Saving time is my core value around here. The more ways I can find to maximize time, the better. It’s not because I’m a slacker- on the contrary! I actually love to have productive days, but with the day being taken up by my 9-5, my daughter’s digital learning and the evening family routines, it can be challenging to find time to get things done.

Ideally we would have a completely balanced life, but this is challenging when you have a hectic schedule and various responsibilities. You can instead strive for a balance that works for you and shave off hours in your day to redirect elsewhere. I have posted various ways to save time in your processes here and here, but there are general, everyday things you can also do unrelated to blogging and entrepreneurship to maximize your time. Here are 9 ways to gain back time in your day.

New year, same inbox…oy! The Inbox Battle - have you conquered it or are you still fighting to get control back?  When you have had an email account for a long time, it seems more and more unrealistic to get to inbox 0 (or at least 0 unread emails).  Well it’s a new year...in fact, a new decade! It’s time to win that battle of You vs. the Inbox once and for all. Here are 7 strategies that you can implement to get your inbox looking more lean.

I have officially been a Squarespace user for over two years, and switching over to them still feels like one of the best business decisions I’ve made.  There are many reasons why I love Squarespace (here is a post all about it), but one is that you can sell not only physical products, but digital products and services, too!  This is a great feature for those selling things such as workbooks, e-books, email courses, coaching packages, etc. The beauty of Squarespace is that you pay one fee for your site and can also incorporate e-commerce, so you don’t have to subscribe to another service for digital sales (Sam Cart, DPD Cart or Gumroad)!  There are various benefits to selling digital products on your website, and I will be sharing my top three.

TIME!  It’s something that we would all love more of.  So much of it is taken up by default (work, home, sleep, etc.)...how can you possibly find the time to do things that need to be done for your blog or biz?  This is a totally reasonable feeling to have.  What is totally unreasonable, though, is surrendering to time and not attempting to get creative and find hidden pockets of free time.  I spoke on one myth about time in a previous post and it was that you have to get up an hour early to maximize your time to get blog/biz tasks completed.  I disagreed with this, and if you’d like to know why, check out that post here.  Today I will be sharing with you another myth about time, why I consider it a myth, and what you can do about it.

I recently came across a quote that was written on a board stating-

"A goal without a deadline is just a wish"

The quote was altered a bit because the original quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is actually "A goal without a plan is just a wish".  Either way, isn't it true?  If you just throw random goals out there and have no true action plan, where will that leave you and how will you feel?  Well, it will leave you In the same place (aka STUCK) and you will feel unaccomplished...like you're putting all of this time in and not seeing results.  Today I will be discussing why it's so important to set deadlines for yourself, an easy way to do it and how to be organized with it so that it will help you get shish done!

As you may know, my motto is automation.  I live by it...I seek new ways to automate flows...I'm all about it!  To me, automation is a process that can be completed without having to physically touch it.  Everything can't be automated (I'm working towards it though!), so even finding ways to make a process faster is golden.

Shortcut keys are a series of keyboard keystrokes that perform a task without having to use your mouse to click around in menus and various fields.  They are quite helpful to me because they save SO much time.  I'm so used to using shortcut keys now that when I don't know they key for something, I hover over the menu item for the tool-tip to find out what it is.  It's serious, ya'll.  This is a simple way to gain more time.  Even small amounts of time add up in the long run.

Here is a roundup of my most used shortcut keys that can be used in pretty much any program for both Mac and PC.