How to get an hour back every day
5 tips to save time every day
It's been one of those mornings. You’ve spent nearly 2 hours commuting to work, a traffic jam means you’ve missed your first meeting. When you do arrive your laptop doesn’t connect to the network. It’s almost lunchtime and you feel like you’ve achieved almost nothing.
Your time is precious so don’t waste it. Here are 5 tips to save time every day.
1. Switch off email alerts
The average inbox receives 122 emails per day and approx 17% of those emails are spam. Rarely is an email truly critical, yet every time your inbox pings, it can break your train of thought. When you need to concentrate at the task in hand turn off your email notifications.
2. Hold less meetings
Meetings often get in the way of our day-to-day tasks, due to the simple fact that we attend way too many, that go on for too long.
When scheduling your meeting ask yourself is the conversation bigger than an instant message or email? Often updates can be done a lot quicker via chat, email or calls directly to decision makers, so don’t hold a meeting if the purpose is just to update people. If you do need to hold a meeting, go in with a clear agenda and required outcome, always make sure it’s set out at the start who will be the ultimate decision maker.
3. Take breaks
For optimal productivity, we should work for 52 minutes, followed by a 17 minute break.
Taking a break from staring at a computer screen is as important for concentration as removing distractions. This can be the difference between a productive afternoon and one where the to-do list just seems to grow.
4. Make sure you have the right Internet connection
40% of businesses you said slow Internet is the biggest time waster at work.
In our Workforces 2025 study, respondents said old technologies and slow Internet causes their productivity to drop and frustrations to increase.
It sounds simple, but without the right Internet service, any online-based technology will be impacted. Check you have the right Internet connection, to make sure you have enough bandwidth for your business requirements. If you’d like us to complete a quick review, get in touch.
5. Leave some breathing space
Leave some time aside for any ad hoc tasks which can come up as well as time to respond to personal messages and check in with family and friends.
Creating a space in your day for those activities means you can remain in contact but also allows you to separate work and personal communications throughout the day which can improve concentration.
