5 ways to increase your - Return on Time

“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” Bruce Lee.

You spend about 12 to 14 hours at work. You always feel busy and stressed out. Your work life balance is never balanced. You always wonder how people with higher responsibilities are managing their work. We all have an equal number of hours in a day.

Time is a perishable resource. We must spend our time more judiciously than our money. You know how to better ROI i.e. return on investments, but what about ‘Return on Time’ (ROT)? Isn’t that a daily struggle?

Applying better ROI techniques can hugely enhance your ROT. You have never thought about it like this.

You can increase your ROI by either increasing your return or reducing your capital and maintaining the return. Likewise, the following 5 techniques will help you to enhance your Return on Time.

1. Reduce time-wasting activities

We waste lots of time in two ways; one without our knowledge and second with our knowledge. It could be social media addiction or checking emails several times a day. It could be chatting over the phone or it could be making presentations.

“PowerPoint makes us stupid.” James Mattis

Like money saved is money earned, time saved is time earned. It’s all yours to do what you like to do.

Know, cut, and avoid your wasteful activities. This will radically improve your return on time.

2. Use small time gaps for smaller work

Small investments over time become big. Similarly, utlilising every short time gap accomplishes big work.

Carry a book you wish to read with you. You will get time while commuting, waiting for a meeting or waiting for a doctor in the dispensary.

There are several free time gaps we get during the day. Use it productively in a planned way. You will be astonished how much you can do with this free time.

3. Use technology, but use a nap too:

Yes, technology can improve productivity. Use technology for repetitive work. Use technology for collaborating work, use technology for process-driven work, use technology to speed up the work. Use technology to avoid commuting.

Like technology saves time, a nap also saves your time.

You may be wondering how a nap, which we consider as a waste of time saves time for us.

A nap recharges our brain. We can do more with a recharged brain than with a tired and stressed out brain.

“Napping is a high-performance activity. If you looked into the habits of highly successful people you would see a lot of naps, a lot of recoveries. It’s sort of our brains’ janitorial service. It helps us clean out the stuff we don’t want. It also helps us work on ideas while we’re asleep. Top performers use sleep as a tool.” Daniel Coyle

Use naps to improve your productivity. This will save your time and enhances your work quality.

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4. Plan your activities/work

Planning your day saves time. It helps us doing priority work. Keep your to-do list in front of you. Strive to tick off all items on your to-do list as quickly as possible.

Not knowing what to do and doing unimportant work are the biggest hurdles to the productivity. You also must have a ‘stop-doing’ list along with your to-do list.

“The only thing more important than your to-do list is your to-be list. The only thing more important than your to-be list is to be. ” Alan Cohen

Remember this. Your right to-do list is the route to what you want to become.

5. Be consistent with your work schedules

To finish a project, you need a plan and action. Be consistent in your action. Finish what you have started in one go. When we restart doing the work left midway, it takes more time to understand and refocus the work.

This means a work which you can do in 60 minutes if done at a stretch can take more than 60 minutes if done in two instalments.

“The ability to focus is one of the most important skills we can develop. Meaningful work does not get done in a few fractured minutes snatched throughout the day.” Rosie Leizrowice

Time is even for all of us. We can use it or waste it. The choices we make during the day sums up total time used and total time wasted.

Make your choices smarter. Invest your time as smartly as you invest your money.

Share your better productivity experiences.

 

Siddhant Dubey - Writer & Photographer

Siddhant works as a freelance content writer who is interested in a wide range of spheres from photography and personal finance to cooking. He is also an aspiring photographer striving to showcase life around him through his vision.