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For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ​“Done!” pod­cast:

Time flies when you are in motion

Nat­u­ral­ly, you wish to spend your time in the best, most effi­cient way pos­si­ble. If you can get valu­able tasks done while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly mov­ing from one loca­tion to anoth­er you will win back the time that would oth­er­wise feel lost to you, but many tasks are impos­si­ble to do whilst on the move. You are dri­ving a car and can there­fore not simul­ta­ne­ous­ly write a report. You are walk­ing and might bare­ly be able to check some­thing on your phone at the same time, but would have loved to spend the time doing some­thing far more impor­tant and advanced by your computer.

How to move around less

I rec­om­mend you try cut­ting back on the amount of phys­i­cal trans­fer­ring and mov­ing you do in your every­day life so that you do not waste pre­cious time. How? Well, you could start by ask­ing yourself:

• If you have two meet­ings some­where in town dur­ing the same day, could you plan them so that one fol­lows more or less direct­ly after the oth­er — leav­ing just enough time between them for you to get from the first to the sec­ond with­out stop­ping by your office?
  
• Or, if you have two dif­fer­ent meet­ings in anoth­er part of the build­ing your office is locat­ed in, do you real­ly need to go back to your desk after the first one and before the sec­ond? Could you not take a seat some­where in the vicin­i­ty of where the sec­ond meet­ing will take place and get as much work done as you can while wait­ing for it to begin?
  
• Is it per­haps worth hav­ing two of some­thing that you only have one of right now and which you con­stant­ly have to fetch and bring to the sec­ond location?
  
• If you need to dis­cuss sev­er­al things with some­one, could you gath­er all these ques­tions and ask them dur­ing one sin­gle meet­ing with the per­son in ques­tion so that you do not have to go and find them every time a ques­tion pops up?
  
• If you need access to some kind of infor­ma­tion that is locat­ed in anoth­er sys­tem or on a dif­fer­ent page in order to do a cer­tain task by your com­put­er, could you link or cre­ate a short­cut to where the infor­ma­tion is locat­ed so that you only need a sin­gle click to retrieve it instead of two or more?
  
• If you need the same infor­ma­tion to be avail­able in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent doc­u­ments, fold­ers, or appli­ca­tions, could you allow automa­tion-ser­vices such as Pow­er Auto­mate, Zapi­er, Hazel (macOS), or File­Jug­gler (Win) to trans­fer it for you so that you can spend your time doing more impor­tant things?

Do this

If you do not want to waste time mov­ing your­self or items around, do this today:

1. Take a moment to think of all the sit­u­a­tions that recur in your every­day life and work where you need to spend time mov­ing your­self or things around. Does per­haps some of the exam­ples above ring a bell?
   
2. Think of some­thing you could do today, right now even, that will mean at least a lit­tle less mov­ing and trans­fer­ring when it comes to these recur­ring sit­u­a­tions you just thought of?
   
3. Do it right away or for­mu­late what you will do like a clear to-do-task (which will make it eas­i­er to do), put it on your to-do-list, and do it lat­er today.

More time for what mat­ters most

If you decrease the amount of mov­ing you have to do in your dai­ly life you will sim­ply have more time to spend on fin­ish­ing the tasks you need to have done by the end of each day. You will feel less stressed at the end of every after­noon and might even have time to work on tasks that are not yet urgent but which would be great to fin­ish well in advance of their due date (since you con­sid­er them very important).

What’s your way?

What are your best tips for mov­ing your­self and the things you use in your dai­ly life around as lit­tle as pos­si­ble? Have you thought of some­thing bril­liant that real­ly does the trick for you? If so, please feel free to write me and share your thoughts and tips.

(I men­tion Pow­er Auto­mate above. Here are some ideas on how to get small tasks done auto­mat­i­cal­ly with this smart tool!)