Do you feel constantly busy and overwhelmed with work and home life responsibilities? Do you feel like you never finish your to-do list? You may chalk it up to laziness, procrastination, or not enough self-discipline to stay productive all day, every day. However, sometimes we need to realize when a schedule is simply too busy that no tools or methods can fix that.
Have you reached that point where you feel stuck because tools or methods don’t seem to help with how busy you are on a daily basis? It’s probably not you—it’s your ever-growing list of responsibilities! Maybe you are just too busy.
Sometimes your schedule or to-do list becomes longer than the number of minutes in a day. No matter how well you manage time, optimize productivity or implement routines, there is only time for a finite number of tasks. If you’re stuck in a cycle of “too busy”, here are a few tips to help you become less busy and have more time.
Habit stack
Habit stacking is a great way to save time. By combining multiple habits and doing them together or in succession, you’re using one habit to trigger another. One example is doing the dishes while you cook dinner. You not only save time, but you also avoid a huge mess and more stress later. Habit stacking is perfect for killing two birds with one stone. It allows you to get through more tasks in less time and effort.
Delegate
We all have responsibilities that only we can do based on our individual strengths, skills, knowledge or training. Still, some of our daily or weekly responsibilities could easily be passed along to others with little training. Can you get help from a friend or family member, or work with a specialist or assistant to help take something off your plate? Delegating is a very powerful solution to becoming less busy.
Automate
Sometimes automation is an even better solution than delegation. Automation doesn’t mean large robots or machinery. Some smaller scale ways to automate can be easily achieved through an app or a software program you already use. One example is setting up a rule in your Email inbox to automatically sort emails from certain senders into specific folders and skip your inbox altogether. Another example is using a food tracker app to track your meals if seeing and analyzing the data is useful for a health goal. Anything that can make a process more simple is automation.
Some say, “there’s an app for that”! Surely there’s an app that exists for nearly everything, and it’s true! When you’re needing a solution to automate a task in your life, check out your phone or device’s app store. We teach clients strategies to bring automation into their work or life and gain time back for what matters most.
Learn when to say “no”
Saying no can be difficult, but it is an important skill to learn. In addition to figuring out the best way to say it nicely and respectfully, we also need to consider when it is time to say no. It does take some introspection and self-reflection to realize when you simply just have too much on your plate. Once you learn your own capacity level, it becomes easier. If you know when you don’t have the capacity, saying no is actually in the best interest of you and the person requesting your time.
When you say yes with too much on your plate, you are saying no to something. That new task or one already on your list might get pushed back or missed entirely because there was simply no room for it in your busy schedule. If you want what’s best for everyone, sometimes saying no is the right answer. It is much better to be honest and straightforward, than to disappoint yourself or someone else later on.
We can help you make more time in your day!
If you feel like you’re too busy to even try to figure out how to become less busy, schedule a free, no-risk Discovery Call. In no time at all, we’ll explore how we can help you find more time in your day!
