How to get more hours in your day: Productivity hacks from leading CEOs

YOU might be busy, but you’ve got more time each day than you realise. Here are five productivity hacks from leading CEOs to help you make the most of it.

If you use your time wisely you can achieve so much more each day.

AS A life coach, one of the most common reasons I am given by my clients to explain why they cannot pursue their passion is “I don’t have enough time”. But the truth is, we don’t have a time shortage, we have a focus shortage.

Over the years in my work with leading CEOs I have uncovered some productivity hacks that can help you recognise you have more hours in the day than you realise.

Here are five tips to maximise every 24-hour timeslot!

1. USE WAIT TIME WISELY

We spend a lot of our days waiting. Waiting for a train, waiting for a meeting to start, waiting for a doctor’s appointment. Often this time is wasted. Our immediate reaction is to whip out our phone and scroll through Instagram or consume promotional emails.

If you were to add up time spent waiting everyday it would amount to hours each week. Wait time is an excellent opportunity to respond to friends and relatives via text or email, book a necessary appointment or pay a bill online.

This will help you feel more productive and positive about how you’ve spent your day, even while you’re on the go. And, more importantly, it frees up time for you to focus on other things later.

2. SHARE THE WORKLOAD

It’s imperative to know where your energy is best applied. Many of us try to cram in everything rather than recognise our strengths and notice where we can outsource time-consuming activities.

If you are in a position to afford it, hiring a cleaner every fortnight or ordering in occasional meals can provide you with decent chunks of time to work on something that’s a better use of your energy.

Ask yourself, what can you forgo in your budget in order to invest in some of these conveniences — perhaps going to the movies, or a gym membership you don’t use?

There are also lots of tasks that you can share with friends to save you valuable hours. If you have kids, do you know another parent that you can take turns doing the school run with? If you have a dog and so does your neighbour, could you take turns grabbing supplies at the pet store?

3. MAXIMISE YOUR PEAK PERFORMANCE HOURS

It’s common to hear about the most productive types waking up really early to work or working late into the evening.

We all have “golden hours” — that part of the day or night when we are at our most creative. For me, it’s the mornings. I do my best writing in the mornings and only take meetings and calls in the afternoon if I can.

A client of mine was just writing an important proposal that needed her concentration. Like me, she’s a morning person. She planned her week ahead of time and set aside two early mornings in order to complete it. This saved her from writing the proposal over days (in jagged bursts).

It was effectively completed over four hours in two mornings. She said it would have taken her twice the time (or more) otherwise.

4. SAY NO TO WHAT DOES NOT MATTER IN ORDER TO SAY YES TO WHAT DOES

Warren Buffet said, “The only difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people say no.”

Many of us have a tendency to say yes to every invitation and offer we receive. Stopping to think about what you really want to do is therefore essential.

It’s OK to say no to opportunities that do not really interest you! Think about how many extra hours you would save each week if you said no to running the kid’s club or not attending drinks with former colleagues. Hours in your week appear like magic when you start declining more than accepting.

5. SET PERSONAL GOALS

Many of us will spend longer writing a list for the grocery store than writing down goals for the year.

Goals matter because the first rule of getting what you want is knowing what you want. Goals exist to give us clarity. They force us to contemplate the specifics on what it is we want to achieve — what we want to be, do or have.

There is evidence from Harvard that the top 3 per cent of their MBA grads make 10 times more than their peers because only 3 per cent have clear, written goals and plans to accomplish them.

Take some time to sit down and write what you want to achieve over the next 12 months. Make your goals achievable but not easy. In coaching we call the best goals stretch goals — possible but with a little stretch. We always want to be pushing ourselves forward.

Remember to break up your goals, too! Every large goal is just a series of small goals being achieved. For example, if you wanted to save $5000 for a travel fund — how much is that per week or per month? Or if you wanted to write a book — how many chapters is that? Can you write one chapter per week, or two weeks? A 12 chapter novel may seem insurmountable when you look at a blank word document but a chapter a month means you will be done in just a year from now, maybe less once you are active and inspired.

Having goals remind us why we need to focus and stay on track. They motivate and remind us to use our precious hours wisely.

Susie Moore is an Australian Life and Business Coach living in New York City. Sign up for her free weekly wellness tips via her website: www.susie-moore.com