3 Daily Hacks To Maximise Your Day
Does it sometimes feel like you’re trying to juggle elephants to be able to fit all you need to get done into your day?
I’m sure we can all relate to wanting or needing to do certain tasks but either falling to the easy option or getting distracted (usually by social media feeds)!
Being productive. Which can also be described as being efficient, having good work rate, capacity or output. Opposite of this is idleness and being unproductive.
As busy PT’s and gym owners we can relate to the daily struggle of ‘fitting it all in' so we’ve put our heads together and collated a few key ‘hacks’ you can implement straight away to make sure your next one is a success.
Chances are you’re woken by your phone alarm so it’s easy to get distracted by texts, emails and social media right from the get go. However, if your alarm clock is a small child or two, then you’ve a whole host of other morning distractions going on before you even begin getting yourself sorted for the day, meaning the first ‘hack’ is all about the night before.
Hack #1 - Get ahead of the game
If you start prepping your day 8 to 12 hours in advance you can save a tonne of time and stress the following morning. Just having 1 or 2 of your meals prepped and/or made ready before you go to bed can mean more time to sleep/feed the kids/commute/eat better breakfasts or whatever takes up the most time first thing.
We don’t have to preach about the importance of good nutrition to make your day (and body) function better but improved energy, focus and enjoyment rank highly here.
This then moves on to as far as setting your clothes out before bed and getting your bag ready for work.
Minimising distractions prior to sleep is key to a restful nights shut eye, so cut all screens and lights at least 30 mins before falling asleep to put you in a calmer state.
Bonus tip: about a hour before bed, make a list of 3 wins you had that day and also what you were grateful for as well as setting out your 3 big to-do’s for the next day so you’re focussed on what you need to get done once the day starts.
Hack #2 - The Morning Maximiser
Regardless of whether you’re a ‘morning person’ or not you can’t argue that getting stuff cracked early helps to create an easier day where there seems like there’s less to get done.
Review your 3 big to-do’s from last night and allocate ‘power hours’ where you will be able to focus on completing said task without distraction.
If you have the time in the morning to exercise then putting the body through a challenging but enjoyable training session will wake you up, send ‘feel good’ endorphins around the body and get the mind fired up to begin working.
Breakfast can be an individual choice, skipped or eaten or potentially delayed until later that morning, if you can’t face food first thing. If you’ve prepped a breakfast the night before to take into work or eat mid morning this single task can allow you more time in the morning to either exercise or even sleep in a little later. Who doesn’t love a few more minutes in bed!?!
Bonus tip: doing short 4 minute (1 round) to 20 minute (5 rounds) high intensity workouts can get simple effective exercise into a busy day. HiiT (high intensity interval training) sessions can be as simple as picking bodyweight exercises and working for 20 seconds then resting for 10 seconds and repeating 8 times to complete 1 round.
Hack #3 - Carpe Diem
Time to seize the day. You’ve maximised your morning, now it’s time to make this a good day.
Remember your Power Hours you set earlier? Once these come around turn off all distractions, grab a strong coffee (black, no milk or sugar) and get some focus ready for the task in hand.
Work hard through this hour and if possible shut yourself away, inform co-workers not to bug you or put up a do not disturb sign on your door and get ‘in the zone’. Make sure you stick to the time schedule set and work hard to complete the task.
The last point is very important. We can easily make the task fill the time, so for example you’ve 3 hours spare before the kids need to be picked up from school but a whole load of washing to get through and also get dinner prepped. It can be easy to have these tasks take the whole 3 hours but if you’re strict with your time and set a power hour then you can effectively free up 2 hours for ‘you time’ doing the things you want to do and not the things you have to do.
One final bonus tip: try not to say yes to too many things. It can be easy to inundate yourself with tasks by saying you’ll do this and that or be here and there, when really you’re stretching you capacity too far.
This will only lead to becoming disheartened you’re not getting things done and lack of focus when thinking of all the other things that are still outstanding.
For us it helps to set 90 day goals (things that are big goals and important to reach but given enough time to achieve). We then break these down into monthly goals. Once you have a month goal you can chunk this further into weekly goals, followed by daily tasks that will take you towards reaching that weekly -> monthly -> 90 day goal.
Just reading this I bet there are multiple things you can think of that need changing in your daily schedule and overwhelm can mean nothing changes.
So start small, pick one ‘hack’ from above and try it for a week or two. If the changes you make stick and start to become habits then try to implement another, and so on.
Health and fitness is also hugely relatable to productivity. Being pro active in eating right and training hard takes time. If you’re someone whose time poor then it is exercise and nutrition that seem to suffer first.
If you need help with setting your 90 day goals when it comes to your fitness and nutrition then fire us a reply either via email or our Facebook™ page with the subject ’90 day game plan’ and we can discuss how to help you further.
Rob.