Would an extra hour a day help you achieve your goals faster? Here is a few ways to create a bit of extra time each day.

1. Wake up earlier. By not sleeping in you can get an early jump on your day while the rest of the family is still sleeping.
2. Delegate. Not everyone has this option, but if you can give some of the tasks on your list to others who are better suited to doing those tasks, you’ll free up time. Do you really need to be doing everything you do, or can some of those tasks be delegated?
3. Consolidate errands. If you routinely do errands throughout the week, you’re spending a lot of time driving. Instead, try to do all errands on one day, and plan out an efficient route. Most people will save at least an hour a week in total.
4. Know your priority. What is the one thing you need to do today? Get that done, above all else, and do it first. After you do that priority task, the rest is extra really. Cut back on some of the rest to free up time.
5. Watch less TV. Many people watch hours of TV a day. You can easily save an hour a day if you cut TV out, or just watch your single favorite show each day. Don’t channel surf.
6. Read less online. You can spend hours a day reading online. Limit your online reading and focus on your essential tasks.
7. Get the kids to help out. At home, if you have kids, it saves huge heaploads of time if you let the kids help with cleaning and other tasks. At first, of course, it will cost you time because you have to teach them to do things. But once they learn … it’ll free up much of your time.
8. Automate things. If people submit stuff to you, or if you routinely have to do routine work, find ways to have the process automated. Technology works wonders these days.
9. Start work early. If you work before everyone gets in the office, you won’t have constant interruptions and distractions. You’ll be amazed how much you can get done between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m.
10. Give others authority. If you have to approve things or make decisions, you might be a bottleneck – things move slower if they have to be channeled through you. Instead, give others the authority to make decisions – with clear instructions about what decisions should be made under what circumstances, and what the limits of their authority are. That’ll remove a bottleneck and free you up from having to make a bunch of huge decisions. Just have a way to monitor things as necessary.

How do you make time for achieving your goals?

Not enough time

Are you having trouble finding the time to work on your goals? Not enough hours in the day? The thing is time is a universal constant. You can never have more or less time then is allotted to everyone else on earth. So why then do other people seem more productive in achieving their goals than you? The answer is setting priorities.

Make Your Goals a Priority

If you want to achieve your goals, then you must make the time to work toward them. Remember a goal without action is only a dream. Too many times other things come up to distract us from getting to where we want to go. Try this; when something comes up and you are just starting to work on a step toward achieving your goal ask yourself, “What is more important right now?” and “can the other thing wait till I’m done?”. Unless it is a family emergency, chances are it can wait until you make a bit of progress toward your goal!

Making the Time for Your Goals

I know that comfy couch looks mighty tempting sitting directly in front of that plasma tv. However, what do you get out of it? Do you feel fulfilled after spending three or more hours sitting in front of the boob tube? I am not saying all tv is bad, however like many things, it should be done in moderation. Here are some other ideas on how to ‘create’ more time for your goals:

• Get up an hour earlier in the morning
• Delegate to others
• Only check your email twice a day (you would be surprised at how much time is wasted checking email constantly

And the list goes on.

Chunking Your Tasks

Another reason it may seem there is not enough time to work on your goals is the current item or task seems too large to handle. Try breaking down the task into smaller items. Say for instance your goal is to sell stuff online and one of your tasks is to make a website. There is a lot to making a website, so break it down into smaller tasks such as. Find a designer to make your logo and design site. Then find a programmer to make the site actually work. Contact a person who specializes in search engine optimization (SEO) to help your sites rankings, etc, etc.

If the smaller task still seems to big then chunk it some more. Personally I find that a task should never take longer than one hour. If it will then I chunk some more.

Summary

• Make it a priority. If there are not any lions, tigers or bears nearby and it is not a family emergency chancing are anything interrupting you can wait.
• Find the time. Wake up earlier, watch less tv, etc
• Break your tasks into chunks. Keep the steps small. “Yard by yard is hard, but inch by inch anything is a cinch”
• Don’t forget to have fun in the process!

Good Luck!!