I don't know about you but my days can be a bit rush. It was that way when I was a single working woman, a married working woman, and now that I'm a married stay-at-home mom. With each new season in my life, I made small changes to adapt to save myself time during the day. Here are my tips to help you save time.
Meal Plan
My number one tip to saving time is to plan your meals. It’s going to save you time when you go to the grocery store. You’re not wasting time looking around the store. You know what your need when you go into the store. When it’s time to make meals, you already know what you have on hand to cook. You won't waste time looking around at what you have to make. I have an article on how to meal plan if you need help getting started click here to read. Your meal plan doesn't have to be super detailed. You can write down a list of meals on your phone's notepad. As long as it's helpful to you to remember what you have on hand to make for dinner that week. You're only going to want to make one trip to the grocery store a week.
Click here for a meal plan.
Write things down
Write EVERYTHING down. You can put it in your phone’s notes or a notepad. Write it in a place that is going to be the most helpful for you to find. Some people like to have a different notebook for each category of life. Others have everything written in a single note. Whatever works for you, the keyword being what "works". If you lose or forget your notes, work on finding a new system.
If you run out of an item, go ahead and put it on your shopping list the moment you notice. If something is getting low go ahead and put it on your shopping list. This will save you from forgetting to get an item and keep you from making an extra trip to the store later in the week.
Make a note of any appointments, bills you have to pay, or errands you have to run that week. This way you can plan to do all your running on the same day. I plan my week by having groceries pickup on Tuesdays and I run to the bank on Fridays. If I have other things I want/need to do in town I try to plan them on these days. I live in a small town, but if you live in a large city, plan your errands based on what area of the city you are going to be in that day.
Do task in the moment
As you go about your day, think about tomorrow. For example, as I am cleaning my kitchen, when I come to my coffee pot, I go ahead and set it up to pre-make coffee for the next morning. As I am putting away leftovers, if I intend to use them for a lunch, I go ahead and prepare the lunch. When I empty my husband's lunchbox, I go ahead and put in his non-refrigerated items and set the lunchbox on the counter for the next morning.
As you do laundry, set aside what you plan to wear the next day. You're already at the closet, it'll only take a few extra moments. Personally, I don't like having clothes set out all day so I simply put the clothes at the end of the closet so I can find them easily. At night as your getting your night clothes, pull out your clothes for the next day.
These tips may seem small things that will only save a couple of minutes, but a few minutes here and there will save you 20- 30 minutes each day.