We all wish that we had more hours in the day—and some days we wish we had more hours than others. Your home and your work all need you and for certain must-dos and should-dos, and the only way to get all that done is to, well, get it done.

Many of us probably wish that we had someone that we could send on errands and help us double our capacity. But we don’t have budgets to cover that, of course—either at home or at work. And if you go, go, go, and go, you won’t necessarily get everything done either. So what recourse do you have?

Well, there are a number of tactics that you can use so that it seems like you do actually have a personal assistant. For starters, taking a break is actually good for productivity. If you keep moving and doing, you’ll quickly hit a wall  and your results will suffer. Regrouping and re-approaching the problem may be a great way to improve your efficiency.

Email is also something that can reduce your productivity, especially if you attend to it all the time. That’s not the best way to deal with all those messages; in fact, what you should do is schedule email times. Otherwise, don’t worry about it and don’t respond to it, either.

If you deal with a lot of contracts in your business dealings, try using contract templates instead of reinventing the wheel every time you need to engage someone in a deal.

Frankly, too, saying no is something that we don’t do often enough. You may not have enough time to do something, or you may not have interest in it. If both or one of those exist, you have to learn how to turn things down.

In addition, pay attention to when you work well. If you’re a morning person, churn out the work then and move on to tasks that require less mental acuity later in the day. If you’re an afternoon person, don’t fight that. Do what works and what helps you make the most of your time.

How else can you make your day more in tune with what you can do, so that you can feel like you have an assistant? This infographic explains:How to Get Your To-Do List Done Faster—Without Hiring an Assistant

This infographic originally appeared on Salesforce.com, and was republished with permission.

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By Don Power

Don Power is a Director of Content Marketing. When it comes to content marketing, Don's been the Cyrano for a variety of organizations and delivered The King’s Speech himself as a professional speaker across North America. Don extends an open invitation to connect on LinkedIn or Twitter.