve because they think they can multi-task?  I even talk about it more on this video and blog post on how you can beat it.

// Plan your day and week before you start it

Another lost forgotten secret when we are stressed and “busy” with life demands that really aren’t important is that by planning a little ahead means you focus on what to do rather than waste time thinking what you should do.

Chances are if you leave your brain to think in the moment, rather than have a plan – you will turn to procrastination as a way to relax.

So first things first – to do only the things you want to do and take back control of your day is to PLAN your day the night before.

Use a simple Daily Planner to do this with times roughly displayed and what you plan to do, and be sure to put the important tasks only on it.

// Have some fun with it all!

Running a household or family is not easy, but remember you only have one life to live.

Make sure you schedule free time for yourself and also fun time for the family each day and week.

You might also enjoy this previous blog post info graphic below to remind you of some of these time management skills you can apply today!

 // Review your goals regularly and change it needed

Be sure to look back regularly to how you used your week and days when you have eliminated activities, and see if your time management needs further work (you are still feeling tired or stressed or not enough exercise).

The most important in improvement and creating your ideal life is reviewing what you currently do and where you want to be.

Have those goals in mind each week, and work towards them today.

Know the one thing that is the best use of your time in that moment, and do it.

This even includes naps and having some fun!