The Ultimate List of Time Saver Hacks and Tips to Save Time
With all the modern developments in today’s world, it can feel like we have everything imaginable except the time to do it all.
Unfortunately, this leaks into our work life and home life often leaving us with no time to enjoy ourselves or relax.
Although there’s no magic time fairy that can solve this stressful problem, there are a few time-saving strategies and techniques to help learn how to manage a busy schedule.
We’ve put together this list of time saver tips and time-saving habits to help you make small changes in your life.
Each habit by itself won’t make a huge amount of difference.
But, by implementing a few or all of these into your life, you can slowly start to get back on top of your schedule and carve out time to enjoy yourself, be productive or unwind.
Firstly, to help save you some time in this post, we’ve split our time-saving techniques into categories so you can easily skip to the relevant category for you and your life.
This post will cover:
- Time-saving Life Hacks
- Cleaning and Chores: Time Saving Hacks
- Time-Saving Tips for Moms
- Time Saving Tips for Work
Time Saver Tips & Life Hacks
The following time management tips are applicable to most, if not everybody’s, routines.
1. Stay Logged Out of Social Media
How to Save Time in Your Day by Reducing Time on Social Media:
Do you ever find yourself 10 minutes into scrolling down an app without even realising you’ve opened it?
By logging out of each app and consciously having to log in each time you use it, you’re more aware of what your thumb is doing and can take back those hours lost to the algorithm.
An extra step is to only allow yourself a very small amount of time to go on each app each day.
The more time you spend off social media, the less you want to go on it altogether.
Being aware of how long you’re on your phone is one of those time-saving habits that will actually give you more time in the day.
You can then dedicate more time to being productive and spending time on things you love.
2. Declutter and Store Efficiently
If you find that your house is overrun with busyness, we can probably assume that cleaning and tidying occasionally gets forgotten.
Life does get in the way sometimes and it’s perfectly normal to let things get out of hand at home.
However, by decluttering and introducing some clever storage, keeping your house clean and tidy can be simple.
For some organisation ideas and our favourite storage products, check out our Clean and Tidy Living article Storage and Organisation Essentials.
And, for help with decluttering and our three-step declutter strategy, check out our article: How To Quickly Declutter Your Home & Keep It Clutter-Free.
For example, if you find your floors are constantly covered in toys, invest in a large bench box or window seat box where all the toys can be chucked at the end of the day after the kids go to bed.
Also, keeping enough room in between furniture to easily manoeuvre the vacuum and mop can speed up the time spent cleaning the floors.
| Bonus time-saving tip: Only buy the same brand, colour and design of socks so that you spend less time pairing up socks. Use one colour for everyone in the house so you know whose are whose and can have them folded and put away in minutes. |
3. Meal Plan
Meal prepping has grown in popularity over the last few years and for good reason.
Batch cooking meals and having them all ready to go throughout the week gives you more time to focus on work, carpooling and relaxing.
Even just by prepping breakfast the night before you open up more time in the morning to get ready or get started on jobs for the day.
You can also meal prep by throwing ingredients into a slow cooker in the morning, so it’s hot and cooked for when you come through the door.
4. Utilise Shopping Online and Home Delivery
Shopping for food and household items in today’s world has never been easier.
There are very few things that can’t be delivered straight to your front door, and usually for a very small fee.
Make the most of the ability to get home delivery and have things come to you instead of heading out to get them.
Home delivery is a huge time saver, and as long as you’re only buying things you need it can also save you money on gas and being able to shop around for the best price before buying.
Cleaning and Chores: Time Saver Tips
The following time management tips are specific to household cleaning and chores.
After a busy day at work or running around doing jobs, the last thing we want to do is pick up a duster and start polishing.
The following tips will reduce the time we have to spend cleaning, to free up more time to do the things we actually want to.
5. Prevent Mess
Investing in storage or keeping things conveniently close can do wonders for saving time in the home.
The following tips are ideal time-saving hacks to reduce the amount of cleaning that needs doing, without much effort at all. Winner!
- Use oven liners to keep the base of the oven clean and easily wash away food and grease.
- Keep a squeegee in the shower to quickly clean the shower doors, walls and even the bathroom mirrors
- Invest in storage benches to throw in shoes and toys to keep floors tidy
6. The Time Saver Stair Method
The stair method is a simple time-saving habit that can save your energy.
Instead of running up and down the stairs with bits and pieces all day, start a stair pile on the bottom step with things that need to go up.
When somebody next goes upstairs, they then take the items to where they need to be.
This only works if people actually follow the rules of the stair method, as the goal isn’t to avoid doing the jobs.
If you make it a permanent habit to take things upstairs and put them away each time you go up, it’s much more efficient than continuously going up and down the stairs.
7. Keep Cleaning Products Close and Ready to Go
Instead of having all your cleaning supplies in one cupboard where you avoid them, place the relevant products near to what they’re used for.
Having cleaning products for the bathroom easy to access means that spritzing the sink and wiping it down can be done in less than a minute.
Having to consciously go to a different room and gather the right supplies it much harder to motivate yourself to do.
Another tip we find is having things ready to go makes them much less daunting.
Keeping the vacuum unwound means you just have to switch it on and go, and having a clean cloth next to polish takes the effort out of the process.
For more house cleaning tips, time-saving techniques and advice have a read of some of our related Clean and Tidy Living article: My House Is Messy, Where Do I Start?
8. Race Against the Microwave
Whilst you’re waiting for something with a timer, like boiling eggs or making coffee, get as much done as possible.
For example, see if you can unload and reload the dishwasher before the time runs out.
It’s much more productive to run around doing small jobs than scrolling through Instagram seeing what Mrs Hinch has been up to (she’d understand.)
This particular hack works especially well for competitive people.
Each time you start the race, try and get more done than the day before and see how much you can tick off your list.
9. Use a Bowl or Food Cuttings Tray for Scraps when Cooking
Minimise collecting the peelings and veg scraps to put into the trash, by using a bowl or box that hooks onto the top of a drawer to go under the countertop.
Once you’ve finished cooking, empty the bowl or tray into the garden compost or kitchen waste.
Reducing the time spent going back and forth between the counter and trash can will free up time and keep the kitchen cleaner.
10. Clean Little and Often
Instead of leaving cleaning until it becomes a daunting task that takes up a whole afternoon, start cleaning frequently in small amounts.
Wiping down the oven once a week with a degreaser is much quicker and easier than having to deep clean the burnt food and fat off the oven racks and shelves.
Or whizzing around frequently with a cordless vacuum makes cleaning the floors fast and a 2-minute job instead of taking hours of your day.
Essentially as soon as something starts to gather dust or grime, clean it then and there instead of letting the list of cleaning jobs build up until there’s no time to get them done.
Another bonus to cleaning little and often is that it’s much easier to delegate cleaning tasks to kids.
With regular cleaning, chores are quick, easy and perfectly manageable for the little ones.
Our FREE deep cleaning checklist is a great example of how to clean every day and keep on top of housework. Just click on either button below to download and get started.
Read more about the benefits of a chore checklist, and why we highly recommend one in our post: What Is A Cleaning Schedule And How To Make One.
11. Have Multiple Laundry Baskets for Different Cycles
Instead of keeping one laundry basket for each person, keep three for colours, whites and darks in each room that you would normally have just one.
By having each family member sort their own laundry into the relevant wash loads, you can save time sorting through dirty clothes.
The other benefits from sorting laundry into baskets are that you can instantly check whether you have enough to fill a laundry cycle, and prevent whites from being dyed in the wash.
Time Saver Tips for Moms
We can probably safely say that nobody is busier than a mother.
Unfortunately, this means that it’s the hardest lifestyle to try and carve out spare time.
We won’t suggest that these tips are life-changing and you’ll suddenly have hours and hours of time t yourself, but they could still make a small difference.
Even if it’s just 10 minutes to put your feet up, it’s worth it.
12. Automate all Outgoing Payments
If you spend time each month opening up bills and making payments, setting up direct debits and automated payments will save you time and effort.
After your salary comes in, all your bills get paid and money gets moved into savings without you having to even think about it.
This works great for budgeting or saving up for something, as you don’t even see the money that goes towards your expenses.
Setting up your payments to go out automatically will take a bit of initial effort to start with, but after that’s done it’s out of your mind forever.
13. Make Cooking Quicker with a Food Chopper
Investing in a Brieftons Food Chopper or similar device can cut your food prepping time in half.
You might think that it seems like something you see being sold on late-night TV shopping, but we promise that this is actually a life-changing purchase.
If you find yourself endlessly chopping up carrots, onions, celery and all other veg, then we would go as far to say that this Food chopper will change your life.
Cooking goes from being a chore to being fun and an opportunity to take your anger out on those unfortunate vegetables.
And another plus is since there’s no need to touch the sharp blades inside the food chopper, it’s safe for kids to use!
| Find out more about the Brieftons Food Chopper on Amazon here. |
14. Allocate an Admin/Jobs Day
It sometimes feels like we spend most our time driving in between errands and our house and the school with no end in sight.
Although we have no solution for the school run, you can bunch up your errands into one day to reduce the amount of time spent driving around.
Dedicate one day of the week to going out in the car and getting all your jobs done that need doing.
Getting jobs done as soon as they come in may feel more productive, but you actually end up spending more time completing the tasks when you count up the time driving back and forth from home.
Or if you’re trying to walk or run more, combine your errands with a long walk or jog around the town and tick off two tasks at once.
15. Vertical Clothes Folding
The vertical folding method is taught by Marie Kondo, queen of tidying and storage.
All this really means is folding and storing clothes in a way that when you look inside a drawer you can see every item at once.
The normal method of folding t-shirts and clothes results in one t-shirt on top and a pile hidden away at the bottom that you’ll rarely see or use.
By making everything visible, you can know exactly what’s in each drawer with a 2-second glance.
It takes a while to get everything folded that way to start with, and putting away laundry does take a bit longer, but it saves time in the long run for busy parents.
For more Marie Kondo folding tips, take a look at our Clean and Tidy Living post: Marie Kondo Folding Underwear: Tips You Need To Know.
16. Keep an Evolving Shopping List that Everybody is Responsible For
Keep a shopping list on the fridge with a pen on a string and get everybody in the habit of writing down items as soon as an item runs out.
This skips the time spent before heading to the store where you rummage around the back of the fridge seeing what you’ve not got in.
It also avoids having to run out on a weekday evening to grab an ingredient you didn’t realise had been finished.
| Bonus Time Tip: Sort your shopping list by aisle or type of products so you avoid running back and forth inside the store and can shorten your shopping trip time. |
Time Saver Tips for Work
This section has some of our favourite time-saving tips for busy professionals.
If you find yourself dreading going to work or feeling overwhelmed at the size of your to-do list, we might be able to help.
Adopting some of the following time-saving techniques at work could help you take back control of your 9-5.
17. Combine Inboxes and Messenger Apps Into One Platform
Rambox is a FREE software that allows you to combine multiple email addresses, websites and apps into one single platform.
Another huge benefit, aside from the organisation, is Rambox keeps your web browser free of tabs constantly popping up with notifications, so you can focus on the job at hand.
This is one of the best time-saving hacks for work but also works brilliantly on your personal computer to keep on top of multiple inboxes and important messages.
18. Use a Pomodoro Timer
The Pomodoro Tracker has a great description of what the Pomodoro method is and why it works:
“The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that can be used for any task. For many people, time is an enemy.
The anxiety triggered by “the ticking clock” leads to ineffective work and study habits which in turn lead to procrastination.”
Essentially, the stress of having lots to do can lead us to procrastinate and lose focus.
The Pomodoro method uses short bursts of work for 25-minute periods, with a 3-5 minute break after each slot. After every 4 Pomodoro’s, you take a longer break of 15-30 minutes.
You can do this with your phone timer, or there are tons of great free apps and websites available.
The Pomodoro method works in the workplace but is also brilliant for studying and cleaning.
19. Allocate Email Slots
Emails are distracting and time-consuming.
Having your emails on your phone or your inbox open will cause you to work in a stop-start fashion throughout the day, which is way more time-consuming than dedicated email hours.
Instead of reading and responding to emails each time your inbox pings, allocate two or three times a day where you check and clear your inbox.
By removing the distraction of the notification, you can properly focus on work and achieve more in the day.
20. Lists, Lists, Lists
Lists are an excellent, free tool that helps you stay on top of things but also motivates you to get things done.
We think the best system is to have a digital evolving ‘master’ list on Google Keep or another free list software.
Before finishing work or first thing in the morning, write down an achievable amount of tasks to get done that day including a mix of larger projects, 20-minute tasks and 5-minute jobs.
The larger master list is a great way to ensure nothing is forgotten, and the smaller lists keep things manageable and stress-free.
Mixing up the size of the jobs on the list will help to maintain focus throughout the day, as you can schedule the harder tasks for when you’re most productive and do the quicker jobs when you start to feel sluggish.
Get a Meeting Journal
Investing in a meeting journal like the affordable Cambridge Limited Meeting Notebook can streamline your working day and make meetings more productive.
Most meeting notebooks will include space for the meeting details, notes, and action items.
Having a single resource where you can easily flick back to your meeting notes and keep track of who said what will reduce stress and keep on top of what’s been discussed.
This is also a great way to defend your argument when somebody starts chasing things that were never even mentioned.
21. Say No and Delegate
Learning how to manage a busy work schedule means learning to say no to unnecessary meetings, irrelevant tasks and deadlines that are unachievable.
If you hate saying the word no at work for fear of seeming like you’re not doing your job, it’s time to change that mindset.
Saying no to work that’s outside of your responsibilities or that is just unnecessary proves that you’re taking your job seriously.
If possible, delegate tasks fairly to other people in your team and explain the task clearly to alleviate some of the stress.
When we’ve got too much on, we don’t perform at our best so there’s no benefit at all to feeling swamped.
Take some of the pressure off by saying no and passing on responsibility to your colleagues.
Top 21 Time Saver Tips and Best Time Saving Habits – Final Thoughts
We hope you’ve enjoyed our favourite time saver tips, techniques and habits.
At Clean and Tidy Living we don’t try and promise a magic solution to all of life’s problems, especially when the problem is not having enough time.
However, we hope that since you’ve made it this far in the post you found at least one of our 21 top time-saving hacks helpful to your life.
Everybody’s situation and lifestyle are different so it’s difficult to think of generic advice that can make a difference for the masses.
Even so, we use a lot of these strategies in our own lives and are therefore huge advocates for these techniques.
If you’ve enjoyed this post and our lifestyle tips, check out some of our similar articles listed below.
Related Time Saver Tips & Home Organisation Articles:
- How To Quickly Declutter Your Home & Keep It Clutter-Free
- Speed-Cleaning Tips: How To Clean Your House In 2 Hours
- How To Keep Your House Clean And Tidy: 13 Helpful Tips
- How To Get Motivated To Clean And Declutter – 17 Tips
- The Best Storage & Organisation Essentials You Need At Home
- My House Is Messy, Where Do I Start?
- What Causes Someone To Not Clean Their House?
- What Is A Cleaning Schedule And How To Make One
- Marie Kondo Folding Underwear: Tips You Need To Know