Four Ways to Free Up More of Our Precious Time
Use the Four D’s of delete, delegate, downsize, and delay
Time is a precious resource. According to the American Time Use Survey Summary, employed adults in the US will spend around 2,000 hours a year working. Each day, that same set of people will spend a little more than 15 minutes exercising, a little less than 15 minutes relaxing, about 10 minutes reading, and…more than 2 hours watching TV.
When we put this against the backdrop that the average American has less than 79 laps around the sun, I think how we spend our time matters.
Whether you’re trying to be more focused in the workplace or out on your own, time management is the place to start. Let me introduce my Four D’s of time management, in order of impact:
- Delete the tasks that just don’t add value
- Delegate and outsource tasks that someone else could do
- Downsize the tasks that are taking more than their fair share
- Delay the tasks that seem urgent but aren’t important
I’ve visualized these in the below graphic. Feel free to share, copy, print off and post somewhere visible — even make it your desktop background.
