Here is something to recognize: everything you plan to do is going to take much more time than just doing it.
This is one area where a lot of us go wrong when we first start making plans for how we’re going to use our time. The thought goes like this: ‘I have one hour to spare this evening, I will do a one hour workout at the gym!’.
What people don’t realize however is that while your workout takes one hour, the whole rigmarole takes much closer to 1:40. Why? Because you need to drive, cycle or bus to the gym, then you need to get changed and then you need to work out. After that, you will then need to shower and after that you need to head back.
And following that one 1:40 you are now going to be tireder and less efficient than you were before. That ‘one hour’ ends up becoming your entire evening.
This is why we introduced the 10 minute workouts earlier and recommended doing them from home and before the shower. It’s just more efficient!
There are many other ways you can make other time drains much more efficient too. For example, one of the worst culprits when it comes to underestimating how long something takes is the prototypical celebrity chef. Ever bought a cook book full of ’10 minute meals’? How often are they really ten minutes?
In all likelihood, this 10 minute estimate doesn’t take into account the time it takes to dice the onion (it normally just says something like ‘take your diced onion’) or the time it takes for you to wash all the veg.
It certainly won’t include the time you spend washing up and tidying in the kitchen before and after cooking and it won’t take into account the time it takes you to go out and buy the ingredients either. These 10 minute meals are in fact much more likely to be 1 hour meals and that’s if you do everything perfectly the first time.
How can we rectify this? One option is to cook ahead of time. If you cook ahead of time, then you can save several Tupperwares full of your meals and then just reheat them as and when you need them. Slow cookers are also your friends.
At the same time, you can also look into making your life easier by investing in equipment that can help to take some of the flack for you. Tired of dicing and pealing? Then how about investing in a food processor to do that for you? Spending too long washing up? Buy a dishwasher! A non-stick pan can also make a big difference.
If you really want to make your life easier, you could even consider using a service that delivers ready-made meals (using fresh ingredients of course) right to your door. These services are perfect for the busy professional.
Again, this is all about prioritizing and asking yourself if you really want to spend lots of time cooking every day. Some people will be happy to spend more in the kitchen, in which case great! But if you’re trying to get into shape or you’re trying to set up a side business, then using a service that has your food prepared for you could just help you save the time that you need!
There are many other areas in your life where you can make things more efficient and save time. Cleaning your home makes a huge difference for example as it helps you to find things you need much quicker and easier. And if you use the right systems to organize your home with, then you’ll find that this helps you to keep things tidier without putting in so much work.
One thing that makes life massively easier? Just throwing things out! Throw out half your wardrobe and you probably won’t miss it – but now it will be much easier to put your clothes away and to choose clothes in the morning saving you more time!
Outsourcing and Automating
Earlier we discussed getting a dishwasher in order to spend less time washing up. This is an example of automation – using an automated system to complete work for you. There are plenty more examples of this too: why not use a robotic vaccum cleaner in order to keep your home clean for example? Or why not use smoothie maker to make easy smoothies instead of buying them yourself? (The Nutribullet is particularly effective in this role.)
Outsourcing is similar but slightly different. This essentially means giving the job you need to do to someone else and asking them to do it (delegating) or hiring someone to help you with a job.
Often we think of outsourcing and delegating as terms we would use in a business setting but you’d be surprised just how relevant and just how useful the concepts can be when applied to your personal life.
For example, if you are about to make an important vote and you don’t have time to spend ages reading up about all the people who are running for the position… just ask your friends to give you the basic overview. Choose friends you trust and ask a couple with opposing opinions and you should get a balanced view while simultaneously saving yourself a lot of time. This is a perfect example of ‘outsourcing’ and it hardly feels like it at all!
Another example of outsourcing is to hire people to do jobs that you don’t want to do. For example, you can outsource the maintenance of your lawn to a gardener and you can outsource your cleaning to a cleaner. Getting a cleaner in fact might just be one of the best decisions you ever make.
No one like living in squalor and it can be very stressful when the home is constantly untidy. Then again though, we also seldom have time to spend ages tidying everything ourselves. When you hire a cleaner, you are basically ‘buying back time’ while at the same time getting a better job done than you could probably have accomplished on your own.
If you’re paying a cleaner $15 an hour, you’re basically saying you value your time that much. What better to spend money on than time? And especially when you consider that a good cleaner can do much more than you in an hour!
Another type of outsourcing you might consider is to use a ‘virtual assistant’. This is someone who is capable of doing any kind of work that they can do for you online and without any specialist skills. Think of them like a PA who you never meet in person – a digital dog’s body. Often these professionals are located in India and other foreign countries, so their rates will usually be incredibly low (think $5 for an hour). It also means their English might not be the best in the world but this won’t be a problem for most tasks.
So what can you get a virtual assistant to do for you? Well, you can always get them to help you with your work. If your job is taking up valuable home hours then you can get a little help by using a VA in order to make calls for you, arrange appointments, gather research or perform basic data entry. There are stories of people who outsourced their entire jobs to VAs! Of course this might not be strictly by-the-books depending on your organization but no one needs to know…
Likewise, you can also use a VA for all kinds of personal jobs and chores! For example, if you’re struggling to think of a gift for your partner then why not outsource it to your VA? If you’re spending ages hunting down the best car insurance quote, why not outsource that too? Need a hotel for the stag party you’re organizing? That sounds like a job for a VA!
Why spend your precious time doing basic admin when there are people out there who will do it for a couple of dollars?
