25 Ways to Live 25 Hours a Day

Seek privacy. – “You may be totally different and I can respect that, but I need peace and quiet. I feel stressed (and inefficient) when the TV is blaring, the dog is barking, the kids are shouting, the cat's meowing, the phone is ringing, the microwave is beeping, the washer is running, the dryer is spinning, my Blackberry is vibrating, my email is dinging, etc.”– via The Wisdom Journal

Use visual reminders. – “I've found it helpful to have visual reminders to do something that's important to me. One way to do this is writing on a piece of paper what you need to do, and in smaller text why you want to do it. Tape this paper somewhere you will see it: bathroom mirror, in front of your bed, on your keyboard. This doesn't work if you have many reminders for different tasks, but for a couple of tasks, it can work magically.” – via Think Simple Now

Live by the truth. – You will eventually do “hard time” for lying to yourself and others. “The truth often comes out whether we want it to or not. Lying generally just complicates the situation and makes us look bad. Look at the scandals many of our politicians fall into because they fail to admit the truth. It is much better to just develop the habit of telling the truth even when it is difficult. This will save you a lot of heartache and misery in life.” – via My Super-Charged Life

Develop a passive income stream. – “Passive income refers to income that is generated without any (or very little) additional time on our part. Some time may be put in up front, but the payoff from passive income can last for years. Every dollar you earn in passive income is a dollar you didn't have to earn by working. In this way, passive income puts you closer to financial independence, a stage of life where you no longer have to sell hours for dollars in order to earn an income.” – via Frugal Dad

Complaining kills time and energy. Stop it! – “By complaining, I was putting the blame on external things instead of myself. By noticing this habit, I've been able to lean into my fear and not let it decide my actions. After becoming more aware of my thoughts and emotions, I've learned that if I don't give in to my fears, I could choose actions that may be scary at first, but they would reap greater rewards in the end.” – via Work Happy Now

Trick yourself into waking up early. – Don't snooze your time away. “A very effective trick I do is to place my alarm on the other side of the room, effectively forcing me to get out of bed to turn it off.” – via The Change Blog

It's okay… Just say NO! – “While saying yes can take us down some wonderful roads, there's also a ton of value in saying no. We're only given a certain amount of hours in our lives; do you really want to give yours away so easily? If you don't have to time to commit to a new project, complete a favor, or serve on another committee, it's a good idea to just say no.” – via On Simplicity

Delegate or hire a helping hand. – “What value do you place on your time during your waking hours? Let's say I had a great idea for a side business and the capital to get it rolling, but I didn't have the time to get started. I could channel some of that capital into hiring someone to do menial personal tasks, then channel my own time into the side business, seeing if there's enough meat there to get things to really take off.” – via The Simple Dollar

Use technology to automate tasks. – “Don't be dumb like me. Make sure your backups are automated so you don't forget, because you will eventually. For those first 2 years and 3 months, I felt like my website was invincible. But everything goes down eventually. Don't trust yourself to make regular backups. Leave that to a computer!” – via My Wife Quit Her Job

Stop trying to make things perfect. – “Perfection is an illusion. We strive for perfection because we have an image in our minds of what we should be, but what we are not. Realize that perfection and imperfection are a result of a conflict in your mind, they don't exist in reality. You have to make mistakes in order to grow, don't let perfectionism paralyze you. If you're not failing, chances are you're not trying hard enough.” – via Illuminated Mind

Research it before you commit lots of time to it. – “When creating an online business, the successful person starts his company after adequate success is certain, whereas he who is destined for bankruptcy first creates a product and then looks to see if it will be profitable.” – via Finance Your Freedom

Haste makes waste. Slow down. – A quicker, hasty pace in the short-term can lead to a more error prone set of results in the long-term. “Sometimes things get in the way, like a sick child or a disastrous house. Those days more than any other, I find the need to just stop, let things go for a little while and focus on being present is absolutely necessary.” – via Remodeling This Life

Keep your priorities straight. – “Assess the balance in your life by creating a pictorial representation of your life. Using a pie chart you can easily see if your priorities in life are being met. Hang it up somewhere that you can see it. How does it look? Does it look the way you want it to?” – via My Dollar Plan

Don't waste time worrying about the uncontrollable. – “The inevitable… Some things we just can't control. So, aren't we better off pushing worry aside? And living our lives. There will be good in our lives. And there will be some bad in our lives. Worrying about any of this is not going to change this fact. What can change these facts are actions, by us.” – via The Jungle of Life

Enjoy yourself. Misery is wasteful. – “Do you ever stop and think… Why am I doing all this stuff? Do you ever feel like your sole purpose in life is crossing things off lists and maintaining your calendar? Maybe if you aren't enjoying yourself, all your time is wasted. All that time we spend bored, frightened, angry, in a hurry, or unhappy, isn't that the real waste of time?” – via Steve Olson

Clear clutter from your home and workspace. – “Devote a little of your time to tossing clutter from your life, and keeping things relatively clutter-free, and you'll be rewarded with much more pleasing living spaces, with a less stressful life, and with better organization and productivity. Clutter weighs us down, distracts us, and brings chaos into our lives.” – via Dumb Little Man

Turn off the TV! – “People don't incorporate enough engaging leisure and spiritual activities, such as socializing, exercising or reading books, into their day. Despite having more leisure time than ever before, time spent on engaging leisure activities has actually declined over the past four decades. Instead, there's been a significant increase in the hours devoted to what the authors call “neutral downtime,” which is mostly watching television.” – via Mom Grind

Utilize the power of compounding. – “I'm sure that everyone reading this understands the power of compound interest. When you invest money you earn interest. Then you start earning interest on the money you earned from interest. Over many years this continues to compound and eventually leads to a very large sum of money. The same concept applies to time. If you invest time by working hard when you're young, you put yourself in a position to succeed that will continue compounding for the rest of your life. If you waste time when you're young, you can't make up for it later because you've lost the opportunity to utilize the power compounding.” – via Pick The Brain

Read situations and anticipate outcomes. – “I would say that I have gotten better over time at reading situations and anticipating outcomes. This helps me be more effective. I'm still improving; let me give you an example. Recently I gave permission to this construction company to have access to one of our lots to help them access an adjacent lot. Since then, trucks have been wreaking havoc on my lot. I got all pissed off and was telling my friend how disrespectful that was, making a mess of our lot, after I was so cool with them etc… His response was great. He simply said, ‘Dude, what did you expect?’” – via Best Life Practices

If you want to remember it, write it down. – “If your memory is anything like mine it's like a leaking bucket. And there are many great reasons to write everything down. You'll have your ideas safely saved away instead of having them lost somewhere in the depths of your mind. If you don't write things down you'll forget many good and some great ideas.”– via The Positivity Blog

Be productive while you wait. – “The moment you have to wait for anything, whip that book out and start reading. Usually you'll manage quite a few pages while waiting. Use these pockets of time in your day, and you'll be amazed at how much time you actually have. It's been said that you can get a whole university education just reading one hour a day for five years. You just have to reclaim those lost minutes.” – via Joyful Days

Put first things first by time boxing your tasks. – “Working on your most important projects first thing in the morning is a classic tip to guarantee that you do meaningful work in your day. Create a time box to work on your dreams every day, before the world out there has a chance to disrupt your plans. Time boxing is simply fixing a time period to work on a task or group of tasks. Instead of working on a task until it's done, you commit to work on it for a specific amount of time.” via – Litemind

Use the right tools. – “It's easy to be a better housekeeper when you have the right tools. If your current tools make you work harder or make the task take a long time, consider investing in supplies that will make your life easier. There are many housekeeping tools available such as multipurpose spray cleaners, lightweight vacuums and steam cleaners, and disinfecting wipes that can be used for more than one task and save you time and money.” – via Homemaker Barbi

Add value to everything and everyone around you. – If you aren't adding value, you are wasting everyone's time, including your own. “The biggest waste of time and oxygen that you can be is not being a valuable person. Not valuable to yourself, to your family, to society, and to the planet.” – via Alex Shalman

Spend minutes now to save hours later. – “You have to spend a little time now to save a lot of time later. It's the notion of giving some to get some. This ties into the idea of working smarter not harder. You can save countless hours over the long-term by spending just a few productive minutes now.” – via Marc and Angel Hack Life