It is our summer refresh series, and I’m back with one of our most loved episodes of all time. These are the ones that you couldn’t stop listening to and sharing, so whether it’s your first time hearing it or it’s the perfect time for a re-listen, these are pure gold.

Today we are talking about 10 simple ways to sneak more time into your days if you wish you had more time every single day. If you are constantly thinking things will get better and they don’t seem to, these 10 simple shifts will help you reclaim hours without overhauling your entire life. ‘Cause I mean, let’s be real, who in the world has time for that? Okay, let’s jump in.

⏳ BONUS RESOURCE ALERT! If you’re looking for even more time (who isn’t) you’re also going to want my 10 favorite time-saving hacks. Yep, they’re different. These are my tried and true hacks that together give me back 8+ hours every single week! They are my secret Amazon finds, timer-tricks, and how I get out of the time-suck weekly chores of life. 👉🏻 It’s all HERE.

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How are we using our time

There is a video on YouTube by Z Frank, that shows the days of our lives represented by jelly beans. Each jellybean is one day of your life, and we have roughly 28,835 days or jelly beans.

We will sleep for a total of 8,477 days.
We will eat, drink, and prepare food for about 1,635 days.
About 1,099 of our days will be spent in the car driving (some days it feels like way more than that), but you get the point.

So the question is: how do you want to spend your jelly beans? It’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, it leads me to question why I want more time, and if I have it, where will I spend it?

Because if we aren’t intentional, we’ll just fill it with more stuff to keep us busy and not the things that keep us happy and connected. So before I even begin to share how to save you time, let’s each think real hard about why we need more time and how we want to invest it.

1. Limit TV time (this one falls under strategies You Don’t Want to Hear but they work!)

My first few strategies are the ones that you maybe don’t really want to hear, but I promise they work. The first one is to give up or at least be mindful and limit your tv time.

Remember the jellybeans? The average American will spend 2,676 jellybeans or days just watching tv.

That is a lot of jellybeans!

I get that for some, tv time might be downtime and relaxing, but maybe you could cut out just one show? Or just be more mindful and aware of the time you are spending with the tv and make a more conscious decision.

2. Staying on theme with stratgies no one likes, but everyone knows… Limit the Social Media Scroll

Next is social media. Just as with tv, it can have its place! But too often, we use it to veg out, mindlessly scroll, and numb. And here’s the brutal truth, it’s not helping us. It’s not actually productive or relaxing.

And beyond that, the scroll is hurting us. Mentally, emotionally… I did an informal survey about 100 incredible girl-boss-type women and the data could not have been more clear.

We are less creative, less confident, and less connected when we are on social media too much! In fact, here are the stats after our participants took just a 7-day break from the scroll.

Now this can have levels. You can go all the way to cutting it out completely, deleting apps from your phone, and going 100% cold turkey. Or you can baby step it. Set up timers and reminders. The app Well Spent is really great at helping you limit your time on Social Media.

3. Wake up just a little earlier!

Even if you’re not a morning person, you have to admit, your whole day goes in a completely different direction when you’re up and ready before the kids.

There is straight magic in having a few moments to yourself, getting dressed and then waking the kids up!

So, give yourself the boost. Even 15 minutes can do wonders, then just start incrementally adding 5 more minute to your alarm. Wake up a 7 am, then 6:55, then 6:50. And in the process decide exactly how you want to spend that extra 5 minutes.

Meditation? Prayer? A 10-minute makeup routine instead of 5-minutes?

I cherish those early morning when I’m all alone. I did it exactly how I’m suggesting. I added a few minutes at a time until I had all the time I wanted for myself to get my prayer, workout, family history work, shower and getting ready all in before the rest of the house even starts stirring.

Use these precious minutes to set the rest of your day up for success!

4. Batch, baby Batch!

I am a HUGE fan of batching work because it really does save so much time.

There are so many different ways that you can batch! This could be with your household chores, where you actually kind of let things pile up and then you do one big 20-minute power clean vs a little bit all through the day. Or, when you choose to let one or two days be for laundry instead of dealing with it all through the week.

You could batch your bill payment where you have one day a month or every two weeks that you sit down and pay everything all at once. Basically, you look at all the little things you do each day and figure out what you could combine all together and knock it out at once.

Right now, I’m batching podcast shownotes. I’ll finish this one and then next week’s as well. RIght after that, I’ll batch newsletters. This way I’m ahead of schedule instead of being just a little behind it.

And you can get really creative with this. I even batched my kids outfits when they were younger to avoid the dreaded morning outfit arguments or the “I can’t find the right shirt” comments as your rushing to get out the door. I batched the whole week of outfits on Sunday and it made for a super smooth week. I’ve done this with lunches, work tasks, house chores, you name it!

5. Utilize Your Kids Extracurricular Time

Wanna know a really big time waster? Driving back and forth between home and whatever after school activities your kids are involved in. As moms we joke that we spend A LOT of time in the car that it’s basically a second home for us. But what if instead of driving back and forth you utilized that time a little differently?

What could you get done sitting in the bleachers or in your parked car or even across the street at the cute little coffee shop by your daughter’s dance class?

There was a time when my kids were doing swim over the summer, and we lived 30 minutes away from the pool. I didn’t want to drive them to the pool, drive all the way home for 15 minutes just to turn around to come back. So I ended up choosing to use that hour as my exercise time. I’d drop them off, lace up my tennis shoes, and then go for a run while they were doing swim.

And I frequently record reels while I’m waiting in the parent pickup line.

Instead of just feeling like the mom chauffeur, how can you use this time for you? Maybe you bring something fun that you’ve been wanting to learn, or you can use it to just catch up with friends, call people, read a book that you’re loving.

Then taxi-mom time almost becomes this sacred special ‘you’ time that you’re looking forward to! After all, how often do you get to be alone? It’s glorious.

6. Utilize Helpful Gadgets (the investment is worth it)

I would like you to meet Fred and George. Fred is my vacuum mop and George is my Roomba. And these guys are just two of the helpful gadgets that help me save so much time.

Instead of me spending 20-40 minutes vacuuming my home, George just turns on every night and vacuums the entire downstairs while we sleep, and Fred takes care of mopping the upstairs! Boom, time saved.

So I want you to think about what helpful gadgets could you use to help you save time?

It doesn’t have to be a robot vacuum ( but they really are awesome). Just think about what fun gadgets could save you time. An Instant Pot, air fryer, or crockpot are all super helpful in saving you time, but one of my favorite gadgets is this little chopper that one of my girlfriends introduced me to, and it’s AMAZING.

So whether it’s changing how you chop your veggies or how you vacuum your house, there are tools out there that can save you time, so use them!

7. Simplify Everything about Meals

Speaking of the kitchen, one of the biggest things you can do to save time is to simplify your meals and you know this is not the first (or the last) time you’ll hear me say this tip when I’m helping you balance the busy.

How you simplify can be done in a lot of different ways. For breakfast, you know that I love my Blueberry Chocolate Smoothie from Daily Harvest.

For meals for your family, it could look like cooking in advance or making double and freezing one so you’ve got a meal in the freezer for next time. I’ve been doing this lately, and let me tell you it’s really been working out great.

Using a meal kit service like Hello Fresh has been a game changer in our family, and even better is when I can delegate the preparation of that meal kit to one of my kids. Another way to simplify is to have theme nights like Pizza Friday, Taco Tuesday. And lastly, I keep lunches simple by basically just eating the same thing Mon-Friday.

Click here to get your first box of Hello Fresh for Free!

8. Stop Grocery Shopping

Unless you absolutely love it, and I get that there are some who just love going up and down grocery aisles… But if that’s not you, stop going inside a grocery store! We live in a glorious time where we can order our groceries online and either pick them up or even better have them delivered straight to your house.

This tip alone could save you HOURS per month. (If you’ve never tried InstaCart, you can use my code: LA8A9BC10A to get $20 off your first order!)

9. Outsourcing and Delegating

I could not do an episode on saving time without mentioning these two super heroes. I’m a huge believer in the power of outsourcing and in fact, I have two episodes dedicated ENTIRELY to outsourcing and I’ll brag for a second, they are really good. It explains everything you could ever want to know about outsourcing.

10. Adults Need Recess Too!

We need breaks. We just aren’t very good at taking them especially if we have self proclaimed ourselves as so busy. But adults need recess time too!

Remember how much you looked forward to recess as a kid? Imagine if you gave yourself that gift of a planned break or a recess in your day?

And before you say, well Leah, I’m not a kid anymore. Let me just tell you that when we take breaks we will actually use our time better. We will be more productive, have better time management, and a better mindset overall. So don’t discount the power of a recess.

Whew, there ya go. 10 ways to save you time when you lay your head down on the pillow at night, you think. It was a really good day.

Links You’ll Love:

I’d love to connect and know your thoughts on this episode. Find me on Instagram!

Want to learn how to drop an entire work day a week? Grab my FREE COURSE

Other Episodes You’ll Love:

Everything We Outsource (Ep 13)

Busy and Productive are Not The Same Thing ( Ep 32)