Everywhere I look people are offering time-saving tips. There are so many tips that it sometimes seems to me that the time people save using these tips is spent offering the tips to others. In any case, I thought I’d hop on the bandwagon and offer some time-saving tips that work for me.
1. I pack my lunch. This takes me five minutes and easily saves me twice that much by avoiding the lines at the various eateries near my office. It saves money, too.
2. I always hang my keys and sunglasses on the key rack when I come into the house. Saves me time trying to find them later.
3. I skip the shaving cream when I shave. I ran out of shaving cream a year ago, and decided to forgo it. It wasn’t so bad, and I never looked back.
4. I use a text expander for the most common things that I type. My email address, common email replies, things like that. This saves more time than I realized.
5. I write one draft for a blog post instead of two. I know this is living on the edge, but I get few complaints, and it does save me the time it would take write a whole other draft.
6. I schedule meetings that are 15 minutes long instead of 30 or 60 minutes. I try to keep the 15 minute meetings to 5 minutes.
7. I try to arrive somewhere exactly on-time, not early, not late. When I fly, I prefer to arrive at the gate just as they are calling on travelers to board the flight. I figure if I miss the flight, there will always be another one. So far, I haven’t missed a flight.
8. I time myself when doing routine tasks to see if I can shave off seconds. I can change a diaper start-to-finish in under a minute.
9. I don’t add things to lists just to get an even number. Why have 10 things, when 9 will do?
10. I use Fast Travel when I need to go somewhere I’ve been before. Just like in Skyrim. Rather than driving to the office, I click on my office in Google Maps, and then select the Fast Travel option and I’m there within a few seconds.
I’ve always found the idea of saving time strange. Time is money, the saying goes, but money can be put into an account and used on a rainy day. You can’t do that with time.
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