Top 3 time-saving hacks

As a business woman, wife, friend and mum… well, it’s not possible to do everything. It’s not realistic that you’re able to be athlete-fit, grow a great company, regularly catch up with friends, be a present mum and fit in a regular date night.

So be kind to yourself and prioritise what matters most to you right now.

I also want to share a few of my favourite productivity hacks, for making the most out of every day.

Group or batch tasks

This was a game-changer for me. If you’re ruled by your to-do list, one of the best changes you can make is to group similar tasks together.

I learnt this gem a few years ago, and it blew my mind how much time it saved me. Instead of calling that person back as soon as I have a free minute, or jumping in to my email, I block tasks together.

If I have calls to return, and calls to make, I pop them all together and do them one after another. If someone has called me, I’ll often text them back quickly and let them know roughly when I’ll be returning their call.

Batch together things like admin tasks, content-creation time, sales, marketing, anything that is part of your role.

Minimise email time

Have you ever noticed the more time you spend responding to emails, the more new ones you get? Yep… that.

A few years ago, we pretty much abolished email as a way for our team to communicate to each other. Because we work in social media, sometimes it was hard to know if that information was on an email, Facebook message, Instagram tag… you get the idea.

We got a really simple Intranet set up and now everything goes there. Tasks can be allocated (and when completed you’ll be notified), we have a section for ideas, leave calendars, discussion, processes and what not. It is so great having one home for everything.

Discourage your team from using the CC function. This is a HUGE time waster. If you need to know something critical, get them to give you an email summary at the end of the week with all the FYI items, or just abolish it altogether.

Don’t start your day with emails. Heard the saying eat the frog? Do the one thing you’ve been putting off or has the biggest impact first thing in the day.

The exception is anything that takes 2 minutes or less. Most of the time it is easier to do those on the spot, rather than adding them to a list for later.

Headphone time

I first heard this idea on Amy Porterfield’s podcast. Her team call it tiger time (I have no idea why), but it’s time where the whole team knuckles down to a big task with no chatting or interruptions.

In our office, we called ours headphone time. We have a stack of bright orange headphones and if anyone is wearing them, we know to put any questions through our Intranet, because they are DO NOT DISTURB. We try to maximise these times to one hour, and then encourage a 5-10 minute break in between blocks.

And … that’s it. A few short, simple ideas that could totally transform the way you use your time.

Lisa Shearon, Mentor and Ambassador at Hancock Creative