By Victoria Q

Have you ever asked yourself how many hours did you sleep on an average night? How long have it been since your last meeting with your friends? When was your last visit to your parents’ house?

Almost everyone is having the same issue here. Working from 8am to 5pm, skipping breakfast because overslept, grab a quick sandwich for lunch while typing email, staying at office till late night or even continue your work at home. Does it sound familiar to you too?

According to National Sleep Foundation guidelines, a healthy adult need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night. But, how do you do it while having tons of work to rush for? Well, we’ve gathered some of the best advices out there in order to help you in finding time for yourself while keeping your work done.

1. Map Out A Schedule

Take out a weekly calendar and start planning on what you need to focus on that week. Firstly, map out your priorities of the week such as an important appointment with client, send out document to your colleague, preparing weekly report before meeting and so forth. Next, move to small task that you wish to get it done by the end of the week. Plan your schedule ahead so you know what to look forward after finishing a task.

2. Wake Up Early

One of the biggest challenge is fitting everything in to 24 hours. Waking up 15 – 30 minutes earlier gives you extra time to get your things done. Or at least, you have extra time to pick up your breakfast.

3. Make Time To Stay Connected With Your Friends, Family and Loved Ones.

This one is related to the first point in planning your schedule. Plan out when to hang out with your friends, family and loved ones like an appointment that you can’t miss out. Even in a busy week, try catching a 45 minutes dinner or coffee to stay connected with them rather than not seeing at all.

4. Make Time For Hobbies

Everyone has their hobbies whether it is biking, hiking, painting, cooking, baking or just to watch a movie. If you have a tight week, replace your hobbies with something similar you can do in shorter time or cut down the time consuming. Example, instead of biking which requires more time, you can try running when you can do it in 20 minutes. Cut down the time consuming in cooking and baking to 30 minutes or watch a short movie which requires less than 90 minutes.

5. Block Out The Last 15 minutes Of Work

You have to plan when you want to leave the office from the beginning of the day. Tell your colleague to pass any documents to you by a time and block out the last 15 minutes before you leave the office to wrap up everything. By doing this, you know what to be done and aren’t trying to send one more email when you’re supposed to leave the office.

6. Spend Lunch Break Wisely

Everyone gets an hour of lunch break in between of work. Most of the busy people out there will just grab a quick sandwich and continue their work during lunch break. My advice is to not stay in the office during your lunch break. Leave the work, leave the desk, leave the office and go to somewhere else to have a proper meal. Use your lunch break to do some fun stuff –  store trips, a quick walk, call your mum.