30 days: Change your habits, Change your life

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Everyone who comes to me, including most of my friends, say,
“I don’t have time to_________ (fill in the blank).”
The fastest
way to gain time is to watch one hour less of TV every day. That’s
365 hours a year, which equals 28 hours a month! What would you
do with seven extra hours a week? Another trick to gain more time is
getting up earlier (see Chapter 25).
Set priorities and choose what activities to invest your time in. 
Set
clear rules about when you are available and when you are not
available
and don’t let other people steal your time.
The funny
thing is, the more you value your time, the more you will have of it,
because people will also value your time. If you allow people to
interrupt you all the time, you’re essentially showing them that your
time is not very valuable, in which case, you will not be able to work
effectively, no matter how many hours you work. Recent studies
have found out that each five-minute interruption at work costs you
12 minutes, because your brain needs seven minutes to refocus!
How many interruptions do you have per day? 10? 12? Imagine how

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much time you can gain back when you decrease the number of
interruptions. Every three-minute interruption costs you 10 minutes.
Let’s say you get interrupted 12 times in one working day: that’s two
hours gone! In a month, that’s like having an extra week! Don’t let
employees, friends or clients interrupt you. Set those clear rules
NOW.
Another big time robber is social media and e-mail. 
Setting fixed
hours for your social media activity and checking emails is
another means to gain a lot of time.
I started gaining a lot of time at work when I learnt to say “NO”.
(See Chapter 24)
My personal number one time-saving technique is taking 30 to 60
minutes on Sundays to plan my week ahead. I put my personal and
professional goals for every week in my excel sheet.