8 Simple Ways To Get Time Back In Your Day

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There are 24 hours in a day, but you may often feel that 24 hours isn’t enough and doesn’t let you do everything you wish. Not to mention, there are things that you need to do daily, which cover some of those 24 hours, like getting sleep and eating. By only looking at the numbers, 24 hours might look like a lot until you see and feel how fast it passes. How would you feel if there were some simple ways to get time back in your day? 

You might have seen some people mention how they get the most out of their daily time while freeing up time to do things they want. They could be optimising their time by working on things they need to focus on and consider essential or enjoyable. These simple ways to get time back in your day could shine and help you review things that may be using your valuable time unnecessarily. It may not seem like it, but small things you didn’t think much of could be taking a lot of your time.

You might be wondering what picking out your outfits has to do with being one of the simple ways to get time back in your day. Everyone wears clothes, but how much they spend on them can range for each individual. Some may take 5 minutes, 1 hour or even 2 hours. If you have been considering how to free up more time, consider how much time you spend picking out your outfits. You may try multiple combinations of outfits or take a long time to choose an outfit each time you need to change. 

Suppose you have a strong interest in fashion and are attentive to what you wear on each occasion. Consider spending some free time during the week to create sets of outfits for each event, whether for work or a night out. Otherwise, another easy option can be buying a mannequin outfit if you find any piqued your interest. Often, merchandisers or stylists are the ones who dress the mannequins, and also, you might be surprised at how much people do this. Either way, reflect on the time you spend getting dressed and if you need to reduce it.

We all have items we always need to restock and one, two or more things that are used often to run out quickly. You might not realise it, but the time you spend, even 5 minutes, could stack up to a few hours on restocking your personal inventory. Consider your list, especially the items you end up going back and forth, spending your precious time refilling them. It could be your favourite cleanser, toothbrush or razor. This goes for pens, pencils, batteries and other personal care items.

When you have a list or idea, try to work out the burn rate of those items. For the ones, find a place to subscribe to the items so they get delivered to you when you need them. If you have other things you can subscribe to but have not figured out the burn rate, you may still consider doing it, depending on the item. Otherwise, another simple way to get time back in your day can be restocking all your items at once than running out for a single thing multiple times.

Everyone needs to eat, but that doesn’t mean you must cover hours every time. People can spend over an hour per day sourcing out and preparing meals. Unless you think of cooking as one of your hobbies at home, you may want to consider exploring some strategies to make preparing meals easier. You can explore various things, and healthiness varies depending on what you try. First, you may choose a day, perhaps on a Sunday, to bulk cook your meals. Not only this allows you to choose what you eat, and you can make it healthy as you want. 

Other simple ways to get time back in your day include getting your meals delivered, whether a meal kit or a pre-made meal. The meal kit and pre-made meals help reduce the decision-making process of pondering what to cook and eat. The difference is that the meal kit allows you to engage in cooking and not cut the whole process. Also, this could work for your groceries too. These two options might not be preferable for some people, but you can opt for meal replacement shakes or eating the same meals, reducing decision-making.

Let’s face it, we all probably had multiple times when we were distracted by different factors that led to delaying or prolonging things we needed to finish. Reflect on those times. You may find a few causes of the distractions and potential patterns around them. Whether periodic notifications from marketers or even texts from your friends when you are busy. Often, you may find getting distracted or attempting to multitask, especially for complex tasks, can get you nowhere. You could have finished a task in an hour but take 2 hours and lose an hour to do something else. 

To get more time back in your day, completing work on time would be easier than prolonging or potentially facing inevitable overtime. Not only could you not feel great, but at the same time, you lost time in your day doing work you could have finished without the distractions. So, if you check your phone every time it pings when you have plenty of work to do. It might be time to use aeroplane mode, which blocks phone calls and alerts. Finding ways to solve and reduce distractions near you, especially ones that might be controllable, like your phone, can be essential.

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So many things can happen worldwide and quickly, making the news about almost everything. Staying on top of the news doesn’t always make it productive and, unfortunately, could take your precious hours away. Consider the information you read or watch when you want to be on top of the news. Try to reflect if what you get updated on contributes to your needs and something you need in your life. Perhaps you might not need to spend as much time on a few of them or can use them on other things, getting back some time in your day.

Additionally, not to mention it seems there are increasing amounts of sensationalised news to get your attention, but it doesn’t always add value. It can be good to avoid a few of the news as some could even be negative; not only are you potentially freeing up the time you would have spent. At times, avoiding news may be more helpful for self-care. If you want to stay updated on the news, consider spending a day during the week to consume batch news could save a few hours in the week. Also, ponder about finding a short and rationally optimistic news source.

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You likely had days you can remember where you spent many hours binge-watching or being caught on video platforms. Whether that is video streaming or social media platforms, you could have lost how time passes when you are caught with them. Imagine if you were to stop or at least control the time you spend on video streaming. All the time, ranging from 3 hours a week to even 10 hours, you spent on watching could be used for something else you need to do. It is easy to get caught up with video streaming platforms. 

Especially these days, where it could be a simple matter of pressing a button to change and watch some more things, the options can be endless. One of the simple ways to get time back in your day might be to ponder how much you should watch TV or stream videos on different platforms. To help you, it could be a simple matter of deleting social media on your phone, which is easily accessible or cancelling subscriptions and setting some limits. It doesn’t need to mean staying away from all platforms but managing your time better by limiting the options and hours you spend on them.

As you may be wondering, saying no sometimes means what it says. It doesn’t mean saying no to everything; if there are amazing opportunities, you will benefit from them. However, it is the idea to reflect and confirm if they are worth spending time on and if you can do them. It can cause you concerns sometimes if you say yes to everything, whether social activities or work projects, when you have no time to do them. If the things coming your way don’t make you think and say yes immediately, it would be good to reflect on them again. 

After all, if you cannot say yes enthusiastically and instantly, it may not be something you should spend your valuable time on. It can be important to take opportunities and say yes to things you can do and don’t need to force yourself. Although sometimes you might get involved with those situations when you have the choice, consider saying no. Think about those times when you were influenced, or peer pressured into doing something and felt like getting those time back for some of them. You probably don’t want to be in those situations again.

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Without making this more complicated than it needs to be, consider the time you spend, whether 30 minutes or 1 hour, on things like a task or meeting as time blocks. You likely had occasions you felt the allocated time was longer unnecessarily, which potentially made you prolong the meeting or contents to fit the meeting time. 

Time can be valuable and limited; you can review long time blocks as a general simple way to get time back in your day. Most could be shorter. Often, having long meetings or completion times may reduce productivity. It is beneficial to make time blocks in short increments, particularly in 5-minute increments, which are recommended increments for most productivity.

You might have thought some of these simple ways to get time back in your day weren’t what you had in mind. These are not meant to make you live like a machine but to help you review and assess the decisions or activities you could do without or less. Think about the purpose of things you choose and focus on what you want to do. Time is generally limited and precious, so it can be vital to use them the way you want more than ever. 

Each decision and activity you choose to reduce or stop from your life could get more time back in your day. You may use the newfound time doing things you always wanted, like a side hustle or hobby, improving your social relationships and improving your health. As simple ways to get time back in your day, review what you do, and continue what you like while trimming down other things you don’t want anymore.