Time is precious.
We don’t get it back and we’re constantly looking to save more time and boost our productivity—whether our goal is to finish more work, spend more time on our goals, or enjoy more opportunities to do what we love with the people we love.
In this article, I’ll share three super simple skills that will massively speed up the time it takes to perform common tasks you do almost every day of your life. Put together, they’ll make a huge difference in no time.
1. Learn How to Type Correctly
When I was a kid and worked at my Dad’s accounting firm — back in the 1990’s — one of the very first things I had to do was learn “10 key by touch” (which means being able to use the 10-key pad on an adding machine without looking at the keys).
The reason is that I had to add up tons of numbers. If I didn’t learn “10 key by touch,” it would take forever to do my work; but if I did, I could do everything in a fraction of the time.
Same with a keyboard. Since we live in a world that’s so reliant on typing, this skill can save you hours of precious time every week. In fact, by learning how to type properly, you can save up to a whopping 21 days every year:
“The average person spends at least three hours a day using a keyboard while doing work, writing emails, messaging, using social networks, etc. If you increase your typing speed by 20%, you can save up to 35 minutes per day. That equals a phenomenal 213 hours per year.”
Yet typing with two fingers and having to look at the keyboard slows you down tremendously, whether you’re writing a long report or just sending emails. And if you’re a creative who likes to freestyle and list ideas quickly, struggling to type obstructs your workflow because you won’t be able to write as fast as you think.
That’s why it’s so important to learn how to type correctly. Thankfully, there are plenty of resources online to teach you how. (I used the Mavis Beacon CD-ROMs back in the day.) You might start slow, but after a few weeks, you will type faster than ever. Just remember: Don’t look at your hands.
2. Learn How to Use a Knife
Learning proper knife skills will slash (pun intended) the amount of time it takes to cook your meals. I used to take a lot of cooking classes and you could clearly see that people who knew how to use a knife could prepare things light-years faster than people who didn’t.
When you know how to chop, dice, mince, julienne, and chiffonade things at rapid speed—like Gordon Ramsay without the swearing—you will save a ton of time in the kitchen. You can significantly reduce your prep time and you can multitask while cooking (ex. cutting things as you’re sauteeing instead of cutting things and then sauteeing), which will eliminate the excuse that you “don’t have enough time to cook.”
My best pieces of advice: Get a good, sharp knife, start slow, and always practice great technique every time you’re in the kitchen—that way, your knife skills and speed will improve every single time you cook.
3. Listen Faster
If I’m watching something on YouTube like a presentation or speech, I often listen to it at 1.5–1.75x speed (if not faster). This makes a huge difference. Often, people talk slowly in a video because they want to be understood by their audience (or because they have no idea they’re talking slowly). But since you have the ability to rewind, pause, and skip around, you really don’t need to listen at normal speed.
Research shows you can listen to much higher speeds with no loss in listening comprehension. One study found people can comfortably listen to over 300 words per minute, which is about double the normal speaking rate.
Also, as you listen to things faster, you’ll build your ability to speed listen. Start by watching and listening to things at 1.5x speed and gradually work your way up to 2x or more.
Trust me, once you try it, you’ll want to watch and listen to everything faster. In that case, I recommend the Google Chrome extension Video Speed Controller, which lets you speed up any video, even if it doesn’t have the option, and allows you to reach speeds far beyond what most websites are limited to (which is usually 2x).
Now you can listen to something like an hour-long podcast in 30 minutes (or less) and absorb just as much as someone who listened to the whole thing.
And if you do that several times a week, the amount of time you save will add up quickly.
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