The Time of Your Life

Three groggy, grasping taps of the snooze alarm and we've wasted 27 minutes of it. The morning get-ready rush replete with coffee spills, cereal slurps and the kids being tardy again to school, leaves us wanting more of it. And later we shrug, sip our lattes and wonder where it's all gone. Time. Who wouldn't like more of it? Find an extra hour or two in your day and you could exercise more often, fit in a massage or spend time doing whatever it is that makes you happy. Here are a dozen time-saving strategies:

1. Toss the to-do list. Some of you just winced. Others, freed from the bonds of a life measured by checked boxes, nodded knowingly. Instead of a to-do list, simply know your priorities, advises Colleen Contreras, co-author of Build the Life You Want and Still Have the Time to Enjoy It! "If we pick three to five priorities to focus on, it relieves the guilt and pressure that comes from running behind."

2. Under-schedule yourself. Children get sick. Technology breaks down. Murphy's Law happens. And still we put more into our planners than we can accomplish in a day. Delegate what you can (see "Buying Time"), relegate the unimportant to the trash heap, then breathe. "Schedule some time to be human," Contreras says.

3. Say maybe. Rather than reflexively saying yes to everything, force yourself to pause. Practice phrases such as "That sounds exciting, but let me check my other commitments." In other words, say maybe.

4. Then, say no. "Saying no, in a nice way, is one of the most powerful words in our vocabulary," says Donald Wetmore, J.D., head of the Connecticut-based Productivity Institute, which conducts time management seminars. "Good time management is not doing the wrong things quicker. That just gets us nowhere faster."

5. Quit wasting time. Sick of the snooze-button abyss where restful sleep goes wanting? Could you go without watching an hour-or two-of television every night? Try logging every minute of your time for a week, and then trim the fat.

6. Stop multitasking. This doesn't mean you can't unload the dishwasher while the rice is simmering. But you weren't made for double duty all the time. "The truth is you can only do one thing well at a time," Wetmore says. In fact, like a woman driving her car, talking, reading, eating and applying mascara, you may have good short-term results. "But eventually you're going to crash," he says.

7. Plan your meals. Spend 30 minutes planning meals for the week, and you'll save on trips to the grocery store. Also, stock your pantry with staples such as rice, beans, pasta, olive oil and diced tomatoes so you can whip up something healthy in a pinch.

8. Enlist your kids. By about age 7, kids can pack their own lunches and fold laundry. By 10, they can cook simple dinners. "Kids need to learn the basics of cooking, cleaning and organizing to go out into the world," says Schar Ward, author of It's About Time: Time Saving Tips for Every Day-Home or Away.

9. Start a supper club. Once a week, double a recipe and take dinner to a neighbor-and once a week she can reciprocate. You'll both save time and you'll broaden your culinary horizons.

10. Learn to speed read. Between newspapers, e-mails and work documents, we read a lot. "The average person spends two hours a day reading and reads 200 words a minute. If you take a speed reading class, you could go from 200 to 400. That's an hour a day," Wetmore says.

11. Get organized. If your desk is messy or you can never find that party invitation at home, consider this. "Studies have shown that a person who works with a messy desk will spend an hour a day looking for stuff," Wetmore says. So, tidy up. Go paperless with bills. Stick invitations in a manila envelope clipped to your calendar.

12. Schedule time for you. No one will give you time. So take it. If the novel on your nightstand is collecting dust-and you don't want to speed read it-or if you neglect exercise, massage therapy, meditation or other aspects of your well-being because of time, then go back to tip No. 1, and make you a priority. It is, after all, about time.