No matter who you are, it goes without saying that you only have so much time and energy in a day to spend on doing all the various things that you need and want to do. No matter how highly-motivated you are, and no matter how little time you waste, there is going to come a point when you either burnout, or simply run out of spare time to spend doing the things you want to do.
For ambitious people who want to achieve significant things and get the absolute most out of every day, this is a pretty unwelcome and unpleasant reality.
Luckily, there are a few strategic techniques that can be used in order to move things forward on various fronts, while freeing up a bit of your time and energy, and allowing you to get more done “automatically.”
Here are a few suggestions:
A Few Ways to Get Things Done More Automatically
Use templates in your work
Increasingly, various high-tech tools and software programs are able to dramatically reduce the level of drudge-work we all have to deal with in the workplace on any given day, and can boost efficiency, while reducing stress and complexity, and solving multiple other problems simultaneously.
Business document templates software, for example, may save you a very substantial amount of time that you would otherwise have had to spend on tinkering with the format and layout of various presentations, and ensuring that they were compatible with the format used by your colleagues, or other areas of your company.
Of course, “templates” of various sorts might help you to streamline other areas of your work, too.
For example, services such as Freshbooks rely, largely, on providing a useful and easy-to-edit template for invoicing, which can be compiled and sent off in mere moments, and which will then be tracked on an online database along with all the other invoices you have previously sent off. By the same token, depending on the specific nature of the work you do, you might be able to have a particular contract “template” in place, that allows you to save a lot of time on the contract-drafting process for new clients.
Work on turning desired daily actions into habits
Do your habits require a lot of “willpower” for you to execute?
As a rule, the answer to that question will be “no, not really.” And that’s pretty much the point of habits, in and of themselves.
While certain habits can certainly require some willpower, and a decent degree of effort to maintain, the process of turning something from a conscious action to a habit removes much of the “willpower cost” that was previously involved in carrying out that action.
Hence, someone who has been jogging every morning for five years will typically find it easier to get out of bed and go for a jog than someone who has just committed to starting an exercise program for the first time, as part of their New Year’s resolutions.
If there are certain actions that you want to perform on a regular basis – specifically, certain actions that will significantly increase your odds of moving in the kind of directions you want to move in, in life – focus on tracking them daily and sticking with them throughout the “difficult” period, until they become more habitual and automatic.
Before too long, you may well find that you are capable of getting far more done than you ever dreamed – thanks to the power of habits.
Outsource certain elements of your work and life
It would be silly to write an article about ways to “automate” more processes in your life, without mentioning the benefits of outsourcing things to third parties.
Whether you are a business owner and need a graphic designer for the upgrade and re-release of your website, or whether you’re just someone who wants to plan and organise their everyday routines in a more straightforward way, there are ways you can benefit from outsourcing.
In the first example, you could use a service such as Fiverr to locate a freelancer who is able to work within your preferred price range, and who has a decent number of positive reviews and testimonials, and in the second example, you might be able to find a virtual assistant – or even a more specific dedicated service – in order to help you with things such as organising your weekly grocery shopping list, or carrying out research for your next summer vacation.
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