8 Ways You Can Create More Time In 2015

I get a little crazy when I hear people tell me they don’t have time to do something. That something might be starting a blog, taking a yoga class, starting a second business part-time or cleaning up their digital profile so they can look for a new job and leave the one they have been complaining about for years. 

What I really hear - every time -  is an excuse. 

It’s a good excuse. At least they think so.  Digital, which was supposed to make our lives so much easier has ironically served to make us more time challenged than ever before. Instead of simplifying, new technology distracts, thus compounding this feeling of time deprivation, leaving us wasting even more of this precious commodity by wallowing in frustration over all that time we don’t have.

It’s a vicious cycle. But it can be stopped. The first thing to do is accept the fact that time is not something  you “find.” This is not a search and rescue mission. The time is there and in equal proportion for all of us. It’s what we choose to do with our allotments.  

Since we are still at the beginning of a new year and everyone is fresh with ideas as to what they want to do differently, I thought it would be timely to offer some suggestions to create the time for those ideas to manifest.

Here’s a list of what has worked for me. Take note that none involve downloading yet one more App.

#1Put Down That Smart Phone. 
I realize this is a radical idea in a world where most of us panic more if we misplace our phones than our wallets or our children. But perhaps I can sway you by this statistic - the average person checks their phone 221 times a day! 

Trust me when I say that I love that when I went to the wrong restaurant to meet a friend the week before Christmas I could take out my iPhone and in a flash get directions from where I was to the restaurant I was supposed to be at and only be ten minutes late. But I don’t love when I catch myself mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook App or checking my email every five minutes, just because I can. That’s perfectly good time I could use elsewhere that I have let slip into oblivion. 

#2 Get Up A Half Hour Earlier Every Day.
This might be too much for you and it’s definitely not easy, especially in the dead of January when it is dark and cold outside, but it’s available to you if you want. The thing I have found, especially when I am working on a project that I am passionate about, is that once you get into the habit, it becomes really easy to do.  The bonus for me is that it miraculously opens up a lot more time for those other things I “just didn’t have time for” before.

#3 Unsubscribe. 
Email continues to be  one of the most effective methods of  marketing. If you are like me, you wind up with a lot flowing into your inbox each day.  Unsubscribe to the ones that are time wasters for you. My rule of thumb is if they are not useful, relevant, inspiring or something I can learn from I don’t want the clutter. I realize this suggestion might get me some unsubscribers - but if that will give you one less excuse why you don’t have enough time for all those things you really want to do - unsubscribe away.

#4 Use A Timer. 
If you are a regular reader you know I am partial to using a  good old-fashioned analog egg timer to parcel out my time. In fact I am using one right now as I type. I find it an indispensable tool for time creation. 

Let’s say the most extra time you can come up with right now to start that new business while working your day job is a half hour a day. Setting the timer for thirty minutes and not doing anything but working on the idea during that slot will get you a lot closer towards taking that to fruition. It takes discipline - but it works!

#5 Turn Off The Alerts!
You really don’t need to get an alert every time Aunt Agatha likes a photo on Facebook. You don’t need your email to be flying across the screen while you are trying to finish up that big presentation. And you really don’t need to be on alert when Macy’s takes another 20% off those shoes you’ve been eyeing since November when you could be writing a chapter in that novel you keep saying you are going to write.

Turn them off - as in close out of the program! These are all distractions that take you off task and instead of creating time, contribute to wasting it. 

#6 Use Your DVR.
I am not going to suggest getting rid of your television. Personally, I like my shows and as a writer, I can justify it as story line research. But even if you can’t and it is just your guilty pleasure, there is no need to watch anything live anymore save for the news, sports events or awards shows. 

My friends who still sell television advertising will hate me for this, but use your DVR. Watch when you want and commercial free. Each half hour of television includes approximately ten minutes of commercials. Two hours commercial free and you have just created forty minutes of time to do one of those things you say you have no time for. 

#7 Be Bold And Try A Digital Detox
This was the subject of a HuffPost Live segment I was a part of last week. The first time I went on a digital detox was in 2010. I blogged about it here and a summary appeared in Forbes.  It’s not for the faint of heart but it will prove to you - if nothing else that you have a lot more time than you thought. 

#8 Think Outside The Box
You're going to get overwhelmed. We all do. But rather than letting it get the best of you, throwing your hands up in the air, and deciding you were right all along and I was wrong -  you just don’t have the time for whatever it is you are putting off - ask yourself this question. How can I create more of it in 2015? 

Keep me posted on what happens!

Five Reasons Not To Multi-Task

Somewhere along the line multi-tasking became a badge of honor. This concept of doing more than one thing at a time and then bragging about it as though it was an Olympic sport and you were training for a gold medal might at face value seem smart.  Logically it appears that doing several things simultaneously instead of just one must be more efficient and ultimately save time.

But it doesn’t.

To do things right one needs to focus. To pay attention. To check one's work. To give full concentration to the situation at hand.

Of course in today's world, not enough of us are concerned with doing anything right. Some of us aren't even sure what "right" looks like.  Our obsessions lie in the doing itself. As much and as quickly as possible so we have time left over. To brag about how great we are that we can talk on the phone and type an email while running three miles on the treadmill at the gym, all without breaking an ankle.

I blame technology. It was supposed to simplify our lives, but so far it seems to have only complicated things. It has left us with no choice but to multi-task our way through these growing co-dependent relationships. Who cares if we are rude, look like a fool or put ourselves and others in danger in the process?

Well, I do. 

Which is why I offer this list of reasons why you should think twice the next time you choose to multi-task.

1. It can be physically dangerous. We all know the dangers of driving while texting, but no one seems to take notice that it is equally dangerous to text  or email or chat on the phone while walking. It’s easy to spot in Manhattan.  People walk across the street with no heed to the bus that is about to hit them. They are too busy multi-tasking with their Smartphones in hand. Sometimes they pull someone else into the danger zone.

The other day I watched a father pushing his child in the stroller across the busy intersection that is Lincoln Center, his eyes fixated on his thumbs and his phone, not his child. I guess he thought he was saving time by multi-tasking, but I’m not sure risking a trip to the ER is a true time saver.

2. It can make you look like a fool. We’ve all done this one. We are busy at our desks, multi-tasking away, trying to read and answer emails while having a phone conversation. And just like that we hit send and that email goes to the wrong person.  It might be a benign mistake that gives someone a chuckle or you might inadvertently copy the entire company on a private email that admitted you were cheating on your boyfriend, as was depicted brilliantly in a recent episode of The Newsroom.  

If you do something with half an eye on it, your work reflects it. Sometimes that means shoddy quality and sometimes, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, you got some “splaining to do” to get yourself out of a mess you created.

3. Multi-tasking in the presence of another sends the message that you’re just not that important.

An employee is sitting across from her boss for her semi-annual review while he multi-tasks, checking his email every time she asks a clarifying question. Not only is he wasting her time while she is forced to sit there, waiting for his focus to get back on their meeting, his unspoken message is clear. She’s not important enough to the company to get his undivided attention for twenty minutes.

Outside of the office an attractive couple sits at a beautiful outside cafe on a warm summer evening, holding hands across the table. Their eyes are intent, not on each other but on multi-tasking, their free thumbs busy texting away on their Smartphone to someone, somewhere, who doesn't get to hold their hand.

Not giving another person, in work or play, your undivided attention is a statement of their importance in your business and your life. It does not help to build relationships.

4. It’s rude. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have had to listen to the sordid details of other people’s private conversations on a cross-town bus, or had to wait to get a container of yogurt because a mother had cornered off the dairy case with her child in one of those oversized strollers, her cell phone pressed to her ear, engaged in a conversation I really didn’t need to know about, while oblivious to the line of people she was creating behind her. And don’t get me started on the dog lovers and those retractable leashes that never seem to retract. They on one side of the sidewalk, on the phone making a date, their dog on the other, both blind to that the fact this is a public walkway and that leash that has been stretched to knee length is blocking it. All multi-taskers. All, in my opinion, rude.

5. True genius requires focus and concentration. If you want to be successful, to do something important in this life and build good relationships, you have to give it your time and your undivided attention. Even for just a portion of your day.  

Multi-tasking is not a badge of honor, nor is it a time saver. In fact it’s can be the fastest route to inferior work and relationships.  Unless of course, you're in the kitchen and trying to time the mashed potatoes to be done at the same time as the pork chops. In which case, multi-task away!

For more on the hazards of multi-tasking and ways to create more time for the stuff you really want to do, pick up your copy of It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide to Creating the Time For Your Life today!

Searching For Time?

If it's the time to write then, you need to stop over to She Writes today and read my featured article, Five Ways To End Your Search For The Time To Write 

And if it's time in general that is proving elusive, then I suggest you pick up a copy of It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide to Creating the Time for Your Life, in paperback or Kindle at Amazon.

The Original Lux Egg Timer

This is the original Lux Minute Minder that I was raised on.

To the right is an egg timer in action. The photo was sent to me from a friend the day the book came out.


The Lux timer has been around since 1914, almost a hundred years ago and long before my mother introduced me to its multi-uses. Notice it is not in the shape of a egg. In fact, most "egg" timers are not, nor are they used for cooking one.


Of course, most are probably not used as a time management tool. At least not yet. Not until the owner has read my book.

Note: The 3-Day Free Kindle promotion has taken the book to #1 on Amazon's Free Kindle Bestseller List in the Time Management category!!

Thursday, June 21, is the last day to grab your free copy!

My thanks to all who have helped so far to make this promotion such a huge success!

An "Essential Guide"

"It’s a brief but essential guide about how to get stuff done, while also helping you understand when and how self-sabotage occurs!" 


That's what Jane Friedman had to say about It Takes An Egg Timer in the introduction to the excerpts from my book that appear today on her blog.

I have been an avid follower of Jane since early on in my adventures outside of the corporate world and have learned much from what she shares. I consider her MUST reading for any writer or aspiring writer in today's fast paced world. That said, it is an extra special honor to have my book featured there today.

Stop by and read a little about the two kinds of "busy" I identify in the book. Did you know there's a good kind and a not so good kind?   A quick click right here will take you there.



Note: Tomorrow is the last day to enter for your chance to win a free paperback edition of It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide to Creating the Time for Your Life over at Goodreads.