It’s here! The most sleepy day of the year. It isn’t just the day after the start of Daylight Savings Time that makes for a tricky morning, though. In fact, there isn’t a day on the calendar that I don’t feel like I could use a little more time. In that spirit, I thought I would share my favorite ways to save time without breaking the bank.
- Keep your task list short. Some say the magic number is three. Others argue five. Each week, I create a handful of concise task lists on Google Keep. The digital sticky notes afford me the flexibility of ranking and reranking items while still allowing me the most comforting feeling in the world—the ability to cross of each item. Is there any better feeling in the world than seeing a list with a bunch of lines through it?
- Eat the same things. The fact that I know what I am going to eat every morning and every afternoon might sound dull, but it is a fantastic time saver. It is also almost the entire reason that our grocery spending consistently clocks in at around $200 a month. Variety might be the spice of life, but as long as there’s some spice to my dinner, I’m fine with a predictable day.
- Plan your outfits. When you own over 200 pairs of shoes, your name is Decision Fatigue in the morning. Thankfully, I’ve shirked that badge of honor. The habit of planning my outfits, no matter how slim the pickings (I’m looking at you, pregnancy), has stuck. I can’t tell how much time it saves me in the morning to know that everything—from undergarments to work bag—is clean, coordinated, and corralled.
- Decide when to save…and when not to. My mom taught me many things about money. But she would also chase sales clear across town over the course of a week if it meant save a few cents on groceries. My dad was always quick to point out holes in this logic. Now, I finally appreciate his point. We are in a position where time is worth more than saving $5 on groceries.
- Outsource within reason. It is no secret that I adore our cleaning service. A twice monthly deep clean is the perfect amount of help. Plus, the night before she comes, it is the wallop in the pants I need to really tidy up. But just because we outsource this task doesn’t mean that we outsource everything. If we did that, we’d have all the time in the world to sit and think about how broke we were.
- Say goodbye to social media. I took Facebook off my phone before I started my maternity leave. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I still hop on the platform every few weeks, but I limit myself to 10 minutes or less. Thankfully, since it is all mostly devolved into noise about politics and invitations to parties for products that no one actually needs, I usually click the X much faster.
- Know when to single-task. Society values more better faster. Of course, there are times when it makes sense or is utterly necessary to multi-task. But I have found that if I really want to be judicious with my time it means giving my full attention to the most important tasks one by one.
When it comes to maximizing time, I have found that minimizing options and reducing distractions makes for a much more efficient routine. But as with anything, there is always room for improvement.
So Tell Me…What are your favorite ways to save time without spending a fortune?
Appropriate start to the day, given that I’m all groggy and running late from the darned time change. My personal favorite time saver is buying in bulk. We almost never have to worry about running out of non perishable items, because we have a lot of them in the house. It cuts down on mid week urgent stock ups and lets us look for deals instead.
I love your list, and tend to do a lot of them as well. I’m very anti-Facebook, and don’t mind eating the same things each day.
Thanks for the introduction to Google Keep, as I use everything else google it seems a good idea.
I do pretty much everything on this list! So, it’s like you read my mind. I’ve also started to simplify my morning routine (i.e. minimal hair and makeup) and it’s given me 20 extra minutes in the morning. Which is basically magic. Last summer I wrote about my week of frugal eating when Mr. TA was out of town, and the take away was basically that eating the same thing every day was a gold mine of awesome. People FREAKED out. I got so many comments like “that feels so soulless”, “gosh, that must be boring”. Those responses were so weird to me, because I’ve literally always eaten like that. I know what I like, it makes cooking and grocery shopping easy. Why reinvent the wheel? Thanks for the Monday morning pick me up, Penny!
Good stuff, Penny. I like the part about eating the same thing. I totally do that. Also, my work wardrobe is fairly simple. I wear the same basic thing just about every day. Makes for easier choices.
Is it bad that I didn’t even notice a difference with the daylight savings switch?
I agree with all of these (and have a full article on avoiding multitasking scheduled). I have started spending too much time on Twitter again. It is one of the lowest-focus things I can spend my time doing and it has become automatic when I am sitting around or procrastinating while tired. I don’t want to cut it out entirely, but I do need to cut back.
They say time is money, so if you can save yourself both time and money you are doing something right!
This is a great list of advice. I have debated deleting social media for a while now, and I think that I’ve found that I can simply avoid it when necessary if I keep myself busy doing more important things. While I still find myself on social media from time to time, it is typically to promote my blog or to network with others, so it’s a productive use of my time. No more scrolling for hours on end…
My favorite way to save time, however, is to run errands on my lunch break at work. This gives me a set deadline to get errands complete and frees up my time before and after work, especially on the weekends, for more productive uses.
You’ve got your ish figured out! $200/mo for food… I’ve a lot to learn from you. 🙂 I definitely take social media breaks, it’s so easy to get sucked right down the rabbit hole.
My favorite trick right now is to set an alarm. We need the house cleaned and don’t want to do it. Ok, for the next 20 minutes we pick up and organize as fast as possible, go!
I don’t always get my outfit for the next day picked out the night before, but when I do my morning is so much more pleasant! I’ve found building in routine helps me save time.
My rule for being frugal, if I start ripping my hair out and getting stressed, I stop trying to save the extra few dollars. Normally, I save all the dollars since I decide to not buy the thing at all!
I love eating the same thing. Well, most of the time. Worrying about what to eat stresses me out. So I have protein bars and peanut butter during the day (yes, I know how weird that sounds) and a frozen meal at night and then some chocolate. If I want something else for dinner — and I’m not trying to adhere to my diet too strictly — then I get it. But I don’t have to fret about what I want from the huge set of options out there. Especially since they’re out *there* where I have to get properly dressed and go get them. Ugh.
Having the outfits ready beforehand makes an incredible difference in my mornings, too!