Make the most of your time

Published on September 15, 2023

Single-tasking is not better than multitasking! At least, not in every situation. Sometimes multitasking is an incredibly effective tool for getting a lot done.

Ultimately, everyone wants to make the most of their time here on this planet.

How can you do that effectively? In brief, it comes down to:

Consciously choosing what you want to do. Whether that is relaxing or getting a lot of meaningful work done.
Multitasking when you can - Twice a day, for example, I stand on a towel while brushing my teeth to do my balance exercises at the same time.
Stop waiting. Plan what you can do when you have time between two activities.

Why make the most of your time?

You would be amazed how much time you waste in a day. In every category: work, relaxation, household tasks and so on. When are you actually wasting time? When you are mindlessly doing something other than what you really want.

That is according to your own standards, no more and no less. It does not matter what society thinks you should do, or what your parents think. What matters is what your choices are and what you consider important.

If you want to be productive and achieve a result, scrolling Instagram is a waste. If you want to relax, but still do not feel relaxed after binge-watching Netflix,
that is a waste of your time too.

What it really comes down to is conscious choices! What are you doing, and why?

Conscious choices

A conscious choice really centers on three questions:

What do I want to achieve?
Does this activity give me that?
Is it sustainable: do I really want this?

By regularly asking yourself these questions, you always know whether you are working toward a particular result or need to adjust course.

Leverage

Once you know how to make a conscious choice, you can go all in on those priorities. Smart multitasking and using spare moments can effectively double what you get done. You gain either extra output for free or extra rest.

Learning to deal with resistance

There is often a stigma around getting as much done as possible. Relaxation and effort are supposed to be different things. By experimenting with how much you can get done in spare moments, you also learn to remove the “heaviness” attached to work.

At the end of the day, everything is an action, and the only difference is the value you attach to it yourself.

That is why everything is play; nothing is work!

How do you make the most of your time?

There are really three concepts to explore to make the most of your time:

Doing the right thing - If you are not doing what you want to do, or need to do for a particular result, that is not an effective use of your time.
Multitasking - Getting more done for the same investment of time. Be careful! Multitasking is not suitable for every situation.
Stop waiting - Waiting is often unnecessary, and there are countless things you can do instead. It just requires a little smart planning.

Doing the right thing

You can be very busy, but if what you do does not contribute to a result, you are effectively working for nothing. That is not entirely true, but it is in terms of the result you want.

Step 1. Have one priority

Priority is singular! You cannot be effective if you have six or seven different projects running.

To realize the value of a project, you need to be able to allocate enough time and resources to it. More is better.

Once a heavy ball is rolling, it keeps rolling! But first that ball needs to get past the critical point.

That is why having a priority is so important.

Can you answer yes to the following questions? Then your priority is in order:

I put at least x hours into this project every day.
I am always clear on the next step I need to take.
I have a measurable result.
Every month, or preferably every week, that measurable result increases in value.

Step 2. Which actions contribute directly to results?

Usually it is fairly clear which actions and tasks you need to do. The problem is that we do not follow through. Fortunately, there are indicators you can use to assess how important a task probably is. You can then connect that indicator to the thought “I should probably do this.”

Your own feelings are an important one:

Do you not feel like doing it? Then this is probably an important task.
Does it feel boring? Then it is probably something you need to do.

Which tasks are best skipped?

Things you can outsource. You may not have the budget just yet, but it is something to consider in the longer term.
Things that are nice to have. A new logo or visual identity is rarely necessary to make more profit.
The last 20%. The last 20% takes 80% of the effort. It is rarely necessary to get something that perfect, whether it is a new product or keeping your house neat and tidy.

Step 3. Schedule the actions every day

Once you are clear on your number-one priority, you can start planning your day.

The day is a very useful unit of time, because that is where everything happens. When you move something to tomorrow, it tends not to happen.

For this daily planning, you can use the
Ivy Lee technique. It makes sure everything happens in order.

Now you have an idea of what you can do to make the most of your time, we can move on to HOW.

Multitasking

Multitasking, yuck! What a dirty word. There are few terms on the internet as polarizing as multitasking.

One person lives by it; another swears it off. I see it more as a tool you can use in particular situations.

Multitasking on autopilot

Multitasking is particularly well suited to actions you carry out automatically. That includes short, small actions such as the three minutes you spend brushing your teeth twice a day.

An example calculation:

Twice a day, I do three minutes of exercise while brushing my teeth. For this, I stand on one leg on a towel to train my balance.
That is 2 × 3 = 6 minutes of training a day.
That is 6 × 7 = 42 minutes a week.
42 × 4 = 168 minutes, or 2.8 hours, a month.
And no less than 2,184 minutes, or 36.4 hours, a year.

That is extra training, with all the results that come with it, without spending any extra time. How powerful is that!

That is an example of an enormous time saving with just two three-minute periods a day. How many other activities do you do on autopilot that you could combine?

A few more examples of actions you can combine while on autopilot:

Household chores. Tidying up and so on. You can listen to podcasts during this time, for example. Always keep a notebook handy.
Commuting. You can use this time for visualization. Rehearse your presentation in your head, or make a “game plan” for the day.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Instead of playing with your phone, practice a little mindfulness. Focus only on eating. Train your single-tasking. Technically that is multitasking, eating and training, but never mind.
Learn and explain. When learning something for school or work, write a blog post about it or explain it on video. You do not even have to publish it. You learn from it yourself, and someone else will probably find it useful too. This is also why I started this blog.

Make a list for yourself NOW. Connect that list to actions you could take.

Filling “waiting” time

Your whole life consists of moving from one space to another and then doing something there.

Unfortunately, waiting is often part of that too. Fortunately, it does not have to be dead time.

Here are some examples of activities you can do when you arrive somewhere early:

Take a walk. When I am ten minutes early, I often take a short walk: five minutes one way, then five minutes back. Good for those 10,000 daily steps!
Write a blog on your phone. You can always take out your phone to be productive.
Send emails.
Read a book. Bring a book, phone or e-reader and read a few pages of your favorite book.
Visualize. If you have nothing with you, you can always use your brain. Review the theory, visualize that new movement for your sport, or do some mindfulness exercises.

Tools and structures

To make the most of your time, it is important to have a plan. That involves a few tools and structures.

You really need three functions:

Goals. What do I want to achieve, and why?
A plan. Everyone needs a master plan. A recipe for a meal is a plan, your daily schedule is a plan, and even your car’s maintenance schedule is a plan. A plan is simply a list of “what will I do, and how?”
Evaluation. To determine whether your plan worked, you need to evaluate it. Could you stick to your plan? Did the plan help you achieve the intended result? Read how to set up regular reflection here, in a simple way.

I have all these functions in my “Second Brain” system, a structure I made myself in Obsidian.

Second Brain

I use an Obsidian vault for this. That is a collection of text files in Markdown, with features including tagging and searching. It also offers many possibilities through extensions.

Other options are Notion, Evernote or OneNote. It depends a little on your personal preferences.

Your phone: unlimited productivity

Your mobile phone is an incredibly useful tool. When you learn to use it, rather than only letting it distract you, you can carry out almost every step in this blog post!

It lets you work on your activities wherever you are.

This can take all kinds of forms:

Sending emails.
Tweeting.
Drafting news updates.
Writing content.

To do this somewhat effectively, I have the following tips for you:

Plan what you will do in advance. It helps to have a plan for what you can do in which situation. You cannot really record videos in a quiet carriage on a train. But you can read a book or write something.
Delete all the apps you waste time with, or at least move them out of sight.
Put all the apps you produce with on your home screen. This can be anything: Twitter, Canva, PowerPoint, Google Docs or, as in my case, Obsidian.

What you can do today

There is a lot of information in this blog, but if you do not apply it, you might as well not have read it.

So here are some starting steps for you:

Use the Ivy Lee method to plan your day.
Make a list of moments during the day when you are waiting.
Make a list of moments spent on autopilot.
Connect the actions on those lists to activities that produce results.
If you find it difficult to think of an action straight away, you can always use visualization and mental preparation techniques.

Questions and answers

But isn’t single-tasking or monotasking better than multitasking?

No! It depends. There are really two things involved: what you are training and the result you get.

As long as you still do enough tasks with focus, you keep training your ability to focus. Smart multitasking can double your results.

Is doing nothing bad, then?

No, of course not! But why do you feel the need to do nothing? For relaxation or recovery? Is binge-watching series or gaming to the max really relaxing? How do you feel afterwards?

What matters is being aware of what you want and what you need. Are you getting what you want from the activities you do?

Habits Productivity