How to Add Extra Hours to Your Day

Have you ever wished there were more hours in the day? I know I certainly have. You go to work, take care of the kids, fix dinner, and suddenly it’s time for bed and another day has passed you by.

But what if you really could add hours to your day? After reading this article, you will have 7 time-blasting techniques that will add hours to your day.

Without further ado, here are 7 ways you can transform your daily routine and free up extra hours that you never knew existed.

Become an Early Riser

Many highly successful people contribute their success, at least in part, to rising early. In general, early-risers have more productive mornings, accomplish more, and have less stress than those who snooze in.

However, for many people, waking up at 5 or 6 a.m. is a death sentence. Luckily, there are some simple steps to becoming an early riser.

The first is to go to bed when you are sleepy and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time, 7 days per week. You must wake up at the same time every day. If you try and wake up at a later time during the weekend, you’re body will never adjust.

So, how are you going to get out of that nice, comfy bed?
The key is to move your alarm clock away from the bed to where you actually have to get out of the bed, walk over to the alarm clock and turn off that annoying buzzing.

Within a few days, your body will naturally adjust to your new sleep patterns. Once your body learns that you will be getting up at a specific time every day, you will find that your internal clock will also know exactly when to go to sleep at night.

Your body will begin to naturally tell you when it’s time for bed. The key is to only go to bed when you’re too sleepy to stay up and get up at a specific time every morning.

Listen to Audio Books

Audio learning has the power to add hours to your day. You can listen to audio books while you’re driving back and forth to work, cleaning the house, or exercising at the gym.

Audio books are the perfect multi-tasking activity. They allow you to crank through an unbelievable number of books every year. Not to mention, you will add a massive storehouse of knowledge to your cranium.

Improve Your Reading Speed

We are living in the Information Age. No matter who you are, you are bound to be overloaded with an excess of information; everything from the morning paper to your latest email.

Reading is now a prerequisite for success in life. In fact, many presidents, including Kennedy, have required their staff to take speed reading lessons.

You can become a speed reader as well, absorbing and retaining your reading material faster than ever.

Here are a few tools that will help you speed through your daily reading requirements, whether they be for work or pleasure.

Photoreading: The Photoreading course can help you vastly increase your reading speed. It has been endorsed by Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Harvey Mackay, and Ken Blanchard.

Inside this course, you will learn the tools and techniques for reading more intelligently and efficiently.

Photoreading will allow you to read at least three times faster.

Evelyn Wood: The Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Course is one of the most highly regarded reading courses available today. A number of White House staff members have taken this course, including the Kennedy, Ford, and Carter administrations.

It has proven to increase reading speeds by 3 to 10 times.

Within this course, you will learn:

- how to read using your hand as a pacer
- how to improve concentration
- how to study more efficiently
- how to read magazines and newspapers in record time
- how to read journals and technical material
- how to stabilize for greater speed and comprehension
- how to take lecture notes
- how to prepare for examinations
- how to recall what you read
- how to read without sounding words
- how to read in groups of words instead of one at a time
- how to read classic and conceptual books

Exercise

I think every workplace should have a gym.

Research has shown that midday exercise boosts productivity and morale in the workplace.

If you want to optimize your day, then don’t forget to exercise. Anything from walking to aerobics will work well.

Recruit a buddy and you’re workout will pass much more quickly. By exercising with a friend, you become accountable to each other.

Cut down on your TV time

According to research performed by Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV every day. That’s months sitting in front of the television out of the entire year. Over the course of a 65-year life, the average American will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.

Just think of all of the things they could have accomplished during that time. They could have written their own book, become an accomplished musician, traveled the world, or learned multiple languages.

How much time do you spend in front of the TV? Think of how much more you could accomplish if you just cut down on one hour of television per day.

Cut down on tube time and get more out of your life.

Optimize your Internet time

If you’re like me, than there are dozens of sites on the Internet that you visit every day, whether it be checking up on the news or checking out your favorite blogger.

However, to go to each of these sites one by one can take forever. That’s why I use a cool online application known as Google.

Oh, so you’ve heard of it. Well, you may not know that Google can be completely customized with your own personalized homepage.

Take a look at my Google personalized homepage below….

Quite different from the traditional Google search page, huh?

From this page I can create my daily to-do list, check up on all of my favorite blogs, search the web, get the latest news, and check the weather.

Google allows you to select from hundreds of different “gadgets” that you can place on your Google homepage. To get started, head on over to http://www.google.com/ig

Take some of these powerful time-saving tips and implement them into your day. When used properly, you could add up to 6 hours to your day. Time is a priceless commodity that we all too often take for granted.

By using it properly, you will start having more time for the things that are truly important in life: time to pursue your goals, time to spend with family, time to enjoy the simple things in life.

There are 1,440 minutes in a day. Make them 1,440 beautiful moments.