5 Surprising Ways to Boost Productivity and “Have More Time”

In today’s day and age where “busy” is boastable and time crunches are praised, many people are left feeling like they simply do not have any time, or any time for themselves, or that all they do is work, or some combination of all of these things.  Have you been there?

Many people who come to me for help with personal training or nutrient dense eating cite this as one of their top excuses: “I just don’t have time.”  Or, my favorite, “I don’t look like you because I don’t workout for three hours a day and cook for an hour each evening.”  My response, “Sheesh!  Neither do I!”

And while this whole blog is built around the fact that you really don’t need all day to do high quality workouts and enjoy delicious, nutrient dense food, I do think it is a high quality exercise to investigate how much time we are actually spending on various activities throughout our days so that we can make time for what’s most important to us.

I recently re-read 168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think by Laura Vanderkam.  Well, I have never actually read this book, but I have listened to it two or three times now because I just love it!  Maybe because she’s a lot like me–a self-employed mom who likes running and singing!  But, also, I think she’s really on point about productivity in our meant-to-be-manic (or we’re not important?) world. She argues, as if you couldn’t tell from the subtitle, that we really aren’t as starved for time as we think we are, and I completely agree!

So this time, I finally did what she suggests.  I kept a time log of everything I did for one week.  I like logging some things, so this was fun for me, but even if you don’t like logs, it’s only one week, and then you’re done.  (Something else I never, ever log?  My food!  But more on that another time…)

And so the week has come and gone, I’ve added up my hours to see how I did.  Here are a few things that I think I am doing really well…

5 Ways I Boost Productivity & “Have More Time”

1.  I focus on my core competencies.

Right now, I don’t have time to do everything, but I do have time to do everything that’s important to me.  So I try to focus on my core competencies.  What’s a core competency?  Vanderkam defines those as things that only you can do and/or no one can do better.  I consider that to be my work as a music teacher and blogger, being a wife and mom, and rest, personal care and fitness (as much as I’d like to, I can’t get anybody to sleep for me!).

I spent 11.25 hours in my music studio during the week including actual teaching hours, lesson plans, and my own personal practice.  I spent 21.75 hours taking care of and playing with my son (really, that’s not very much!), 2.75 hours on my blog (less than usual), 58.75 hours sleeping or resting (more than usual…hooray!), 8.5 hours on personal care (um, wow), and 5.5 hours working out (including any commute time to the gym).  That all adds up to 108.5 of my 168 hours–a pretty solid chunk of my week.  Still, that leaves 59.5 hours for other things!  Which leads me to my next point.

2.  I am intentional with my leisure time.

In general, my leisure time can occur anywhere that my son is asleep.  (He’s two and typically sleeps from about 8-8 and then from 1-4 in the afternoon.  I know!  This is fantastic!)  And yes, I am often working or working out during these times or doing errands or chores (not to mention sleeping myself!), but not all of the time, particularly on weekends.  In fact, I spent 12 whole hours on leisure activities plus 8.75 hours on social activities (including one dinner party at home, two lunches out with friends, and one get-together cookout).

So, what do I do with my leisure time?  Well, during this week I spent time baking cookies, reading, making cards, and watching a little TV.  Sometimes that time looks different, but the reality is, I’m doing things that fill me up and calm me down all at the same time.  I don’t spend a lot of time browsing social media or watching television (only about 1.75 hours) because I just find it wastes time and leaves me empty.  (Additionally, we choose to listen to music for “background noise” instead of having the TV on.)  Instead, I choose to focus on actual hobbies that are relaxing and enjoyable and remind me that there’s more to life than diapers (which, honestly, probably take up like 20 minutes of my week…I’ve gotten pretty quick!)!

3.  I minimize housework.

I used to be quite the clean freak.  As a kid, I designed my own “business cards” for a cleaning business I wanted to start called “Dust Bunnies.”  My aunt called me to come over and help my cousin organize the shelves in her room.  I mean, I have it bad, people.

But, I decided that I didn’t want all of Landon’s memories to be of me with a cleaning rag in my hand.  I wanted him to remember me in the sandbox with him and at the park and the pool in the summers.  Plus, since I’m usually working during nap times, I’ve become okay with my house being just a little bit dirty all the time.  I do still really like to have it picked up and semi-organized, but I’ve just decided that it doesn’t matter enough that it’s perfect or that it stay perfect.  We still have people over for dinner in our semi-dirty house, and I’ve just decided that’s okay, too.  No one seems to mind, and I’m not stressed about it.

That being said, I do pay someone to come clean bi-weekly.  Mainly, she takes care of my bathrooms and floors.  It’s just enough for me to be able to take care of the in between stuff here and there as I get a few extra minutes, but does take the edge off of the everything-is-dirty-all-the-time feeling.

Vanderkam iterates this point in her book: if it’s not a core competency, ignore, minimize, or outsource, and I completely agree!

4.  I anchor my weekend.

I really like Vanderkam’s point of anchoring the weekends so that you have three or so things that you’re looking forward to.  Otherwise, the weekend can totally pass you by, you didn’t know what you wanted to do with your time, and ended up spending it on activities that, again, don’t really refresh and energize you.  So, what did we do?

We were totally looking forward to the local Food Truck Rally that our township put on.  Imagine a TON of food trucks all lined up on one street and you just hop around and try yummy things like greek french fries and crab cake sliders.  Yum.  Plus, we met up with some friends, so we got to have some family time as well as time with friends.

We also tried out a new coffee shop which opened up not too far away.  We are snobs about our (good) coffee, and mid-Michigan does not exactly have much to offer when we compare it to Denver, but now we’ve got THREE good places to go.  Winning!  So, we enjoyed a scone and some delicious nitro cold-brew at our new coffee place, which was totally fun.

We also went to a Fourth of July cookout where we hung with friends and enjoyed some (perfectly) grilled meats.  (If you haven’t noticed, often our anchors involve food!)

It really made for a very relaxing but pleasantly full weekend, and we felt energized going into the next work week.

5.  I practice alignment.

Vanderkam is, and I would agree, not a fan of multi-tasking.  It is honestly not possible to truly do two things at once.  (Like say, shop online and write an article for work, and hopping back and forth between the two is highly inefficient.)  But, there is a principle called alignment which works quite well, and that is when you combine something perhaps mundane with something fun.  In my case, a trip to get the oil changed turned into a fun little date with my son–looking at all the cars at the dealership, reading books, playing with cars on the floor of the waiting room, etc.  A trip to the park so he could play turned into a workout for me since I pushed him in the running stroller to get there and back and did occasional bouts of push-ups and pull-ups at the park while he/we played.  This principle of alignment allows me to focus on my core competencies even when other things come up.

So where could I improve?

I do think I spend an awful lot of time on personal care (8.5 hours??? And sometimes nobody but my son sees me all day!) and errands/chores (about 21 hours including desk work, phone calls, mail sorting, etc. and actually running for groceries, etc.).  Now, I do practice alignment for some of these errands, so I’m okay with some of this, but, should we add more kids to the mix, I can’t imagine dragging more than one around to go to three different grocery stores (yes, three).  I may try online grocery ordering so all I have to do is pick up (I shop from a detailed list anyway, so this sounds fairly easy) and of course, there’s always Amazon, but I may have to find other ways to automate or minimize errands.  Right now, it’s not too big of a deal, but I could see it becoming a problem down the road.

All in all, this time log experiment solidified for me that I do truly have time and space in my schedule to do the things that I love.  I love being intentional with my time and focusing on the things that matter most.  If you’re feeling strapped for time and sapped of energy, or there’s something you’d like to fit in but can’t seem to find the time, I think a time log can be a really helpful tool.  You can print off your own copy here.

Did you try it?  What did you find?  Comment below!

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