from the publishers of: Verywell, Real Simple, EatingWell, Shape, Parents, Health and Allrecipes
I’m too busy to work out. I don’t have time to eat a healthy breakfast. I’ll start my to-do list once my email inbox hits zero. We all have excuses for why we don’t have time to do what’s most important. And with only 24 hours in a day and hundreds of emails to answer, meals to prep and messes to clean, it’s no surprise we feel like we can’t accomplish it all. To help find the hidden minutes lurking in our daily schedules, we’ve rounded up time-saving strategies to use from breakfast to bedtime. Make-ahead breakfasts mean you’ll never go hungry on hectic mornings, while a 10-minute workout you can do anywhere (yes, even the office) lets you squeeze fitness time in between meetings. Then, speed-cleaning tips and a grocery delivery service leaves you free time in the evenings to actually relax. Here are 10 ways to make the most of your day—morning, noon and night.
If your typical morning routine is a rush of cooking, dressing and cleaning, followed by a mad dash for the door, make-ahead breakfasts will transform your mornings. Prep overnight oats the night before, or whip up a batch of healthy whole-grain muffins on Sunday for a grab-and-go breakfast you’ll enjoy all week. If you’re super pressed for time, grab a pre-made protein drink to get your day off to a powerful start.
If this is the school year you’re seriously (really this time!) committed to streamlining your morning routine, there’s one spot you’re going to have to tackle: your closet. While organizing a cluttered closet requires some initial investment, the effort you put in to sort out your closet next weekend will shave minutes off your get-ready routine all season long.
Start by incorporating some tricks for doubling your storage space. For example, you could divide your closet horizontally so you have two rows for hanging shirts and blouses. Our number one tip? Get rid of everything you never wear. How can you find your favorite work shirt when five outdated t-shirts you haven’t worn in years are blocking it? Start by curating your collection and you’ll be surprised how much faster you get dressed in the morning.
Americans spend an average of 5.4 hours checking their email every weekday. When we only have 24 hours in the day, it’s no wonder email often feels like a big time-waster. While we can’t ignore this important form of communication entirely, we can adopt strategies to make it more efficient.
For starters, follow four tips for gaining control of your inbox from Charles Duhigg, the author of the bestseller Smarter, Faster, Better. One trick you can start immediately: before you even get to work, set a realistic amount of time to spend on your morning email check. Then, prioritize your inbox so you don’t accidentally spend two hours answering low-importance messages. Do you waste too much time drafting “follow up” emails to unanswered messages? Using this email closing is most likely to get you a response—the first time.
To save time on hectic mornings, pack lunch the night before so you won’t resort to shelling out lunch money as the school bus pulls up. If you and your little ones are tired of the standard PB&J, try a pita pocket stuffed with hummus and veggies or a baby spinach salad with sliced strawberries, or cooked cheese tortellini tossed with pesto, broccoli and frozen peas.
If high-intensity interval training has taught us anything, it’s that you don’t need much time or gear to get a great workout. Doing a series of bodyweight exercises, like lunges, crunches, jumping jacks and push-ups can get your heart and muscles pumping in under 10 minutes. If you work from home, you can fit in a quick set between conference calls, or if you’re in an office, the staircase or a nearby park could become your new favorite gym. While you may not be comfortable doing crunches in the stairwell, lunges, squats and calf raises can all be done with your feet firmly planted on the ground.
Want another reason the office stairs should become your gym of choice? Researchers at McMaster University in Canada found that even short periods of vigorous stair-climbing (just three 30-second bursts) could improve cardiovascular health over time. Go ahead, invite a coworker pal and your 10-minute workout will double as chat time.
If you consider shopping for clothes more a chore than a treat, clothing subscription services will save you from spending hours at the mall. Some services will set you up with a personal stylist who will pick out five pieces for you, based on your style profile. Once you get the items delivered to your door, you’ll have a few days to try them on in the privacy of your home (no pushy sales associates in sight) and decide which items you’d like to keep.
Looking for some commitment-free bling? Some online jewelry subscription services will send you new pieces of jewelry that you can keep for as long as you’d like. When you’re ready for a fresh look, send them back for a new set. With these subscription services acting as your personal stylists, you’ll never have to spend time sorting through racks or scrolling online.
Shorten the time it takes to get dinner on the table with smart prep tips. When you marinate your meat the morning before, or chop and freeze veggies the Sunday before, you’ll save yourself valuable time during the workweek. You can often avoid the dreaded task of chopping vegetables altogether by pulsing them a couple times in the food processor. Here’s a little secret: onions can almost always be sliced rather than chopped for soups and sauces, so you’ll save time—and a few tears.
And why not go ahead and cut out one of the most time-consuming parts of meal prep: the trip to the grocery store. Instead, try a grocery delivery service, which offers delivery or lets you pick up your order at your local grocery store. An attendant will deliver the bags full of pre-ordered groceries right to your car, so you’ll never waste time wandering the aisles.
The most important part of cutting down on cooking time is to choose recipes that were developed specifically for busy days. Many meal planning websites have fast dinner ideas that require a mere 15 minutes or less of hands-on cook time. And when your veggies are pre-chopped and meat is already marinated, these meals land on the table in record time.
If you’re spending too much time cleaning when you’d prefer to be streaming with your family, you may just need to streamline your tidy-up routine. Start by choosing time-saving, multitasking cleaning products that can be used on many surfaces, so you won’t waste time switching between cleansers. Cleaning powders that handle everything from defogging mirrors to polishing tile prove that you don’t need to spend a fortune on specialized products. And a hands-free toilet scrubber will make the dreaded task of toilet-cleaning as speedy and painless as possible. Once your cleaning caddy is stocked with the right tools, you’ll be able to quickly check off every item on your daily cleanup checklist before your show starts.
In a culture where we aim to do everything as quickly as possible, we even scrutinize how long it takes to fall asleep. If sleep performance anxiety is preventing you from catching enough shut-eye, a study by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that you might be trying to hard. While you may think that forcing yourself to stay in bed is the best method, the study found that that behavior was more likely to result in chronic insomnia. The better course of action? Avoid going to bed when you’re not tired, and don’t give into the temptation to nap the following day. Sticking to a schedule is the best cure for sleepless nights.