Do you find it difficult to get everything done in your day? If you’re like me, you find yourself sifting through your email, playing on Youtube or constantly researching your next sermon. But at the end of the day, we feel as if we have more on our plate then when we began our day.

In today’s episode we’ll talk through 4 ways to leverage our work day to get more done in less time. Don’t believe me? I’ll show you how. Also, I have some great news for you!

In Today’s Episode:

1. Use Evernote to track your Goals Evernote is one of my most favorite tools I use each day. I purpose each year to write down my goals. Let me say this, If you’re not actively writing down your goals, you need to. Without proper goals for our year, we will flounder in the sea of scheduling too much. If you want to be proactive in accomplishing your goals and tasks, write down your goals and aim for them.

• Goals will keep you focused on tasks at hand.
• Goals will help you move forward.
• Goals will keep you motivated to finishing tasks each day.
• Goals allow you to follow your progress to see if you’ve made any.

2. Use a task management system. This is one area I am constantly working on in my own life. I’m terrible at task management. It’s easy to lose focus, and this is why I work hard at trying to maintain focus each day. Using a task based day will help accomplish that goal. I personally use Google Keep, Producteev and Google Calendar.

• Write down everything you need to do tomorrow.
• Whittle out anything that can be put off to a later date.
• Group similar tasks together. (This will help you get more down in less time.)
• Work on large projects first thing in the morning when you’re more alert and awake.
• Move to tomorrow what doesn’t need to be done today.

3. Batch create your Social Media posting. Now this one sounds crazy. Trust me, you’ll love it. If you find you’re spending too much time on social media. You’re tweeting about an upcoming event. You’re adding images to Instagram. Or, you’re writing a small post on your Facebook page for people to comment on. Stop! You’re spending too much time on Social Media.

• Use an app like Buffer, Hoot Suite, or Co-Schedule.
• Take ONE day and batch create all of your social media content.
• Schedule each post throughout the week.
• Set it and forget it, until next week.

4. Be intentional about your email. Email is one of the biggest time wasters we have. How many times do you really have to read that single email? The content inside isn’t going to change. We must be intentional about going through our email twice a day, and forgetting it the rest of the time. Our goal should be to get our inbox (and junk folder) to zero every day.

• Create a folder called processed. This is where you will place all read emails.
• Decide what to do with an email – delete?, reply? or save to processed?. Yes you can actually delete an email.
• Scan Junk mail – then highlight all and DELETE! Don’t waste your time with junk, just delete it.
• Only check your email twice per day. I don’t check my email unless someone has just told me they emailed me with something important. I check them once in the morning, then once in the afternoon, and that’s it.
• Go offline! This may be hard, but if you go offline while working on a project, you’ll find yourself forgetting you even have email.
• Don’t check your email over the weekend. As pastors, I know this is hard, but make it a priority to only check your email during business hours.

If you follow these simple tricks, you’ll leverage your time to get more done in less time. Hey, you may even finish that book you’ve been wanting to write.

Question: How do you leverage your day? What on this list have you done? Share below on Facebook or Twitter.

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