The art of spending minutes saving hours
Translation of the article “ The Art of Spending Minutes to Save Hours ”.
I spent the joyful hours of last Friday listening to the confessions of my colleague about her absolute dislike of the Windows Vista Start menu. “The system is organized incorrectly. The programs I need are deeply buried, and all the convenient places are never used by me. I spend so much time digging into the menu, ”she complained. “But you can just reorder them,” I replied. She lowered her eyes: “I know. Someone has already told me this, but I did not have time to try. "
And then it hit me, you need to spend some time now to save much more later. It is quite natural to get something, you need to do something. This approach is based on the preference of "smart" labor to the complex. As a result, countless hours can be saved in the future if you spend a few minutes productively now.
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Here are some tips to help start wasting minutes by saving hours:
1. Learn to search Google effectively. If Google is the main portal in the information superhighway, Google advanced search operators are the most effective means of transport. Having studied them once, you will begin to spend half the time searching for what you need. Everytime.
2. Organize your space. How fast can you get something in a well-equipped space? Instantly!
Spend a little time on it and in the future you will spend less time searching and more on the work itself.
3. Find and use the “right” tools. They can effectively and easily squeeze a huge task to the size of a grain of sand. The time spent searching for such a “right” tool will pay off a thousandfold.
4. Use hotkeys. This is the choice of the shortest path, killing two birds with one stone. For almost all tasks, simple key combinations are defined. Once you recognize them, you can noticeably reduce the time it takes to perform routine operations.
5. Automate tasks. Automate everything you can. Make checklists for memory. Design templates for repetitive actions. Use modern technologies to automate payments on invoices, backup data, work with to-do lists, etc.
6. Listen carefully. The better you listen, the better you learn. The more you learn now, the fewer questions will arise later. And the less time it takes to search for answers to them.
7. Read useful articles and keep them where you can always find. This will help you not to waste time and not to miss the opportunity.
8. Solve simple tasks immediately. Constant thoughts about the need to solve them will take more time than the decision itself. In the concept of GTD (Getting Things Done) there is a rule of 2 minutes: if the solution of the problem takes less than two minutes, do it immediately!
9. Learn to print productively. (Damn, again about Shahidjanyan it turns out - note sk1p) If you use a computer in everyday life, this skill will save days (if not weeks).
10. Take precautions. Do not waste time putting on a helmet, you will lose much more in the event of an accident. You decide to save time on data backup, spend much more on data recovery in case of hard disk failure.
11. Concentrate on your goals and directions, so as not to stray from the course. This will help determine where you are now and where you plan to go, will give the opportunity, if necessary, to rebuild the trajectory.
12. Teach how to help you. Train subordinates fishing and you no longer have to bring them fish.
13. Sort before placing. Sort the files before putting them in the table. What now takes a couple of seconds would subsequently require minutes.
14. Look ahead. By making a minute call in advance, you can save an hour of waiting in the future.
15. Walk the mouse. Buy online. Rent movies online. Pay your bills online. This is only faster.
I spent the joyful hours of last Friday listening to the confessions of my colleague about her absolute dislike of the Windows Vista Start menu. “The system is organized incorrectly. The programs I need are deeply buried, and all the convenient places are never used by me. I spend so much time digging into the menu, ”she complained. “But you can just reorder them,” I replied. She lowered her eyes: “I know. Someone has already told me this, but I did not have time to try. "
And then it hit me, you need to spend some time now to save much more later. It is quite natural to get something, you need to do something. This approach is based on the preference of "smart" labor to the complex. As a result, countless hours can be saved in the future if you spend a few minutes productively now.
')
Here are some tips to help start wasting minutes by saving hours:
1. Learn to search Google effectively. If Google is the main portal in the information superhighway, Google advanced search operators are the most effective means of transport. Having studied them once, you will begin to spend half the time searching for what you need. Everytime.
2. Organize your space. How fast can you get something in a well-equipped space? Instantly!
Spend a little time on it and in the future you will spend less time searching and more on the work itself.
3. Find and use the “right” tools. They can effectively and easily squeeze a huge task to the size of a grain of sand. The time spent searching for such a “right” tool will pay off a thousandfold.
4. Use hotkeys. This is the choice of the shortest path, killing two birds with one stone. For almost all tasks, simple key combinations are defined. Once you recognize them, you can noticeably reduce the time it takes to perform routine operations.
5. Automate tasks. Automate everything you can. Make checklists for memory. Design templates for repetitive actions. Use modern technologies to automate payments on invoices, backup data, work with to-do lists, etc.
6. Listen carefully. The better you listen, the better you learn. The more you learn now, the fewer questions will arise later. And the less time it takes to search for answers to them.
7. Read useful articles and keep them where you can always find. This will help you not to waste time and not to miss the opportunity.
8. Solve simple tasks immediately. Constant thoughts about the need to solve them will take more time than the decision itself. In the concept of GTD (Getting Things Done) there is a rule of 2 minutes: if the solution of the problem takes less than two minutes, do it immediately!
9. Learn to print productively. (Damn, again about Shahidjanyan it turns out - note sk1p) If you use a computer in everyday life, this skill will save days (if not weeks).
10. Take precautions. Do not waste time putting on a helmet, you will lose much more in the event of an accident. You decide to save time on data backup, spend much more on data recovery in case of hard disk failure.
11. Concentrate on your goals and directions, so as not to stray from the course. This will help determine where you are now and where you plan to go, will give the opportunity, if necessary, to rebuild the trajectory.
12. Teach how to help you. Train subordinates fishing and you no longer have to bring them fish.
13. Sort before placing. Sort the files before putting them in the table. What now takes a couple of seconds would subsequently require minutes.
14. Look ahead. By making a minute call in advance, you can save an hour of waiting in the future.
15. Walk the mouse. Buy online. Rent movies online. Pay your bills online. This is only faster.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/36930/
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