Ashley Danyew

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027 - 8 Ways to Save Time This Week

Ashley Danyew

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027 - 8 Ways to Save Time This Week Ashley Danyew

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*Disclosure: I get commissions for purchases made through some of these links.

I hear this over and over from music teachers and educators: there never seems to be enough time to get it all done.

You know what it's like, right?

Time to teach
Time to plan
Time to write
Time to practice
Time to be with family
Time to be a good friend
Time to read
Time to exercise
Time to learn

We’re always looking for new ways to be more productive, get more done in the little time we seem to have, and save time in places where, like money, we might be overspending.

That’s one of my favorite ways to think about time—like money. We all have the same number of hours in the day; it’s how we spend them that makes the difference.

Where (and how) do you want to spend your time? What’s important to you?

Once you can answer these questions, you’ll be motivated to make it happen—to take control of how you’re spending your time and look for ways to save it wherever you can.

If you know me, you know I'm a saver more than I am a spender. I love finding ways to save money, creative energy, and yes, time, so today, I'm excited to share a few time-saving tips and strategies that I've learned in the hopes that it helps you save time this week.

1. Keep all your to-dos in one place.

I’m generally a pen-and-paper kind of person, though I’ve found that written to-do lists don’t always work for me. Sometimes—and let me know if you can relate to this—I want to write down things for next week or next month that are on my mind, but I don't want to see them sitting on my weekly to-do list because they're not for this week! I want a safe place to jot things down without the constant visual reminder.

I’ve used a few web-based applications designed to keep track of to-dos, but ultimately, they either converted to a paid model or they had too many bells and whistles (color-coding, project-sorting, reminders, etc.) that made it feel overly-complicated. The point is to save time, remember?

A few years ago, I discovered TickTick—a simple, easy-to-use list-based approach to keeping track of tasks.

Start by creating a few different lists—maybe one for teaching, one for home, etc. Then, start typing in your tasks (or use the voice-text feature!). You can also add tasks via email, which is great if you're the kind of person who sends yourself emails reminding you to do xyz. You can add deadlines to each task, set reminders, and work with the built-in Pomo timer, which helps you stay focused.

One of my favorite features is the ability to quickly assign (and reassign) tasks to specific days. It basically lets you plan out your to-do lists in advance, but organize them by day, instead of having an overwhelming number of things on your list (or lists) at any given time.

You can also set up recurring tasks, so you don’t have to manually add the same things every week or month. I find this particularly helpful for things I do only once a month but on a recurring basis.

And of course, you still get the satisfaction of ticking things off your list when they're done. ✔

TickTick is free to use, but you can get access to a few more features on the Premium plan. I think it's $28 for the entire year and right now they're offering a 25% discount to students and educators.

2. Track your time.

Have you ever gotten to the end of the day and thought, “Where did the time go?!” Of course you have, right?

Well, with Toggl, you’ll know. Toggl is a time-tracking tool that you can have running in the background during the day. It’s especially helpful for self-employed musicians and those who bill their work by the hour, but no matter what kind of work you do, it’s a free and easy way to audit your day and see exactly where you spend your time. Keep it running in a browser window, or use it on your phone to track your time when you’re on the go.

Another quick and easy thing to check is screen time on your phone. You can see this in Settings. Before you look this up though, estimate how much time you *think* you spend on your phone—checking email, hopping on social media, etc. Then look at the actual numbers. Consider setting some screen time parameters or using an app like Moment to help you stay aware and use your time with intention.

3. Batch related tasks.

Batching is a process of grouping like tasks together and doing them at the same time (source). 

This is a great strategy for tackling small tasks like writing and responding to emails, depositing checks, filing receipts, filing music, running errands, planning rehearsals or lessons or classes, organizing, and more.

Related post: Best Time-Batching Strategies for Musicians

Free Resource

Make the most of your time.

Batching is a system of grouping similar tasks together to help you stay focused on one thing at a time. It also helps reduce the time we waste switching back and forth between different activities.

This printable includes a batching worksheet and weekly time-blocking template to help you be more productive, especially when managing multiple projects.

Along these same lines, setting up recurring automation (in various forms) is a huge timesaver, as well. Automate your bank transfers, weekly or monthly email reminders, and email replies/filing. Use a tool like Zapier to connect different accounts and automate tasks. It's basically like having a free virtual assistant!

4. Use social media with intention.

This is a big one! We're all tempted to scroll without really stopping to read or pay attention to what we’re seeing. Can I confess something? For me, it’s a way to get out of work—a way to escape for a minute. When I'm doing something hard, something that takes a lot of thought or mental energy, I find myself looking for an out, a break. But, I’ve learned how distracting this can be during the work-day. And how much time it wastes!

Every time we pick up our phones and scroll through Facebook or Instagram or any other social media, we lose more than the few minutes we spend in the app; we lose a few minutes afterward as we try to get back into the work we were doing. 

Did you know?

(source)

Because of this, I’ve started leaving my phone in the other room during working hours. Honestly, this has made a big difference in my productivity! Set up some parameters that work for you. Give yourself designated time in your day to check-in, check messages, scroll and see what's new, but make sure you have a clear end time in place.

5. Divide your workday into time blocks.

Time-blocking is a strategy you can use to help you organize and structure your day, giving you the time you need to complete the tasks on your to-do list(s).

Start with today: what does your day look like? Are you teaching at all? Do you have any rehearsals or meetings or practice time scheduled? Do you have any appointments or phone calls at designated times? Block off those times on your calendar. What’s left?

Maybe you have a 2.5-hour block in the morning, an hour after lunch, then another hour in the evening. What can you accomplish with these blocks of time?

For me, I’ve found it helpful to start the day by tackling my inbox for 20-30 minutes, then I have 2.5-3 hours of uninterrupted time (most days) to work on a bigger, more in-depth project. After lunch, I usually have an hour or 1.5 hours before leaving to go teach, so this is often a good time for smaller-scale projects, writing, or batching small tasks.

Knowing what blocks of time I have to work with and being intentional about the work I do in those times has helped me be more focused and productive and get more done.

(source)

If you want to learn more about time-blocking, Toggl put together a helpful guide. I also wrote a more in-depth post on three ways to organize your workweek.

6. Designate time to send/respond to emails.

I just wrote a post on this topic over on the Musician & Co. blog, so this is something I've been thinking about lately. How often do we check our email during the day? Do we want to know the answer to that? I sometimes catch myself checking email just to see if there's anything new. Not because I need to send an email to someone or because I have any intention of replying to the messages sitting in my inbox. It's like with social media—I'm looking for a momentary escape from the work I'm doing and I want to refresh and see if there's anything new.

And this is when I know I need more email parameters in my workday. I shared a few tips in the blog post, but here's a quick tip for today or this week:

Create time blocks in your schedule to check, write, and respond to any emails that have come in. Turn it into a game and see how many emails you can knock out in the amount of time you’ve set.

Also, consider setting up some email templates to save you the time of typing out the same message over and over. You can do this with Gmail's Canned Responses. I do this for my studio with email communication that I send to prospective students, new students, and that I send out at different times of the year. It saves me time and it helps me be consistent.

Organize your music studio with a set of pre-written, fully customizable email templates.

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Get the curated set of 30 email templates I use in my studio so you can spend less time on the administrative side of your business (and more time making music!).

One more tip: filing every email you receive into a specific subfolder may not be the best way to organize your messages. I know. I love organizing things. But when you think about it, the way we normally look for an email is by searching, not navigating to a folder or subfolder and scrolling until we find it. Food for thought, right?

Fast Company wrote about this and other helpful email tips in their 7-Step Guide to Achieving Inbox Zero (and Staying There).

7. Go into meetings with an agenda or outline.

Meetings can take up a lot of time. The obvious way to save time is to avoid unnecessary meetings. Can this be accomplished through email or by phone? If so, that's usually a more efficient way to work.

If a meeting is necessary, make sure you spend some time planning and preparing in advance. Encourage those attending to submit items for an agenda in advance so everyone is on the same page.

If you're leading the meeting, write an outline for how you will spend your time together and what needs to be discussed or decided as a group. Avoid topics that are not relevant to all who are present—save those for one-on-one conversations or emails.

8. Make templates.

This is a great time-saving tool.

Create a set of templates for things you use on a recurring basis: rehearsal plans or lesson plans, emails you send frequently, budget worksheets, reminder postcards, newsletters, graphics, blog posts, meeting agendas, etc.

Save a blank version as a template file and duplicate it each time you need to create something, so you’re starting fresh (this helps avoid the issue of forgetting to replace or update old, outdated text if you’re duplicating the last file you used).

I'd love to hear from you.

What are your best time-saving tools and strategies?

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