Everyone that leads a busy lifestyle knows the value of time. Every second counts! Time is the most valuable commodity in our life, that's why the saying "time is money" stands true to every generation, every where in the world! Nobody likes to feel like their time is being wasted! I hate going into any business establishment and feeling like the people in there are trying to waste my time, either by taking their time to attend to me or by trying to sell me something I'm really not interested in. And I think that is why we love so much the modern conveniences that are such time savers.
I remember as a kid, standing in line at the bank with my mom, waiting in line to pay bills, running errands for hours and hours. Today I can do most of my daily tasks and errands from the doctor's office lobby waiting for the time of my appointment, while I'm sitting there waiting, I can pay my bills online, I can order groceries, I can buy items I need for my vacation, I can order my prescriptions, I can deposit checks, all within the 15 minutes that I am waiting for my turn at the office, with just a few clicks on a phone screen.
Modern technology has made our life so easy to manage and has facilitated our ability to handle many things at once. However it has also facilitated our ability to waste our own time. It's very easy to sit at home or anywhere for that matter and lose track of time while watching funny videos or cute dog videos, or for people in general to spend several hours binge watching tv shows; people of all ages, spend hours playing video games. So easy, everything so accessible.
We should all be running our A game now a days. No more need to spend hours at the grocery store, we can have virtual doctor's appointments during lunch break and avoid wasting several hours of our day between traffic and doctor's delays. We can order anything on Amazon and have it in 2 days, sometimes within a few hours.. So why are we not running our A game? Is there a possibility that we're using modern conveniences to waste time rather than to our advantage?
Are we doing more nowadays than we used to do when things weren't so accessible? I don't feel like I am. My life is still busy, I don't spent 2 hours at the grocery store but it takes me 1 hour to drive to work when it should only take 30 minutes. I spend at least an hour of my morning just to drop off my daughter at school and then another hour just to pick her up. I can easily spend several hours watching videos on YouTube or Netflix, or browsing online looking for my next exciting buy, or looking for something that I saw someone promote online.
As much time as we are saving with the modern conveniences, is about as much time as we are wasting on modern conveniences, and that's why we are not on our A game as we could and should be in our day and age - procrastination has also been facilitated with modern technology. We should be able to tackle so much more, we should be able to read more, to study more, to build more, to do more, to create more, to invest more, to enroll in more courses and do so many more things, but we have become so good at spending our free time on easily accessible distractions and time wasters that we might actually be doing a lot less.
I always hear people talk about the new movies on Netflix or the tv shows they have been binge watching. I see kids playing video games for a whole weekend, and I see kids spending hours upon hours watching someone else play video games for hours upon hours.
Needless to say, we still can manage to waste as much time as we are saving with the accessibility of everything that modern society has granted us.
So, as a busy full time working mom, I have come up with ways that I can accomplish most of my daily home tasks in the little time that I am able to find in between taking care of my major every day demands and the other smaller things that also demand my attention. I'm gonna share a few so that you too can find time for the monotonous things that we have to take care of on a daily basis, so that we can still binge watch our favorite shows without the interruptions of mundane, simpleton's, boring household tasks!
Simple Maintenance Tasks to Keep Life Easy -
When you wake up, collect all the trash, clothes, shoes and cups in your bedroom as soon as you get out of bed and put them in the proper spots; that will ensure your room is clean at the end of the day when you come home tired. Start the Roomba in your bedroom! Roombas are time savers! Got to love modern days!
While you brush your teeth, spray inside your sink with a bleach cleaner to clean off water spots and rinse when you are done brushing your teeth. You will avoid having to do this at a later time when you just want to relax.
While you wait for the shower water to get hot, put toilet cleaner in the toilet and let it soak while you take a shower; scrub and flush when you're done with your shower. Takes less than a few seconds and ensures toilets are always fresh and clean for use and visitors!
Lay your clothes out for the next day before going to bed so you don't have to waste time in the morning figuring out what to wear when you're barely awake!
Keep things that you use daily all in the same spot for easy access and less decision making early in the day, the less decisions you have to make in a day, will ensure that the decisions you do have to make will be made with optimum focus and attention.
Have a hand vacuum for everyday maintenance of simple things like window sills, stairs and baseboards. Have those vacuumed while you wait for the mac and cheese to cook in the microwave for 5 min.
Straighten up the living room pillows and throw blankets when you turn off the tv in the evening, also have the kids collect all their toys or belongings that ended up around the house, collect any glasses, pop corn bowls and such items. Starting the day and finishing the day with a well maintained home will make your waking up less stressful and more enjoyable.
While you're waiting for your food to be delivered, do a quick wipe down of the guest bathroom, and toilet spray, this alone will help maintain the cleanliness until heavy clean up day.
While you wait 20 minutes for the pizza rolls in the oven, it's a perfect time to empty out the dishwasher and put in any dishes from the sink. Keeping the kitchen clean between meals will make every meal easier to deal with and make the clean up time a lot shorter.
Tasks take way less time than we think! There are several daily tasks that can be done in less tan 10 minutes and will help simplify the daily maintenance of your home. Trust me!
When the environment around us is pleasing and organized, our brain has less distractions and we have less on our To Do List to worry about, which in turn means more time and more brain space to dedicate to the things that we enjoy doing and the things that deserve our undivided attention and optimum decision making capability!
Busy life can be easy too - Loads of Love and … Have a Productive Day!!