Need More Time? Try These 6 Easy Timesavers Today

Christine Li  0:01  
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 96. It is fall here in New York. And what I've noticed is I think people seem to be feeling as busy as ever. So before we get into this episode, in which I share six of my favorite time saving techniques, I would love for you to take a minute, take a breath, and just reflect on what you have to celebrate today. Today, I am celebrating one month and one day with my new puppy Leonardo da Vinci and the joy that he has brought into my life. I hope you have so much to celebrate in your life, too. In this episode, I'm going to talk about practices that I try to use day in and day out, because I like to keep things not stressful. And I think you're going to be able to use each of these techniques as I have to boost your productivity. And to make sure your brain is clean and clear for the next challenge. Let's go listen to this episode now.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together. So that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. 

Hi, my friends. It's Dr. Li. And it has been a while since I've dropped a solo episode for you. But that is all right, because today, I have lots of really wonderful tips for you, I'm going to share six of the biggest time saver techniques that I know and they are big in terms of the amount of time that they can save you. But they're actually small in terms of the difficulty of implementation, these six tricks are very easy to put into your life and to put into your schedule and into your day. And you will get the benefit of saving all this time and feeling a whole lot better. So I hope you enjoy these timesavers as much as I do. To start I will share with you that I recently was talking with someone who told me that they didn't have time to look at their habits over the course of their regular life. And I mentioned to them that that's really interesting because I spend my entire day thinking about how I can save 10 or 12 seconds here or there. So we're just different that way. But I thought that I should mention that because that habit has become second nature to me, especially since I spent all those decades of my life, procrastinating now that I know that procrastination is not my best weapon against stress, I try to find ways to save time, wherever I can. And I really actually derive a lot of joy from that. So here we go, I wanted to share these six strategies with you, so that they can help you too, and so that you can get away from any unnecessary procrastination that you might be dealing with. The first timesaver is that I had to trust myself enough to let go of worry. So that's the first time saver is that you need to understand in your heart of hearts. That worry is the ultimate blank space filler.

I say that it's like the styrofoam filler pieces that come in a mail or box that you might get from when you order a new set of sheets or something like that. And it's just about as valuable as those Styrofoam filler things that where he has a way of coming in and saying oh, you could look at it this way. Or you can look at it that way. Oh, this problem could all of a sudden crop up even that problem, something that you didn't even think about. And it's this round and round. As you go type thinking that is not really rooted in reality, oftentimes, so often our worry is rooted in our general fear. And then we come up with a general worry statements that our brain gets fixated on because of course we want us Stay away from problems. But I'm here to tell you that worry is probably one of your biggest problems because it keeps you rooted in fear. And it keeps you distracted from actually paying attention to what is in your reality. And it fills up all that blank time that can be used for other things, it can be used for rest, it can be used for actual problem solving. So my tip for you this first one is to make sure that you are reading your mind and your heart of random worry of excessive worry. And make that decision that you're not going to tolerate discomfort from worry, you're not going to tolerate making up stories anymore, you're not going to use your brain in that way. And I do believe that when you get clear about what is reality, and what is actually worth worrying about. You're going to see how much clearer you can actually be and how much time you might have been wasting making up these irrational stories about the future. This sounds probably more difficult than it actually is to implement. But this is a big one. So please try this first tip out to let go of the worry habit. Alright, the second timesaver technique that I have is that you don't have to pour all of your energy into every little thing, you can actually decide that when you're folding your laundry, you can be totally chilled out. Instead of having to focus having to multitask having to solve all the world's problems. You really don't have to you can let certain activities and projects be light, Li ght. That's my favorite word. I love it when things are light. I love getting things done. But I also love it when I feel like I'm just gliding through the day. So one way to do that is to evaluate which tasks on my schedule for today, do I really have to focus on Do I really have to clear all my mind my schedule, lock the door, tell the children to stay clear all of that. You want to separate the light tasks from the ones that you really need to devote your energy to. And you want to get away from the habit of pouring all of your good energy throughout the day, in every way. I promise you not everything needs all of that energy and you want to have some energy left over. At the end of the day. If you've never experienced that it's a wonderful thing, to be able to climb into bed feeling almost refreshed, because you've satisfied your own needs across the day, you've done what you've needed to do, and you haven't spent all of your good energy in the process. So that's tip number two, don't pour all your energy into all the things across the day.

The third tip may sound a little paradoxical because I am the procrastination coach. But when I typed this, I thought to myself, this is a good one, you want to quit faster. I think that a lot of our chronic severe procrastination habits. If you fit in that category of having chronic severe procrastination, a lot of it has to do with prolonging the creation or work process. We get stuck in these obsessive cycles of worry. We think what is that person going to think? How is this going to be received? When will I be able to come up with the plot twist? How much time do I have left? And then we end up depriving ourselves of real rest and real breaks. And the actual ability to decide that it is enough for today. We just assume that we have to push and push and push. And then we get caught in this energy draining, depleting and frustrating cycle. And so that is why I'm telling you to learn to quit faster. However, you know what I'm going to say next. You want to have an ironclad plan for resuming your work. Once you have your mind reset once your body has been able to take a break once you've been able to separate from that feeling of being frustrated, and like you've hit a roadblock. So quit faster. Save that time, save yourself from going into that prolonged obsessional ruminating loop and then have an eye ironclad plan that you're going to stick to, to resume your work. When you feel that creative urge, again, when you feel like it's okay to try again. And don't give up, you're gonna go to the finish line, no matter what. So that's never in question, you're going to get there. So it is okay and safe to quit faster. From now on. As long as you have that commitment to the end, you can quit when you want to, and then always have that ironclad plan to step up and be at the plate again, and swing again, like the trained creator, that you are this brilliant mind and body that you have to use everything in this aligned appropriate and successful way. You don't have to stick in misery any longer. That's what procrastination is. It just keeps us in the state of misery for so long. And we're just going to take control of that cycle and say no more. My body is not set up for misery. Neither is my life. So I'm going to stop here. And I'm going to start when I feel like I can do it well, again. The fourth easy timesaver that I have for you, is to admit your mistakes as soon as possible. This one was a hard one for me to prepare and to think about because one, I don't like making mistakes. And two, I really don't like admitting that I've made them these two factors are facts I know about myself. But over the years, I've learned that the embarrassment that I've made a mistake is not so bad. What's worse, is having to have everything be held up because I've made a mistake. And I haven't told someone or I haven't admitted it to myself. So these days, I will give anything to have my heart and mind to be clear throughout the day. And I'd much rather be calm and clear in my mind and my heart. Rather than feel like I have my pride intact, where nobody knows I've made a mistake, I'd much rather have my creative and workflow be protected than protecting my own ego by not telling anyone that I've made a mistake or not telling anyone that I'm behind on something. This doesn't mean that I'm always perfect about this, I still have those moments where I feel I need to protect my pride and my ego. But there are far, far fewer now. And I feel like I'm much stronger. As a result, I think I'm able to say you know what, I really messed up, I'm so sorry. And I will try my best to not do that again to you. And I feel like there's a strength and a courage in admitting that you've made a mistake and making everything right through words. It's not good enough just to think, Oh, I'm so sorry. And I feel guilty about it. You really fulfill the cycle of correcting your mistakes,

when you start talking about your mistakes. So learn to admit your mistakes as soon as possible as soon as they happen, even if that's appropriate. And then always follow it up by words, tell the other people apologize, put your heart in the apology, really think about what you could do to make it up to the person to correct the mistake. And to avoid doing that same mistake over again, you will survive, I promise you might even end up with some extra courage in your heart as a result. The fifth easy time saver that I have for you today is to write everything down. This is a simple technique. But I think many people don't really do this. I learned this technique from a book called Getting Things Done by productivity guru David Allen, a l l e. And it's a great book if you want to do a new read about productivity. And he wrote in that book that many of us are using our brains to keep our to do list. And we think oh my god, I have to go to the dentist and oh my god, I have to go get groceries and oh, I don't want to forget that one day I want to learn how to parasail and he taught me inside that book, that you're really

not doing yourself any favors by using your miraculous brilliant brain to keep track of your daily to do list and that was a real lightbulb moment for me. I really understood his message. I really understood that. It is so unnecessary for my brain that is prone to forgetting things to be is the main place that I keep my to do list, and I'm a pen and paper person anyway. So I learned to just write everything down. And immediately I felt a shift, I felt that, oh, my brain is now clear of that sense that, oh, there's more to do, there's more to do. And now I use my brain to problem solve, to create to write things, to figure out what I'm going to say next, to be the imagination machine that my brain was created to be, instead of the to do list keeper. So the fifth tip, again, as a reminder, is to write things down, it's a great excuse to go out and buy a new notepad, that's really pretty one that you can keep by your side now, and spare your brain. The very last tip that will save you a lot of time is called the shrink down technique. And this was not on my original list of easy timesavers for you, but I was talking with a group of my coaching clients. And I do use this tip as a recommended healing process for my clients and patients who are stuck, typically when people get stuck is because they are feeling overwhelmed. But that overwhelm came, because they were looking at too much of the issue that needed to be solved. They were looking at the entire elephant, instead of looking at just the task or the toe or the tail. And so I say to my clients who might be stuck, what is a smaller portion that you can get done, even though you feel overwhelmed, and that always tends to help because whenever we shrink something down, immediately feels like an easier process. And then we can break that cycle of feeling overwhelmed, I think we can accomplish anything, when we break it down into smaller steps. And I think it can feel very difficult to accomplish a lot of things when we're just looking at the whole picture like, oh, write the entire dissertation, nobody's gonna move if you tell them to do that, because it's just too overwhelming. A task, the body and brain are so smart. They know when to stop. They know when to freeze and overwhelm, it's a good thing. But what's even better is that you know that you can override that overwhelm trigger and say to yourself, I've got this, all I have to do is start again, using a smaller viewfinder, a smaller task will help me to get in motion again, and motion is all that I need. So I hope that you enjoyed this list of six easy time saver techniques. I hope you use them for greater productivity, and for greater ease across your day. And to start reaching for perhaps bigger goals that you have on your list. You remember that list that you now have on paper instead of inside your brain. You are all endowed with such brilliance and talent and motivation, and drive. Let's go dig into that wonderful pool of magic. Right now. Use these time savers, whichever ones might be useful for you and your life. And feel free to share this episode with your friends who might be stuck, who might be in a creative process, but feeling miserable. Let's transform our work into play. And let's have the entire day feel like play as a result. Thank you so much for sharing your time with me today. I look forward to seeing you here next week on Thursday when the next episode drops. It's gonna be great. Bye. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. I'll talk to you soon

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