What are your favorite time-saving hacks? I’m always looking for ways to be more efficient and make my day run smoother, so I’d love to hear what’s working for you.
Lately, I’ve been trying to find a better way to jump between meetings, Slack messages, and deep work so I don’t lose momentum every time I switch what I’m doing.
Right now I’m:
Doing similar tasks in one time block
Setting meeting-free focus blocks on my calendar
Batching meetings so I have longer blocks of time to do work
Prepping a daily to-do list first thing in the morning to help organize my day
What time-saving hacks help you make the most out of your day?
Responding to email has become overwhelming and very time-consuming. I use sanebox to filter emails into folders ranging from junk to newsletters to emails requiring a response. Many emails, of a frequent nature that do require a response, I can respond using TE snippets. It’s save me hours per week and reduced stress.
I too group like with like when it comes to task management. I have many emails to process, tasks to oversee for other teammates, QC to perform on work being completed, and I contribute to individual cases within our practice. To help make sure I am being thorough when in a particular matter, when I take up any single task, I also review all my platforms (email, case management software, notes, meeting agenda updates, team chat messages, etc.) so I am working on the same file across all platforms so I don’t have to switch brain gears.
I also just began starting my workday at 5AM with a two-hour focus block really gets me into the right mindset and then the rest of the day tends to flow smoothly (note I posted a comment to another thread about how overwhelmed I have been, so this is a VERY new development for me).
I do not batch my meetings, but rather do everything necessary to close out any action items immediately following the meeting while it is still fresh in my mind, so my calendaring app (Calendly) has generous buffers baked into every meeting. When manually scheduling I am very protective of my time (a luxury since many people don’t get to decide how many meetings they want to take in a day, or how close together they may be).
My favorite, though, is probably ruthlessly culling spam by unsubscribing, etc. I love doing that! It may not save me time today, but over time it helps reduce clutter and noise, and I can process my inbox down to zero pretty regularly.
As an extension to your daily to-do list, I have a HIT list. It is the High Impact Tasks. Rather than high priority tasks, which we always have, I have the HIT list. It is more a category of tasks. Normally 3-5 tasks that are of the most impact to my day.
The other things I do, is manage notifications. In a world of distractions, it is easy to get off task and lose focus because a new email notification, Teams/Slack etc. On my phone I have all non-important notifications off and this includes emails. I read my emails in the schedule time. If it is urgent that is what a phone call is for.
My computer notifications are set to DND when in meetings, which also include the schedule meeting-free time. I treat instant messaging like Teams/Slack the same as email. Action it when I am ready.
I think in a lot of cases we have the time, what we don’t have the is distraction free time. Be ruthless with your time. It is the most precious we have.
Here are my biggest time-saving hacks (I work in academia):
When you get invited to meetings, always ask, “What input do they need from you?” 90% of the time I am just invited because I am part of a generic mailing list (e.g., all-staff, etc.).
Only say yes if it’s aligned with your larger, visionary goals. My only exceptions are if I can help somebody.
Use automation like TextExpander, Hazel, Alfred, etc.
Think more about how to manage your energy and not how to manage your time. For example, difficult and important tasks in the morning, boring tasks in the afternoon. This also means no emails before I have worked on my goals in the morning.
Some people already mentioned it above: Grouping tasks together to avoid context switching requires extra energy. I have an afternoon full of meetings, a morning brainstorming/writing proposal and big publications, and admin work as a block at the end of the week where I have less energy, etc.
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