13 Mental Health Experts Share The One Time-Crunching Habit That Saves Them Hours Each Week
How to save and spend your precious time.
filadendron | Canva Einstein taught us that a passing second does not necessarily last the same duration for you as it does for someone else. An article by The University of Maryland argues that time is relative — and, therefore, it is fluid. It stands to reason that if the way you experience one passing second is unique to your relative position in the universe, your experience might change if you alter your perspective.
So, in a way, you hold time in the palm of your hand. Okay, enough wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Time to get to the point. Which is ... time. As in, whoever has enough of it?
With that in mind, we reached out to a group of mental health healers and life coaches to discover their best time-saving tips that can save you hours a week. And isn't it about time?
Mental health experts share the one time-crunching habit that saves them hours each week:
1. Prioritize tasks
To save time and avoid tempting distractions, set priorities and address the top ones incrementally.
—Ruth Schimel, Ph.D., career and life management consultant
2. Reject unnecessary requests
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Just say "no" to incoming requests that you feel pressured to accept because you "should."
—Susan Kulakowski, MBA/MS, writer
3. Combine exercise with routine tasks
To save time each weekday, I find ways to incorporate exercise into my commute. By parking far enough away, I get my 10,000 steps walking to and from my workplace.
—Cyndera Quackenbush, author, storyteller, educator
4. Prepare ahead of time
I make a list of things I need to do ahead of when they are due and try to complete them. I schedule things to be released in advance or have them ready when I need them.
Preparation is the key for me. This is how I stay current. It saves me time in case something happens to prevent me from completing a task.
—John Capello, psychic medium, author
5. Practice conscious breathing
How can we slow down time and give ourselves the break we need? Just breathe. If you take just a few minutes, five minutes to be exact. Breathe in a consciously connected pattern so you can rewire your nervous system to run at a slower pace and increase your brain focus and alertness.
This helps to eliminate distractions, decrease impulsiveness (think social media scrolling), and give us back tons of time as we are in a far more productive state.
—Jessica Brace, NLP, life coach
6. Use technology for household chores
My preference for a time saver is using a robotic vacuum cleaner.
—Audrey Tait, therapist
7. Turn off your smartphone
Put your phone on Do Not Disturb for a set time each day to get your top priorities done.
—Ellen Kamaras, life, career, and relationship coach
8. Identify your peak productive hours
I am most effective, efficient, creative, and energetic during my Power Hours of 2-5 pm. I protect my Power Hours by staying away from distractions like social media, personal appointments, and mundane tasks. Using these hours to accomplish top priorities and taking action toward my biggest goals is the most effective use of this time.
—Carole Berg, aromatherapist and herbalist
9. Be mindful of the here and now
Being right here and now, viewing life and time in a heartfelt, mindful manner, is very helpful to stay engaged with the important aspects of life and not get distracted by less important, distracting things.
—TJ Price, licensed psychologist
10. Review and organize your thoughts before you sleep
I review each evening, as I fall asleep, what I experienced and created and accomplished during the day. This sets me up to sleep on what I’d like to create and accomplish the following day. It leads to less dawdling the next morning and allows time throughout the week.
—Angela Bixby, intuitive consultant, psychic medium
11. Complete the tasks in front of you right away
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As a husband, father of three, and multiple business owner, I live and die by my calendar. So it is important to save as many hours as possible.
My go-to time-saving tip is to only touch something once. If I'm finished with a dish, instead of just picking it up and putting it into the sink, where it will later on need to be rinsed and put in the dishwasher, and then the dishwasher turned on, I go ahead and do all of those things right then. That is a simple example, but when you do that with your work tasks, kid toys, writing a blog post, etc, the hours saved start to add up fast.
—Taylor Kovar, CEO, The Money Couple
12. Set a timer and stick to it
I use my timer for 27 minutes and do my task, stopping when the timer beeps. I know I get to stop when it beeps, and 27 minutes is the number of completion. 27 minutes is enough time to get a decent amount done.
—Carmel Malone, RN, Feng Shui Specialist
13. Be proactive at the beginning of the week
It's easy to get caught in the grind of a rigid schedule and feel as if you "don't have time for much else." Alternatively, when you have more freedom, you may fall into the trap of thinking you have "plenty of time" to get to things "later."
Either way, spend time on Sunday night to map out the week's "must-do" events like meetings, appointments, and other responsibilities. Then look for windows of time to insert the other things you want to do. Because you're not scheduling hours of mindless scrolling on social media or binge-streaming TV, chances are high that you'll gain back hours each week.
—Amanda Savage Brown, self-acceptance expert
Carter Gaddis is a writer and editor who spent 24 years as an award-winning sportswriter for newspapers in Florida and for various online publications, including ESPN, Parenting Magazine, and the St. Petersburg Times.
