“Everything you did has already been done” – Lauryn Hill, Lost Ones
How much time do you waste on:
- Structuring a proposal or other written document?
- Writing and formatting your resume?
- Formatting a PowerPoint presentation?
- Creating a budgeting?
- Writing emails?
- Writing formulas in excel?
- Writing your goals for the year?
- Planning your grocery list?
- Planning your workouts?
I’ll go first: I’ve spent A RIDICULOUS amount of time and energy on projects, both inside and outside of work, performing tasks that could have been eliminated by templates. Let’s face it, most of the things we are working on have been done before by someone else in some form or another. It’s the problems that are completely new that we should devote our attention towards solving.
- Networking – I first started using templates heavily for those pesky networking emails you have to write after getting someone’s business card. I used to dread networking emails in general because I felt that they were contrived and also because emails generally are the bane of my existence. If I’m honest with myself, it’s probably because I often struggle to find the right tone in my emails. These templates for business cards and informational interviews have helped me a ton in that respect. Skip the fakeness and use your energy to focus on your in-person meeting.
- Grocery lists – Are you on a diet? Are you on a budget? Do you love food so much that you often get too excited and overspend looking through the prepared foods and bakery sections of the grocery store? So do I. I haven’t figured out the last one yet but here is a $30/week vegan grocery list from one of my favorite Youtubers.
- PowerPoint Presentations – A few weeks ago, I had to create a presentation on Risk Management for Startups. I did not have much time and wanted to focus on the content. I ended up using a template that was available online and legal to use via creative commons. If you have a business, paying someone to create a template for your brand will save tons of time and money in the long-run. You can find the template I used and countless others here.
- Exercise – Unless you are aiming to break a world-record, every physical feat you could ever hope to do are probably already well-document somewhere on the interwebs. Whether you want to build strength, lose weight, or learn to do the splits, save that intention for your actual workout and use one the millions of workout routines that are currently on the internet for any and every goal. Shape.com has a huge repository of workouts and is a great place to start.
- Resume writing – creatives aside, if you are a regular-degular-shmegular professional like most of us, your resume needs are pretty standard. Using templates can help you to avoid small formatting errors and ensure you have all the relevant information on your resume. Chances are that if you went to college, you have access to their template. In any case, here are a few to start.
- Budgeting – Setting up a realistic budget is an important step towards financial freedom. Becoming financially literate takes time (and it’s well worth it) but creating a budget shouldn’t. Here is the original PearBudget template
The options don’t end here. Next time you have a project, think about where you can optimize your productivity with a template.
Phew! My first-ever blog post is now finished. This is the template I used to get me started.