A Remarkably Simple Way to Save Time

If you never have enough time, invest just 90 seconds in this article and you can learn how to free up space in your daily schedule.

My solution is called minus one, and it is based on the observation that each of us does a lot of things that ultimately prove to be unimportant or unnecessary. The problem is that we find it hard to recognize in advance which tasks will fail to be worthwhile,

The goal of minus one is to do less but accomplish the same, or more

To benefit from minus one, you simply eliminate one task at a time from your schedule, then evaluate whether doing so had any negative consequences.

If eliminating the task did not cause a problem, you succeeded in saving time. If it did, just add the task back to your schedule. The risk is low, but the benefit of applying minus one can be great, if you stick to it over time.

No matter how efficient you are, the odds are high that there's fluff in your routine. Even CEOs and world leaders fall victim to activities that prove unbelievably useless to them.

You can minus one almost anything: a task, person, department, company or even entire country.

If every time you go to a meeting about, say, privacy policies, you feel like you just lost two hours of your life, try eliminating privacy meetings from your life.

You might conclude that it is a waste of time to try to sell your product to a particular Fortune 50 company, because - there's no way to say this politely - all they ever do is jerk you around.

You could decide that it is too logistically difficult at this stage to contemplate doing business with a country halfway around the world, especially given cultural and regulatory differences.

Be bold but prudent...

Don't just walk into the office one day and minus a dozen suspicious items from your schedule. That would be a recipe for chaos. Minus one item at a time, and pay attention to see what, if anything, happens.

There are many ways to do this where you are almost certain to avoid any problems. The most magical word in my personal life is "carpooling." By joining forces with the family down the street, over the past few years my wife and I eliminated about two hundred trips to the soccer fields.

For example, find someone at work who attends the same meeting you do - and who has a similar mindset - and see if you can take turns attending the meeting, instead of both going all the time.

Very important - don't label others

When using a tool like minus one, it's easy to slip into an overly judgmental mindset. Your role isn't to decide what is valuable to the world at large. You should not label people, meetings, or organizations as a waste of time in general. You should simply decide whether they are important towards the pursuit of your goals.

As you withdraw from certain activities, be sensitive to the feelings and perceptions of others. What's unimportant to you may be vitally important to them, so be tactful.

If you want to hear more from me, just click the Follow button below. You can also download my free guides at Kasanoff.com, or read my book with Michael Hinshaw Smart Customers, Stupid Companies. On Twitter, I'm @NowPossible.

Image credit (top): deux-chi/Flickr.