Better's Blinkist

What’s in it for me? Learn how to free up more time for yourself by becoming super efficient.

We all wish we had more time to spend on the things we love doing, whether that means being around our family or working on our hobbies. Yet, despite these wishes, time is something of which we never seem to have enough

26 March, 2020 05:12 Share

They show you how you can find time in your schedule and space in your brain to spend most of your time doing what you want to do. Based on three central aims – Optimize, Automate and Outsource – they inform you how to unleash waves of efficiency in everything you do, from organizing your finances to maintaining your health

26 March, 2020 05:12 Share

you’ll discover • why you’ll never have to personally book a table in a restaurant ever again; • why running errands is a thing of the past; and • how to turn your smartphone into a portable bank manager.

26 March, 2020 05:13 Share

Track your life to learn where you can start saving time.

Maybe you’ve heard of the 80-20 rule? It states that 80 percent of what you accomplish is the result of a mere 20 percent of all the time and energy you invest. And this isn’t only applicable to work or study. It’s the case for everything you do. So how can we figure out what time isn’t worth spending?

26 March, 2020 05:13 Share

But what does it mean to improve something as broad as our daily routine? Think of it as optimizing your processes. For a role model, look to IKEA. Each IKEA product comes with highly optimized instruction manuals for assembling each product, whether it’s a coffee table or geometric lamp. These instructions have been boiled down to their very essence – a few language-independent, easy-to-follow steps. It’s time to approach your life like IKEA approaches their manuals. Whatever the task, whether it’s writing emails or organizing meetings, you should minimize fuss and get it done in as few steps as possible.

26 March, 2020 05:14 Share

Create an external brain to save valuable space in your own.

We all like to think of ourselves as great multi-taskers with brilliant memories. But often we don’t actually have enough room to juggle everything in our minds. Life would be so much simpler if we just had an extra brain.

26 March, 2020 05:14 Share

You can consider Evernote simply as a backup of your brain. Neuroscientists have even shown that Evernote organizes information in a very similar way to the human brain, linking similar thoughts together into complex, interconnected networks. But what if you know how to organize but want to spend less time organizing?

26 March, 2020 05:15 Share

An on-demand assistant service consists of a pool of assistants. Say you’ve got a task that needs doing, like proofreading a document or improving a PowerPoint presentation. Whoever’s available in the pool will do it. For $25 a month, Fancy Hands allows you to get assistance with as many as five tasks. For $95, you can request assistance with an unlimited amount of tasks per month.

26 March, 2020 05:15 Share

Customize to save time – and money!

Say you’ve got a great idea for the perfect bedroom shelving unit to suit your needs. You know you’ll have to build it yourself, which means buying the materials, borrowing tools and spending hours preparing and cleaning up. But if only there were an easier and less expensive way! Well, there is: 3D printing. 3D printing offers a world of possibilities for creating your own customized products. Take Shapeways, a site where you simply upload a 3D model, and they print it for you.

26 March, 2020 05:16 Share

The author, for example, wanted to create a custom bracket to mount his new MacMini to the wall. He made a simple sketch of his idea and used the online outsourcing platform Fiverr to find someone who could make a complete 3D model of it. He then sent this model to Shapeways and, a week later, the completed bracket was waiting for him in his mailbox. If that sounds like a success to you, then get this: the author then used the Shapeways ecommerce platform to sell his MacMini bracket, and made $400 by selling six of them.

26 March, 2020 05:17 Share

Consider Vitamins on Demand, a service that collects all the medications and supplements you require and then organizes them into separate packs for each day. Say goodbye to loading up your holiday suitcase with all your pill bottles while worrying whether you’ve got them all. Instead, just grab the number of packs you need and head out the door!

26 March, 2020 05:17 Share

Take control of your workweek.

you simply can’t get a book written if you only work four hours each week! Nevertheless, the book made an important point: you need to make your workweek yours, and decide what to do, and when.

26 March, 2020 05:34 Share

Begin by determining which hours of the day are your best working hours. This will automatically make you more effective. Some people prefer working in the night; others, in the morning. Some like working a bit every day, while others like to squeeze a lot into shorter periods of time.Everybody works differently, so figure out what works best for you!

26 March, 2020 05:34 Share

It’s also vital to figure out what is slowing you down. Often it’s external factors

26 March, 2020 05:35 Share

And there’s also another part of your workday that’s sapping your time: the scheduling of meetings. Did you know that, on average, the normal procedure for organizing a meeting requires an exchange of seven emails? Luckily, applications such as ScheduleOnce will, as the name suggests, help you get that meeting scheduled the first time around.

26 March, 2020 05:35 Share

Errands add up, so eliminate them!

One great way is by signing up for an online delivery service. Amazon’s Subscribe & Save, for instance, delivers necessities like toilet paper, razors, shampoo and laundry detergent to your door at certain intervals.Perhaps you go through two tubes of toothpaste every month; so arrange to have those two tubes delivered to you at the end of each month and never waste time buying toothpaste again.

26 March, 2020 05:37 Share

There are some errands that you can’t automate, however. You know, those ones that catch you by surprise, forcing you to rush out and do them before it’s too late. Well, thanks to outsourcing, you don’t have to waste time on these, either.TaskRabbit is a great example of an online outsourcing marketplace for those small, unforeseeable tasks – a quick run for groceries, for instance, or a sprint to get your computer or car fixed.

26 March, 2020 05:37 Share

Stay on top of your finances with the latest tools.

Mint.com is a great tool for organizing your finances and keeping track of your financial health.Just provide Mint.com with your details and logins for bank accounts, loans and credit cards, and they’ll let you know via email when a balance is dipping toward the red, or if there’s been a big deposit or withdrawal from an account, as well as making sure that you’re getting paid.

26 March, 2020 05:37 Share

Another innovative new tool to help you stop stressing and start saving is BillShrink. BillShrink simply asks for a few personal details: your checking account information, your driving habits, how often you use your cellphone and how much you spend on other services, such as movie streaming and magazine subscriptions.Based on this information, Billshrink outlines cost-effective alternatives and outlines how much these alternatives would help you save over a two-year period; they also alert you to new deals and offers.

26 March, 2020 05:38 Share

Give yourself limits and boost your quality of life.

But there’s no need for this headache! You can overcome it simply by setting limits for yourself.Start off by setting an upper limit. This will help you locate and keep track of your possessions.Take the author’s electronic gear stash, which once occupied an entire closet. Over time, though, the closet became overcrowded, and finding a specific cable meant dragging the whole mess out of the closet and onto the floor. The author realized things had gotten out of hand, and decided to take action.So he bid his electronics goodbye and sold off most of his gear on Ebay. What was left fit into one box, which became the upper limit. If he buys a new piece of electronic gear, some other piece has got to go. This way, his stash is manageable, tidy and he can always find what he needs.

26 March, 2020 05:39 Share

By setting lower limits. The author, for example, has set a lower limit of at least one trip every month, at least 30 miles of running per week and cooking meals at home at least three days a week. By setting lower limits for your leisure time in this way, you’ll make sure your time doesn’t always get gobbled up by work.

26 March, 2020 05:40 Share

Batch your tasks to stay focused.

Have you ever had the frustrating experience of just getting into something – and then being interrupted by a distracting text or email? It ruins your focus and now you’re irritated to boot.Well, there’s a way to keep your focus from being destroyed like this: batching. Batching is the simple process of grouping similar tasks together and completing them in batches, instead of one at a time, here and there. This way, it’s easier to focus on what you’re doing right now.

26 March, 2020 05:41 Share

The author pays all his bills for the week on Fridays, instead of paying them as they come in.

26 March, 2020 05:41 Share

A great place to start is by getting rid of unnecessary paperwork. Sure, there’s a lot of talk about living in a paper-free society, but everyday we still find ourselves dealing with pesky papers. Which is why online tools are around: to help us eliminate paperwork even further.

26 March, 2020 05:41 Share

Health is the ultimate productivity secret.

It’s as simple as this: getting enough shut-eye and eating healthy determines how much energy you will have to do the things you want to do. No amount of productivity apps in the world can change this!

26 March, 2020 05:42 Share

If you want to improve your sleep, there are two simple steps that will help. Firstly, take D-vitamins with your breakfast each day. Secondly, avoid devices emitting blue light, such as TVs, iPads and computers in the hour before you go to bed.

26 March, 2020 05:42 Share

Design your own exercise regimen to include three types of movement.First, there should be a strength and skill component – something like rock climbing or parkour will do the trick.Second, include high-intensity interval training – a short interval of exerting yourself to the maximum, followed by an interval of active rest.And, finally, you should engage in some kind of mobility training – something like yoga or just a good old-fashioned stretching session.

26 March, 2020 05:44 Share