Hack Your Time: Get More Done In Less Time With These 4 Principles

Time is something we never seem to have enough of. Right from birth, our entire life is measured in time. When to go to school, when to graduate from school, when to get a job or start a business, when to get married, the list is endless.

If you choose the path of entrepreneurship, then you have your work cut out for you. The first thing you will notice is what every fresher realizes in the first week - there is not enough time in the world. With so much work to do and so little time, you start to feel burned out and overwhelmed. Soon you begin to question if you made the right decision starting a business or if you would be better off with a 9 to 5.

Every entrepreneur feels or has felt this way at some point. To most people, the solution to this dilemma is “Becoming better at Time Management” There are many definitions of time management, but this is one I like;

Learning how to Manage time sounds like a great idea, but can you manage time? Or is this just a misnomer? Time like money is in short supply but unlike money, you can’t manage time. Can you choose to spend less time today and save up so you get more time tomorrow? That is impossible because time can’t be stopped. It just keeps ticking away. The best you can do is break it down into chunks and allocate each chuck to a specific activity. So you are not managing time but your activities.

So instead of keeping an overbooked schedule that is exhausting to keep up with, here are four ways you can hack time and get more done.

Automate repetitive tasks

You would come across small repetitive tasks daily. Individually, these types of tasks are easy to do, and only take a fraction of your time. But when you have to do several of them in a day, then you will need more time. An example is replying to emails. One or two isn’t so bad, but if you have to reply to several emails in a day, then it becomes a problem. If you understand the 80/20 principle, then you know that small, repetitive tasks like this often add less value despite taking up so much time. To avoid wasting time, consider automating the process. Automation has become much easier thanks to AI. All you need to do is set it up and let it run.

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Delegate as much as you can

Another way to carve out more time for what matters is by delegating. Some people find it difficult to delegate because they don’t believe others can do a better job. However, if you hire a great team and learn to trust them, you will accomplish more than you would if you were to do the job all by yourself.

Prioritize what matters most

The concept of prioritization is nothing new, but most people still do it the wrong way. The most common mistake is trying to stick to a schedule full of activities with little value. These types of activities take up to 80 percent of our time but produce 20 percent of the results, according to the Pareto Principle. Despite knowing this, most people try to do away with them because of the sheer size or volume of work to be done. But while you may get a feeling of fulfillment that comes with clearing your schedule, you are still behind in terms of achieving your goals.

Focus/Zone-in/Lock-in

There is so much discussion around the topic of focus and its effect on time management. One of the most interesting concepts derived from studies about focus is termed Flow. The idea was first researched by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi who defined flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter”. Flow is also closely associated with Deep Work, another concept that evolved from the study of focus. Deep work and Flow both highlight the power of focus and its ability to enhance productivity. Learning to focus is a must if you want to get more done in less time.

Tracking your productivity? In this article we covered some tools that will help you.

That’s all for now folks.

Until next time, stay inspired and keep chasing your dreams!

Cheers,

Alex