I love looking for ways to be efficient with time and getting more done. I was doing a bit of research which included posting on my social media channels asking people what were their biggest time sucks.

The most popular answers seemed to be spending too much time in forums and social media (ironically), to procrastinating and interruptions.

During my research, I came across Grace Marshall and her book, ‘21 Ways to manage the stuff that sucks up your time‘. What a great must-have for anyone who gets to the end of the day wondering what they actually did.

The book is divided up into 3 sections, managing the little tasks, managing distractions, and managing how you think. Grace gives 21 succinct tips written in a very digestible way that you can apply right away – no special equipment or programmes required!

One particular tip I like and shall be applying myself is separating out the brain dump from the to-do list (Way 12). I have to confess to being a master of getting distracted when I’m trying to sleep! Ideas keep popping into my head about completely random stuff that I need to remember, explore further or do. I’ve already learnt to write it down, because if I don’t then that idea keeps repeating in my head in case I forget it, stopping me from sleeping!

I use a day per page paper diary that I use as my to-do list, so any tasks I remember while I’m doing something else (from the list), gets added to that list. I find it very satisfactory ticking off the tasks as I do them. But the ideas that pop into my head that need further exploration…. they don’t belong on my to-do list.

Grace advocates having a tangent log to capture all those great ideas, so you can get on with the task at hand. And if you don’t like using a notebook, then you write it a piece of paper and toss it into an ideas bucket, so that when you’re ready to explore ideas, then you have a bucket full of ideas to rifle through. So now I just need to find a suitable bucket….

I would love to hear about the things that suck your time and what you do about it, so feel free to add your two-bits worth in the comments below.