No matter who you are, or what you do, you have the same 24 hours in each day. The difference between the most successful people and everyone else often comes down to how they use their time wisely.

Today’s guest is productivity expert Laura Vanderkam, author of the new book Tranquility by Tuesday: Nine Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters. She goes through some of the key research-backed ways that she’s found to stop setting goals you can’t reach, once and for all. 

Make Time to Plan

According to Laura, the first and most important way to maximize your time is to take a moment out of your week to plan. It may seem counterintuitive, but pausing to look at your calendar from a ten thousand-foot view is the best way to make sure you’ve left time for everything that’s important to you. Laura suggests taking 20 minutes every Friday to make a list of your priorities for the next week, and to schedule in activities or tasks that need to happen in order to make sure your home and work life is balanced.

Get a Hobby

Laura says, “one thing I suggest people do is take one night for you. And ideally do something that is personally meaningful, personally enjoyable, like ‘I'm gonna join a choir. I'm gonna sing, you know, with other people who are expecting me to be there at seven o'clock on Thursday. So even if I'm tired, even if life's busy, I go.’” That level of commitment, which requires you to show up for another person or a group of person, can help you stick to your self-care, and make it more meaningful.

Go to Bed on Time

It’s so easy, even a five year old can do it! But making a bedtime for yourself, and then sticking to it, can help you avoid the temptation to scroll mindlessly for hours, and set your body up to get good sleep to power you through the next day.

Focus on Three Days a Week

In Laura’s research, she realized that many people who tout “daily habits” were actually only committing to their habits Monday through Friday, and not even doing them on vacation. So, she figured, wouldn’t three days a week be both habit-forming and easier to stick to? As Laura said, “for many things, three times a week is often enough that it becomes a part of your identity. Somebody who practices the piano three times a week is a regular piano player.” So rather than becoming defeated and breaking a habit when you don’t do it perfectly every day, consider creating a three-time-per-week habit. And see if that helps.

As always, if any of the tips you learned today helped you, leave us a review, and reach out on LinkedIn.

Follow Laura on LinkedIn 

Follow Andrew on LinkedIn and join the Get Hired community at https://lnkd.in/ghpodcast