Today I'd like to share with you five of the main key areas on how you can gain

time in your life, in your business, every single day.

The first area is distractions. Now distraction is a huge time thief. They take up
our time, sometimes our energy. Often our energy, also. And very rarely are they
productive and they don't add that much value to our days. Typically, the small
notifications here and there, this checking and rolling through social media,
pausing and quickly reading about the news. All of these tend to be distractions to
our productive work. So how to eliminate distractions from your day? One way is
having a piece of paper by your side and every time an idea comes into your mind,
every time you want to check social media, every time you want to read something
specific, if you want to Google "Michael Jackson's birth date", then you write it
down on the piece of paper. The reason why this is so helpful is we are constantly
inundated with lots of thoughts and ideas and we tend to act on impulse and want to
check it straight away. And if you get in the habit of writing it down, then you
can allocate a slot at the end of the day where you go through this and check do
you really want to know when Michael Jackson was born or do you have other things
you'd prefer to do. But if on the moment you have that thought, it can be very hard
to counter that impulse so by writing it down, it satisfies that part of your mind
that was curious and wanted to know. So that's one way of dealing with
distractions. Another way is to plan ahead of time how you're going to manage your
day and not leave room for them. This can be through having blockers, for example,
time blockers that block specific websites or applications so they don't get in
your way, and this is a way of sort of forcing you into flow and to manage this.

The second area I'd like to discuss is being in flow and being focused. Now this is
a huge asset to how you manage your time because often we don't need more time, we
just need to work in a more efficient way. So in order to be more focused and in
flow you want to do one task at a time. This is also a huge part of managing
distractions, but also of being in flow and focused, so just do one thing at a
time. Right now, when I'm filming this video, I'm just doing this. I'm not
answering a text message or reading my emails or checking LinkedIn. But we want to
do all of our activities in this way. Just having one clear task that we're
focusing on. This is super important for our focus, to get into flow, for our
energy levels and for our attention management, because for a lot of us it's hard
to be focused and concentrated on one task for half an hour or an hour, yet we're a
lot more productive and more likely to get into flow. Another important element
regarding flow is to find a task that is the right amount of challenge and skill.
So you want it to be challenging enough that you enjoy it but not too challenging
that it's stressful for you. So finding that sort of right balance and having a
clear point deadline where you know that you will have achieved this task, if you
have an amount of words you want to write, for instance, or something quite
specific, because this helps you to have an aim while you're working on a task. If
you're just doing messages here and there but it's not very clear to you what the
end goal is, it's harder to get into flow. So that's the second important element
about flow and being in focus.

The third question I get a lot is: "How can you save time?" How can you work less
hours, essentially, during the week? One of the ways, one of the main ways is to
look at how you manage your time and your energy levels and your focus, because all
of these have a huge impact. So if you're feeling really tired, if you're not
eating well, if you're not exercising... All of these will make your focus and your
attention not as strong and this will make it harder for you to achieve greater
results during the day. So managing your energy is a huge asset to working less
hours because the work you produce in a shorter amount of time is more efficient.
Another sort of obvious way to gain time during the week is to plan and schedule it
accordingly. Time often fits around how much we've decided we're going to work, so
if we say we're going to work til 6 pm but in our mind, we're willing to go up to 8
pm, guess what? The task will go overflow probably til 8 pm. So if you're really
fixed and strict about finishing at 6, for example, and you plan something
afterwards: a call, an appointment, a nice meal with your partner, then it makes it
harder for you to go pass that deadline, so essentially it's about having these
boundaries in place. This will already make you have to force you into fitting into
that schedule. This is important and once you start doing this and having really
clear boundaries about when you work, this forces you to prioritize more
effectively. This forces you to show up, eliminate the tasks that have to be
eliminated, postpone the ones that can wait a couple of weeks if they're not the
main ones. And postponing is not the same as procrastinating. Postponing is a
prioritizing decision that you make when you realize that this isn't your main task
or outcome for the week, and then you realize okay, you put this on the back
burner, but it's not procrastinating, because procrastinating is when you take your
main task and you put that on the back burner and that's not what you want to do.
Okay, so there's a difference. So postponing, eliminating, delegating, all of these
things are done more effectively if you fix yourself clear boundaries about how
much you're willing to work.

So these were three of the main areas: how to work less hours, how to be in flow
and focused, how to manage distractions.

Another key element is how you go about your... Another key element is how to say
no, because if you say yes to everything, this also has a huge impact on your time.
Learning to say no comes from you realizing that every yes that you say is also
saying no to a bunch of other things. When you say yes to this opportunity, it also
means saying no to more free time, or to a hobby, or to quality time with your
partner or friends, so every single yes is also a no, and starting to see the trade
for every yes that you say. Another way of looking at it is it's easier to say no
straight away than to say yes and go back on your word. And if you're feeling this
doubt, then say: "I need to think about it" and then say no if it doesn't feel
right for you. This is super important because saying yes to everything has a huge
impact on our time and makes us a lot more reactive and sort of sucks all our time
up.

And the last point I'd like to bring up, which comes up across really frequently
when I work with people that are very busy, is how to relax in your free time. So
if you're feeling really busy, it can be very hard for you to unwind and relax and
enjoy your free time. There are a few ways to go about this. First of all, when you
wrap up the end of the day, make sure you have a sort of wrap up procedure: you go
through the tasks you did, you write a few wins, you plan your next day. Having
this sort of process in place makes it easier to sort of close the work bubble and
go into the relaxed bubble. Second thing is having a way to unwind, so when you do
finish, you go quickly for a walk, you do a bit of exercise, some breathing
exercises, you enjoy cooking, you read a book. Having this sort of process to start
the relaxed time so your brain gets used to "work is finished, close the computer".
If you're working in the same room where you're relaxing, try and literally switch
off from the computer, even if this is what you enjoy doing in your free time, just
to have that separation. You can go back to it later but first have a way of
disconnecting. And if you really struggle with relaxing in your free time, then
literally one of the best things you can do is try and take three or four days off,
totally off, totally disconnected from the computer, from the phone. I know this
can be challenging but your mind needs to relearn what it's like to be relaxed and
calm. And if you're used to working a lot, it's hard to go back into a relaxed
mode, so sometimes the most efficient way is to just totally unplug before it's too
late, before your burn out, and then go back to working but knowing a bit more how
to relax.

I hope you've enjoyed these five tips! These are five of the key areas that come up
on how to gain time, and if you have any questions, please reach out to me! I'm
passionate about this topic. I firmly believe that if you manage your time and your
energy effectively, it makes you a lot happier in life and this is why I do what I
do. So please reach out and good luck with all these tips! Bye!