How to Add More Time to Your Day

With our lives becoming busier by the day, we're often pressured to get more done in less time. Students, stay at home moms, business owners and corporate executives are all quickly learning that proper time management is critical for their success. Plenty has been written about doing things like sleeping less, multitasking and other activities that sound great, but can be difficult (and take time) to implement. Instead, here are three time savers that will not only add time to your packed day, but are things that you can realistically accomplish now.

The first way to add time to your day is to plan it out. We spend too much time each day sitting idle while we try to figure out what to do next or remember something important that we were supposed to do. It's like going to grocery store running up and down the aisles hoping that what we see will jog our memories as to what we were supposed to buy - we could accomplish this in a fraction of the time by entering the store with a list. So why gamble your time this way? Plan your day more effectively and you'll find yourself with more time. Simply create a list of what you need to do and stick to it. Don't let interruptions or distractions send you off course.

Second, learn to multitask more effectively. Multitasking in the traditional sense is inefficient - jumping between tasks slows you down so complete one and then move on to the next. The best way to multitask is to use otherwise wasted time to become more productive. Wait time - such as in a doctor's office or while commuting to work - is the best opportunity to multitask. Use this time to do paperwork, read or if you have a blackberry, email enabled cell phone or other PDA or wireless device, answer email.

Finally, check your messages only two or three times per day. Although email has made us more efficient in some ways, it has also made us less productive. If you leave your email client up and running all day long, you'll probably get a pop up notification each time a new message arrives. If you're like most people, you'll check to see what the message is all about it - this takes you away from the task that you were previously working on. So instead, try to check your email in the morning, around lunch time and then at the end of the day. You can configure programs such as Microsoft Outlook to automatically do this for you. Remember, less interruptions equals more time to be productive.

It's tempting to fall into the traps of not having a plan and allowing interruptions to control our lives. With a little practice and discipline, you'll quickly find that you'll be able to get more done and less time. Before you know it, you'll have something that once seemed like a distant memory: free time.