When the automobile was invented back in 1885 in Germany by Karl Benz, it was done so because it was a quicker form of transport than the horse, saving time when traveling from one place to another. In 1756 when Jacob Christian Schäffer, also of Germany, invented the washing machine, he did so because it saved time compared to hand washing. When Ray Tomlinson created email back in 1971, and yes, email has been around for that long, he invented it so we could communicate with each other much quicker than sending a letter in the post, this also saves time. There are thousands upon thousands of examples of why technology was designed to save us time, and for these reasons, we should be using technology to be a ‘Time Saving Enabler’ rather than a time drainer, in this blog I will cover a few areas where we can really benefit from technology and where we should cut down on our usage, which will give us back more time to spend on ourselves, our family, or other work priorities.
Now we look at how using technology and not using technology, can save us huge amounts of time each day because to really benefit from technology, we also must stop using technology in certain ways.
Social media – Whilst social media has been an enabler when it comes to connecting family, friends, and businesses globally, the constant connection comes at a price. The latest studies from 2020, show that on average we spend 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media each day, some of the population exceed this by far.
Potential time saved each day – 2 hours and 24 minutes
Television and video – In the UK, stats show that we spend on average 3 hours and 20 minutes per day watching television and video, these stats do not include streaming service services such as Netflix or Disney+.
Potential time saved each day – 3 hours and 20 minutes
Online food shopping – The average person spends 2 hours a week grocery shopping, the time taking to drive there, park, shop and then return home and potential this happens multiple times per week if we break it down per day that’s around 18 minutes per day. The average time spent on weekly shopping online is 15-minutes, by shopping online not only do we save time, but we also save on petrol.
Potential time saved each day – 15 minutes
Online Banking – A survey of 2000 UK residents showed that on average an adult saved 21 minutes per week, or 3 minutes per day by switching to online banking, that may not sound like a big number, but over a year it adds up to more than 18 hours wasted on tasks that can be completed quicker from home.
Potential time saved each day – 3 minutes
GPS Navigation – The same study also showed that we are becoming more efficient when we use GPS navigation for our trips in the car, on average we save an extra 20 minutes per week by avoiding traffic jams.
Potential time saved each day – 3 minutes
Over-checking email – On average we are spending 2.6 hours each day dealing with email, and we check email 15 times a day or every 37 minutes. The act of over-checking email wastes around 21 minutes per day which includes notification interruptions, but not the productivity decreases after such interruptions. It is also estimated that a full inbox wastes 27 minutes per day as it takes to find each email before responding to it, by archiving mail each day which takes around 5 minutes, we can save 22 minutes per day. So, if we reduce email checking to 3 times daily and start archiving email from our inbox, these two changes will save us 39 minutes per day.
Potential time saved each day – 39 minutes
By making just a few small life and business changes, we can save huge amounts of time each day, by reducing the above technology-related tasks and habits by just a third will see time-saving benefits of 2 hours and 15 minutes a week on only these 7 things, that’s a saving of 4.65 days a year. Think of what you could do with that extra time.
The #TimeSavingGurus are experts when it comes to driving business efficiency through the adoption of technology, to learn more, you can reach out to me at james.baker@tsg.je