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Time Management Hacks

Published

1 year ago

February 2, 2023

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Do you feel that you’re doing way too many things almost every day of your life? Do you feel like there’s never enough time in your day? And at the same time, do you go to bed feeling still ‘not done’ for the day? Worse, do you feel like you have way too many actual calendar conflicts? Well, you’re not alone! Let me commiserate with you — just like you, I used to be GUILTY AF of all of the above!

Allow me to share a glimpse of my personal life with you. I’m going to let you in on my daily life routine and here’s hoping that somehow I could be of help to you in some ways with regard to having better time management in your lives. Actually, I owe my husband a debt of gratitude for teaching me how to manage my time.

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My husband and I work together so we’re together 24/7. I help run my husband’s fitness club in Vancouver, which my husband has successfully built and operated over the last 43 years. Every day has been a learning experience for me since my husband and I got together five years ago. We work six days a week from 12:30 pm to 9:30 pm. I was a hotelier and a restaurateur in my past life — I don’t really have much experience when it comes to the fitness industry. Gratefully, my husband has been such an amazing mentor and because of the way he trains me on a daily basis, I actually go to work every day looking forward to selling a fitness membership! I’ve realised that I actually do enjoy selling fitness and being passionate about convincing others to live a healthier lifestyle!

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During weekdays, we wake up around 8:30 am. We do stretching exercises, yoga, and meditation for an hour. By 9:30 am, we take showers and prepare for our day ahead. By 10:30 am, we check our day’s to-do lists and prioritize our tasks accordingly. We run some errands or work from home by answering our emails and setting up appointments. By 12:00 pm, we always have our lunch together. We’re both on intermittent fasting, which means we can only eat meals between 12 pm to 8 pm during weekdays. By 12:30 pm, we’re at the fitness club and go about our daily operations. We stay at the club until closing time, which is at 9 pm on weekdays. We’re home by 9:30 pm. I like to take an hour indulging in a hot bubble bath while my husband showers and prepares for bed. We both like to watch the news and a movie from either Netflix, HBO, Amazon Prime, or Crave TV. We’re usually asleep by 12:30 am. My husband and I both love to sleep. We make sure that we get at least 7-8 hours of sleep during weekdays.

On Saturdays, we get up around 10 am and prepare ourselves to go to work. We love to sleep longer during weekends! We usually have a half-hour lunch at 12 pm. We’re at the club by 12:30 pm and start our work. We leave the club by 6:30 pm. My husband and I get ready for our date night! We keep the spark in our marital life alive with date nights. We work hard so we play hard! We usually go out for dinner date nights on Friday and Saturday evenings. When we go home after our weekend date nights, I usually spend an hour and a half writing my next article for my column, “Maria in Vancouver”. I am passionate about writing so I don’t mind spending my weekends writing for my column. Then, I spend an hour unwinding and relaxing in a hot bubble bath with a glass of bubbly. Drinking alcohol is only confined during Friday and Saturday evenings and is carefully moderated. Even on weekends, we’re usually asleep by 12:30 am.

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Sunday is a no-schedule kind of day! We sleep in on Sundays. We usually wake up around 12 noon. We usually go for a long walk around the seawall and Granville Island. We have our usual Sunday brunch. Then, we go for either an afternoon couple massage at our favourite spa salon or a manicure and pedicure. At around 6 pm, we usually meet up with my son for our Sunday family dinner. My husband and I find time to make sure we spend quality time with family and friends. As you can see, we live a full daily schedule. We’re usually home by 9 pm. We like to finish our Sundays by watching the news and a good movie!

How do we manage our daily schedules? Here are 7 ways that my husband and I learned to live by on a daily basis in order to live a fulfilled and manageable lifestyle.

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DESIGN AND LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT TO LIVE. The first thing you should do in order to manage your lifestyle is to actually design the lifestyle that you want to live. Designing your lifestyle means doing the things you want to do in your life. Get a career or job that you would actually be passionate about. When your job or career is actually something that you do love, then, it’s not going to be tiresome work. Loving what you do for work means getting up every morning with a smile on your face and being eager to start your day on a daily basis.

The questions you have to ask yourself are these: What am I passionate about? What kind of career do I envision myself having? What’s the kind of job that would make me get out of bed every morning and be happy about it? Once you’ve honestly answered these questions, then, half your battle is over. If you noticed, my lifestyle is built around a career that I do actually enjoy doing on a daily basis. I actually made a list of why I thrive in the fitness industry; what are the things I love about it and why it motivates me. I swear, this self-analysis does actually help in organizing your lifestyle. Now that you’ve established what you love to do in your life, the next step is how to organize your life around it!

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STICK TO A DAILY ROUTINE BY USING A DIGITAL CALENDAR. Make use of your digital calendar on your computer, laptop, iPad, and cellphone. It is an effective and efficient method to keep track of your calendar appointments, activities, schedules, and deadlines. Make sure that you write down your daily tasks or to-do lists. Moreover, set a reminder at least a week before on your various to-do lists.

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PRIORITIZE AND DO YOUR LIST ACCORDING TO IMPORTANCE. Organize and group your to-do lists based on their importance. Label your to-do lists according to three different categories: urgent, important but not urgent, and low priority. Learn to do and prioritize important and urgent tasks first so it will leave you feeling accomplished and less stressed. Always learn to start your day by crossing the important and urgent tasks off your list.

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AVOID MULTITASKING. Do you know that multitasking is really not an effective way to manage your time wisely and it actually makes you less productive? Ponder on this: when you try to do lots of tasks at the same time, this makes your to-do list actually longer to do because you’re not giving any of your to-do lists your full attention. Therefore, you’re bound to make mistakes and this means you have to start again from the beginning to do things right. Instead, try to focus on one task at a time and by doing this, you’ll find that you will get your task done a lot quicker and easier this way, which then allows you to make the most of your time!

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GET RID OF UNWANTED DISTRACTIONS! Shut off your phone if you can. Only engage with your phone if it’s business, work-related, or family emergencies. Avoid social media — there’s always a time and place for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok — and it’s not during work hours! Unwanted distractions and interruptions disrupt your workflow. Interruptions are inevitable and it does happen. If it’s an emergency, then, by all means, address it. Don’t beat yourself up too badly for being interrupted. Address the concern and then go back to the task that you were doing before you were interrupted. Always adopt this foolproof mentality: It’s not the end of the world. Crap happens.

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LIVE A BALANCED AND HEALTHY LIFESTYLE. It’s really tempting to ask if a balanced lifestyle even exists! What does it even mean to have a balanced lifestyle? It means achieving optimal health in all aspects of your life such as work, relationships, physical fitness, and emotional happiness. It means enjoying your work, enjoying your life through different activities that you love or are passionate about, spending quality time with your family and friends, and keeping a healthy lifestyle physically and mentally. You have to make time for all of the above.

A healthy lifestyle means having a good diet and being mindful of what you put in your body. It is all about having a daily routine exercise in your life. You don’t have to work out for an hour a day. You can start small by running the treadmill for just half an hour a day — that is a great start to keeping active. Or perhaps you want to do a power walk around your neighbourhood for half an hour a day. Drink lots of water and get plenty of sleep. I love water; I make sure I’m hydrated every day! Also, I don’t smoke — it’s so bad for your skin and hair! When you’re physically healthy, a healthy mind is not far away! To achieve a healthy mind, always be grateful for what you have in life, stay positive, and always be determined in life. Above all, don’t compare yourself to others; stay happily in your own lane.

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GET LOTS OF ZZZZs! A good night’s sleep helps improve your mood, health, and brain performance. Getting lots of sleep also reduces your risk for serious health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Experts recommend getting at least 7-9 hours of sleep. To get good sleep, get some exercise; avoid large meals, caffeine, and alcohol before bedtime; remove or stay away from electronic devices such as smartphones, computers, and TV; ensure that your bedroom is clean, dark, quiet, and at a comfortable temperature; and lastly, be consistent with your sleep schedule. Try to go to sleep at the same time every night.

I will leave you with my favourite quote from Alan Lakein: “Time = life; therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.” Mic drop.