Laura Vanderk, American journalist and author of books on organizing time, used to work 60 hours a week and sleep about six hours a day. She felt constantly busy and without time for herself. Now she works 45 hours per week and sleeps eight hours a day. She can, however, handle the same amount of work.
In her article on Wall Street Journal website, she explains that she simply began to write down how many hours and minutes she had devoted to each of her activities. It turned out that she devoted only minutes to things that she thought she had devoted hours to. She had devoted much more time than she thought to the Internet, to housework or to doing nothing. To achieve the same, follow the steps below.
Keep track of your activities
This will protect you from unnecessarily losing time and lying to yourself about what you really do. Write the record for at least one week and be as detailed as possible.
Be honest with yourself
Measurements show that we devote shorter time than we think to work. It is up to you to take your time fairly measured and reflect on what you want to do with your time. Even if you worked 50 hours per week and slept 8 hours a day, you will still have 62 hours that you can devote to yourself and your family. Set goals for this time.
Change your language
Learn to say "Is not a priority." instead of "I do not have time." In most cases this will be true. If you come across cases where you only make excuses not to solve a problem, it will remind you what your priorities are.
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