How to Get the Most Out of 24 Hours

We’ve all heard the quote, “We all have 24 hours in a day.” Even though some may disagree, I believe that it’s true to a certain extent. But of course, the results that we can accomplish in our 24 hours will differ a lot depending on our circumstances in life. But regardless of our present economic and financial status, all of us can find a variety of ways to get the most out of our 24 hours.

Making the most out of our time is very much possible and so much easier now compared to decades ago. Thanks to the continuous development of technology and the availability of the internet, we can now do so much more in the comfort of our homes.

I remember when I was in college, I used to go to the library if I wanted to research something about a school assignment. Nowadays, you can just ‘Google’ your needed information using your smartphone.

Googling what you want to know is just an example of how technology helped us become more efficient in a lot of ways.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Here are some additional ways on how to get the most out of your 24 hours.

Plan Your Days/Weeks Ahead

If you are a student, an employee, or an entrepreneur, then chances are, there are many activities in your life that are a bit repetitive and predictable. You can plot your routines on your planner and you can just make the necessary adjustments for some emergency tasks as you go along.

By planning your activities ahead of time, it will help you become aware if you have some excess time that you could allot for your other interests in life.

It’s just basically like budgeting your monthly salary, but instead of budgeting your money, your budgeting your time.

Be Clear with Your Goals

If you want to maximize your 24 hours to its fullest potential, you have to be clear with your goal. Sometimes, we end up wasting our time because frankly speaking, we really don’t know what to do with it.

And the reason why we don’t know what to do with our time is that we don’t have any goals to achieve. In short, we don’t know what we want.

When I was an entry-level worker, to be honest, I don’t really have any goals. I just go to the office to report to work, do my job, and then party afterward with my friends and colleagues.

I did that for a long time because I don’t know what I wanted to achieve. However, even if I don’t know what I want,  I know what I DON’T WANT in life.

So for the time being, I used that s my guiding principle while trying to figure out what I want in life.

I don’t want to stay poor and I don’t want to not have money in my pocket. Knowing what I don’t want helped me succeed in my past jobs even if I wasn’t really that interested in them.

Here’s another thing that you should take into consideration, if you don’t know what your long-term goal is, at least identify a short-term and a mid-term goal.

Perhaps you can start identifying what you want AND what you don’t want even for one year and then work from there until you figure out what your ultimate goal is.

For me, it took me three decades of my life just to identify what my ultimate goal is.

It’s because what I wanted in life kept changing. Perhaps because, deep inside me, I know that my previous goals were not really what I wanted in life.

Now, thanks to my stubbornness in trying a variety of things in life, I finally figured out that what I ultimately want is financial freedom. And that’s what I’m working on right now.

My ultimate goal might differ from yours so don’t get frustrated if you still don’t know what you want. Sometimes, it really takes some time.

 

Think of Minimum Input = Maximum Output

Photo by AJ Garcia on Unsplash

If you’ve worked in a corporate setting then you’ve probably come across the term ‘multi-tasking’ because that’s what our employers are often asking us to do.

I used to work at a BPO and sometimes, we are chatting with a customer using the chat platform and then the phone will ring, and then we also have to talk to the customer on the phone while chatting with a different customer. It’s crazy, really!

So basically, you are doing A LOT of things for your entire shift and all of those efforts is equivalent to just one output, which is your monthly salary.

If you put yourself in your employers’ shoes, then you’ll realize that it’s a bit of the reverse side on their end. They are paying you a monthly salary and in return, you do ALL the tasks that they ask of you.

Why not apply what the big businesses are doing to your life but on a smaller scale.

An example of this is blogging.

You create a blog, write SEO-optimized and evergreen content, and put multiple sources of income in one blog. Some of those possible sources include advertisements, affiliate marketing links, sponsored posts, etc.

So basically, your one blog can produce multiple incomes for you. And not only that, the articles that you’ve written (as long as it stays relevant) will continue producing income for you for months and sometimes even for some years.

I have shared in my previous blog reports that even though this blog has been online for almost two years now, I left it totally untouched for nine months.

And even if I wasn’t updating Thrifty Hustler, the traffic just continued growing, and of course, the advertisement earning also continued growing (but it’s just a small amount of course).

 

Why Not Monetize Your Passion?

If you’re thinking of starting a side-hustle, why not just monetized your passion? By doing this, you don’t have to do multiple things in a day.

The amout of time you spend doing what you’re passionate about can be just the same time that you spend growing a side-hustle. Who knows, it might even grow into a full-time business!

Some people may disagree with this and some may agree, but personally, it worked for me.

I like buying and wearing ‘new’ clothes and after accumulating so much stuff, I started selling them just to free up some space in my apartment.

I’ve been doing it for so long until I realized that I could actually turn it into my full-time gig which I did.

Are you an artist?

Why not upload your designs on print-on-demand websites and make a profit from them? You can even upload a similar design to multiple websites to maximize your profit.

You own the rights to those images anyways since you’re the creator. Just be sure to read the fine prints before you upload your artwork just to be clear on what you’re getting yourself into.

Monetizing your passion is not as difficult as it was ages ago!

Choose Your Distractions

My full-time gig is online selling and in my free time, I like to do a variety of things such as playing games, watching movies, writing, etc.

Ever since I learned about Personal Finance, I realized that perhaps, aside from maximizing my potential output in a day, I can also choose my distractions.

And so I did. One of the things that I enjoy doing is writing. Writing takes away my anxiety and the stress of running my online selling gig.

My online selling gig requires a lot of physical work such as going out to buy inventories, washing the clothes, steaming the clothes, taking pictures, etc.

Writing became my refuge from all of those activities.

And now that I’m blogging now, I was able to convert one of my refuge – which is writing, into a potential source of income.

I also like playing mobile games and do you know that you can also earn money while playing games? I’ll write about it soon and I will link it here.

You can still enjoy your chosen distractions while staying productive and even make money from them. 

Photo by Jeremy Beck on Unsplash

Learn to Say No

Sometimes, because it’s really hard to say ‘No’ especially to people close to us, we tend to overcommit ourselves.

I’ve experienced saying ‘Yes’ to a lot of parties and night-outs in the past and I ended up missing some of my deadlines at work. Luckily, in those instances, my bosses were very forgiving and accepted my late submissions.

However, I could have avoided that kind of situation if only I said ‘No.’

Not only did I missed my deadlines, but I was also exhausted the following day at work because of a lack of sleep.

Proper Sleep and Rest are Very Important

I love sleeping and I always make sure that I get at least 8 hours of sleep a day.

However, in my previous work, I only get to sleep for a short time because of all the deliverables and all the calls that I have to attend to on a daily basis. I felt so exhausted and tired on a daily basis and it did affect my productivity.

Proper sleep and rest are important because it boosts your attentiveness and alertness. It’s also very important to our overall health.

You can actually do more in a day if you have enough sleep and if you’re properly rested.

Stay Fit and Eat Healthily

I don’t go to the gym but I love taking long walks and I do some basic stretching on a daily basis. I also don’t eat a lot of fatty foods and I always drink ALOT of water that’s why I was able to keep myself fit.

If you’re fit and healthy, you can do so much more in a day. A lot of people don’t realize this but being fit really helps you stay productive because basically, you have the energy to face head-on your daily challenges in life.

Stay Organized

I have multiple cabinets at home. Most of them are used to store my inventories. Some of them are used to store my business supplies.

Also, I dedicated a room for my inventories so I can find them all in one place. Staying organized helped me prolonged the life of my merchandise (protect my investment). And at the same time, it helps me save a lot of my time.

Prior to having this kind of setup, it does take me some time to find the things that I need to use because basically, I forgot where I placed it. By having fixed storage for my supplies, I now know where to look if I needed something.

If you keep your stuff organized, then you will not waste any of your time looking for them. Instead, you could use this time for other productive activities or you can use this time to rest.

Keep Learning

Technology is ever-changing and there will be new things in the near future that could help us streamline almost everything we do in life.

Always keep learning and use the available technology to your advantage.

Another thing that helps me a lot is by reading blogs. I try to learn as much from others regarding a variety of topics. Almost every time I read a blog, I learn something new that I can apply to some of the things that I do in life.

 

Final Thoughts

Making the most out of our 24 hours is not just about being productive at all times. It can also be about utilizing our limited time properly so we could attend to all of our interests and responsibilities in life.

Do you have anything to add? How can we maximize further our 24 hours? Let me know in the comment section below.

How to Get the Most Out of 24 hours Click To Tweet