Seeking tips for increasing productivity and saving time in daily life
March 17, 2019 2:04 PM   Subscribe

The question title pretty much says it all (how's that for efficiency!), but more details below.

I'd like to get a lot more done in my life than I do, and getting some good tips for increasing productivity in my daily life would be a good start toward getting me there. What have you learned or discovered in your own life that has made you do things more efficiently and quickly?

The tips could range in scale from little tweaks that save seconds here and there, to a whole shift in an approach to taking on a big project that cuts many hours of effort off of it.

Here's an example from my own life, on the "little tweaks" end of the spectrum. At one point I realized that I was taking a weirdly long time to choose what to wear for the day in the morning - often a minute or two. I tried just focusing more and forcing myself to make my choice quickly, which led to a mental shift: I suddenly got much better at making these small decisions. Since then I've made my daily outfit decisions probably a lot like most people do, in maybe 20-40 seconds.

Also, let me know of any good websites or online forums that fit this topic. The searching I've done on this so far hasn't turned up quite what I'm looking for. The Reddit Lifehacks group, for example, requires far too much looking through hay to find those rare good needles.
posted by Mechitar to Grab Bag (10 answers total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you currently pack a work/school lunch: Make extra food for dinner, and pack the leftovers in a lunch container during cleanup. Now you have tomorrow's lunch ready to go.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:11 PM on March 17, 2019 [4 favorites]


Make a weekly menu and create a shopping list. Tweak the menu over a few weeks and then find one you like.
posted by catspajammies at 2:17 PM on March 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


Try to double up things you want to do-- listen to language lessons while.you work out, meditate on your commute if you take a bus.

Pick all your work week outfits on Sunday and hang them up in a particular part of your closet. Yes to meal planning and prepping lunches the night before. Notice when you're spending frivolous time online and redirect yourself.

But also keep.in mind that downtime is important. You'll burn out if you schedule your life down to the minute with productivity.
posted by ananci at 3:36 PM on March 17, 2019 [5 favorites]


What you're asking about is essentially optimization strategies for tasks (actions) you perform daily. The best advice for getting the most out of optimization attempts is this: Make the common case fast. This means that you have to look at optimization in terms of a return on investment, and the biggest returns are on the commonly done things.

I'll take your example of choosing an outfit: this was taking you a minute or two and you have cut it to let's say 30 seconds. This is either a 50% or 75% cut, but of something you really only do once a day. If you are awake for 16 hours of the day you saved a tiny fraction of the total time in your day (say, a minute or so out of 960 waking minutes). This is not really worth it compared to saving time on tasks that either (1) take a long time (in which case you have to save a significant percentage for it to be worth the time spent finding the optimization itself) or (2) get performed repeatedly each day (wherein even a modest improvement is significant since the task is repetitive). This second one is your best bet.
posted by axiom at 4:01 PM on March 17, 2019 [6 favorites]


Have two checking accounts and setup direct deposit (or a transfer) to each.

One for your bills that are the same each month (rent/car/phone/cable/Netflix/insurance) - set the bills to autopay and transfer only the necessary amount.

The variable expenses (food, gas, electricity) go from the other checking account and you'll have to pay attention to this one.
posted by noloveforned at 4:28 PM on March 17, 2019 [2 favorites]


Minimal meal prep is my recommendation. I eat a single serve pot of instant oats every morning for breakfast with my coffee and dump the plastic pot straight into the recycling. For lunch I eat a microwaveable ready meal and do the same. Food shopping takes minutes in the week.

For dinnner I cook something simple in one or possibly two pots as I hate washing up. I have minimal crockery for the same reason.

When I’m asked or need to entertain I offer simple meals like casserole, chilli or pizza, with a prexprepared salad or sides.

I find laundry tedious so have large amounts of generic underwear and run a load every time the machine is full.

I go to bed and get up at the same time every day.

I try to keep my house tidy and deep clean once a week while the laundry is on.

I try to resist clutter and have got rid of all unnecessary furniture: there’s nothing to move when you clean and nowhere to dump things and easy to find what you need.

I’m ruthless with things I have finished with, damaged or whatever. As soon as I’ve finished a book or other item I donate it, recycle it or throw it out.

I have organised storage in all my rooms and a fixed place for everything.
posted by Middlemarch at 4:39 PM on March 17, 2019 [3 favorites]


Junk complicated processes or find simpler ones. I like strong coffee in the morning but an espresso pot takes time and a cafetière creates mess so I have a single cup drip filter instead with paper liner which goes straight into the compost.

Dump complicated houseplants or ones that need fussing for low maintenance ones; if you have things that have finished flowering like cheap orchids or other seasonal plants compost them when they’re finished.

Same in the garden; look for hardy perennials and fill pots and planters with them too; use seasonal bedding as a highlight that can be swapped out easily and cheaply as the seasons change.

Simplify giftgiving - have a few “go to” gifts - flowers, candles, foods, booze that are easy to give and get - eschew special cards for multipurpose ones for any occasion.
posted by Middlemarch at 5:01 PM on March 17, 2019


You should check out Laura Vanderkam. She is a time management guru who's pitch is that we all have more time than we think, if we can optimize how we use it.

She has a very highly viewed TED talk here. There's also a nice podcast interview here. In the podcast, one take home tips is to outsource activities that you don't really need to do yourself (e.g. shopping, cooking, or lawn care, if you can afford it).

I personally found ananci's idea of doubling up to be particularly useful. For example, I now do work or watch must-see TV while on a stationary exercise bike doing high intensity interval training. This basically gives you another 45 minutes in your day.
posted by strekker at 6:14 PM on March 17, 2019 [5 favorites]


Two more broad principles from optimization of processes: you can't optimize what you can't measure, and at some point the only way to go faster is to do less.

If you're serious about this, start tracking your time. A relatively lightweight way to do it is to journal a few times a day. A more aggressive, but more accurate way is to get a telephone application which asks you what you've been doing every fifteen minutes. Once you see where you're spending your time, you can start making decisions about what is worth optimizing.

You may also be surprised by the mismatch between what receives your attention and what deserves your attention.

A less happy outcome: sometimes you'll know what needs to change and just be unable to do it. For me, it's reading the internet. I know I spend too much time on it. I'm probably not going to spend less time on it. :-/

But to answer the question you asked:

I made myself a uniform. I have a few specialized outfits (e.g., for the gym) but otherwise I have multiple copies of the same shirt, socks, underwear, and pants.

Almost all my clothes, even most of the specialized stuff, gets laundered the same way: in the washing machine on the normal cycle with cold water, then hung to dry.

I shop and cook once a week, and rotate through a short list of meals. I'm lucky to commute by a good grocery store, so I just hop off the train one night a week and then back on half an hour later.

I've automated most of my finances: direct deposit, bills on auto-pay, pre-scheduled transfers to my savings account.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 7:09 PM on March 17, 2019 [5 favorites]


If you currently have long or long-ish hair, think about short hair. I am a lady with short hair and it has given me back a LOT of time (shorter showers, quicker prep before leaving home, less need to condition/treat). Hilariously, it has also opened up barbershop experiences to me, so I don't count more frequent trims as an issue.
posted by vacuumsealed at 3:08 PM on March 18, 2019


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