[00:00:00] Leah: today we are talking about how to get more time out of your day, so 10 ways that you can find more time. 

[00:00:38] So jumping into this episode, I am gonna give you strategies that I don’t work. They will save you time, but you’re gonna feel a little resistant towards a lot of ’em. So before we jump into ’em, I wanted to start by talking about why. And when we know that why, when we really get focused in on what we want to use our time with, how powerful that can be.

[00:00:59] So there is a video on YouTube by Z Frank, and it is the time you have in jelly beans. And essentially what he does is he spreads out all of these jelly beans that represent. Day, every jellybean is one day of your life, and this is the average American life. Well, as he starts breaking it down, he shows that we have roughly 28,835 days or jelly beans.

[00:01:25] And of course some of us are going to have more and some less. In our first 15 years, we’ll spend about 5,457 of those jelly beans or those days, and then here’s how the average American will spend the rest of their days. We will sleep for a total of 8,477 days. We will eat, drink, prepare food for about 1,635 days.

[00:01:50] We will work for the equivalent of 3,202. Uh, about 1099 of our days will be spent in the car driving or commuting. On average, we will watch television, 2,676 days. Household chores and activities will take about 1,576 days taking care of our friends and our family will take about 564 days grooming bath.

[00:02:18] Grooming, bathing and other bathroom related activities will take about 671 days, probably more for a lot of women. Um, and another seven. Grooming, bathing and bathroom related activities will take 671 days, probably more for a lot of women. I think I’m one of ’em. And then there will be another 720 days spent doing community activities like religious or civic duties, or maybe charities or taking a class.

[00:02:47] And after all of that, There’s not a huge amount of jelly beans left. And he poses this question, how do you want to spend your jelly beans? How do you wanna spend? And he holds up one single jellybean and he says, how do you wanna spend today? So I’m starting there because I wanna really talk about like where is the motivation coming from when we.

[00:03:13] To have more time in our day and what is the very best way that we can spend that time. If time is a commodity and I believe it is, then where would my investment make for the best return? Those are the kind of questions we need to ask ourselves. I think about cuddling with my kids or cracking up, laughing with my.

[00:03:38] Or reading an amazing book, or taking a great nap, or having a deep conversation with a friend, serving someone, knowing that I can help them, I think about how do I wanna spend my days? Where do I want to leave my mark? Am I leaving a mark? Am I making an impact or am I blending in? So I’m starting. And I know that is some deep stuff, but I’m starting there because as we talk about how we can save time, I want us to have that deeper motivation that makes it worth maybe giving up a few of these things.

[00:04:23] All right. Number one, cut out a TV show the average American watches between one and four hours of TV a day. You can, you know, factor in where you think you. Let’s average that to two hours, though. That’s 14 hours a week and 60 hours a month just watching the tele. So I get that. You know, some of that, it’s like, oh, but it’s just like that downtime, that relaxing time.

[00:04:49] So what if you only cut out one show? There might be someone who’s like, is gone. Get rid of the tv, throw it out. We’re, we’re not having it anymore, but for the rest, what if it was just one show? Is there one show that you could honestly say, you know, that one doesn’t leave me feeling really great. I don’t actually really think that’s helping, helping my psyche?

[00:05:10] What if you could let that one go and just start thinking about, you know, how much free time that one, that one. Could, could open up for you the next cutting out social media. Okay, so again, I’m like, these are not going to be popular suggestions. What could this look like? It could, there’s, there’s all levels.

[00:05:33] It could look like an all out social media’s gone. I’m closing my accounts and I’ve, I’ve known a lot of people have done that. And I’ve gotta say I’m in awe every time. I mean, It’s amazing and, and maybe it looks something different. Maybe it looks like restricting your social media use because you recognize that you accidentally get sucked in and you’re in there a lot longer than you meant to be.

[00:05:56] So maybe it’s setting a timer on your phone and being very intentional about, I’m only gonna be on here for 30 minutes. When the timer goes off, I’m gone. Maybe if you notice that you are finding yourself on social media and you have that thought of like, I don’t even remember. Opening my phone and going to this app that actually is very, very common.

[00:06:16] Several, several years ago I did a social media detox challenge and we surveyed all these women and it was insane how often for the detox, we all deleted the app entirely from our phone. And what we found was for the first several days, everyone was going to the spot where that app normally.

[00:06:38] Subconsciously, they weren’t even intentionally doing it. They just, their, their mind was going there when there was a moment of boredom or rest or, you know, just standing in a line. And so they started recognizing how much time was actually going into social media that they hadn’t even perceived because it was a subconscious act.

[00:07:00] Limiting or cutting out your social media at the very least, using a timer so that you are not getting sucked in deeper and deeper. Number three, waking up earlier. I’ll admit that this one might be getting even more eye rolls than the social media and tv. I’m like, I don’t know. I feel like these are, these are all like, oh, Leah, these are painful, but, but simultaneously.

[00:07:27] We do only have so many days, and I think about how I wanna use them, you know? And sometimes I’m just mentally exhausted. I just don’t have the energy. And so I’m like, I just want to zone out. But are there better ways that I can do it? Because I don’t think we can be on all the time. That’s not sustainable.

[00:07:47] But I also worry for myself, for my family, that sometimes I’m allowing too much of this time. You know, when I’m looking over my life, I’m not gonna say, oh, that, that had a great return on investment. Waking up earlier though, I think is one of those things that is so, so powerful. Becoming a morning person has been huge for me, and I’ve had all different seasons of life where my, my morning has started later or earlier, but here are some of the biggest things.

[00:08:18] Waking up with the kids instead of before the kids is the actual worst. I mean, it’s seriously the worst because you wake up and you instantly feel behind, like they’re, they’re nudging you and they’re like, mom, I’m hungry, mom, I need you. And you just, you wake up behind when you wake up before the kids and you are already at least dressed.

[00:08:39] It is so powerful. I. Being able to be dressed, have my exercise already done, it makes me feel like I am this productivity ninja. Like I cannot tell you how many times when the kids were little, especially, and I would go to wake them up and I would, you know, I’ve already had woken up, said my prayers, read my scriptures, did my workout, taken a shower, gotten dressed.

[00:08:58] I was like, I am incredible. I mean, I just felt so amazing and I could tell you on the flip side, on those days where the kids came and like, you know, nudged me on the side of the bed, I don’t know any other way to say it. It is the actual worst. It, it just, there’s no way you’d start your day feeling amazing when, when that’s, that’s the beginning.

[00:09:22] Unless it was a really, really long night. Right. Because sometimes it’s just a really long night cuz the kids have been up and then, okay, you, you get as many, as much sleep as you can mama. But you know what I mean? It’s, it’s the balance. It’s finding where you are in the season and working to. Make ourselves feel better.

[00:09:39] Sometimes we need every moment of the sleep cuz it was a really long night and that’s totally different. And sometimes we’ve just gotten into a bad habit where we’re staying up way too late, probably cause we’re watching TV or scrolling on social media. So then we don’t wake up early. We end up waking up way later than we meant to, and it’s the cycle that’s really not serving us.

[00:09:58] Okay. Number four, batching tasks. So, This could be chores. Like you actually let the clutter build up a little bit and then you do it all in one 20 minute power clean versus all day you’re, you know, you’re working on it. Um, or it could be taking one or two days to do laundry instead of doing laundry all week.

[00:10:18] That’s how I do it. I, I know there are so many people who say like, do one load a week. I I it, and this is finding what works for you. That does not work for me. That sounds horrible because. Despise laundry. So for me it’s like I wanna get it all done in one day and it’s easy because I have, my kids each do their own laundry and so I’m just responsible for like the dish towels and uh, my husband and i’s laundry.

[00:10:45] And so I can do that basically in two loads. I just. Decided to stop over complicating laundry and was like, if you’re white or pretty white, you’re in there. If you are not, you’re in the other load. And that’s just how it’s gonna work. Um, okay. You could also like batch your, your bill payment, right? So instead of paying bills one off, I just make a stack right at my computer and then.

[00:11:11] Every couple weeks or so, or every week, I like open ’em all up and do ’em all at once. Another thing is, is setting up automatic payments. I do that for as many of them as I can and then boom, that’s even more time saved. Cuz now you don’t even have to do anything. They’re like, Done for you. Um, let’s see.

[00:11:27] Okay, what else? So you could batch email work tasks. So I batch podcast development and recordings and, and I batch, um, client meetings and content creation just to name a few of the things that, that I love batching for the. Kids, you can also look at where you could batch as well. So I remember, um, when they were really little, we were having some struggles with like morning outfits, choosing that was making us late.

[00:11:54] And so we started picking out all the outfits. On Sunday nights, we would pick out all five outfits. Set ’em all up so that each day they would just grab whichever of the outfits they wanted for that day. And it was so much easier. You could also do it with lunches. I did this with lunches. I couldn’t do it with everything cuz you can’t make like a sandwich on Monday.

[00:12:15] I think it’s gonna be good Friday, right? But I could have all the snacks and everything else kind of ready so that it was like, okay, all I have to do is add in that one last thing. So just simple things that simplify your simple things that simplify your life. I like that. Right? Simple things that simplify your life.

[00:12:31] Another just side note is if you are almost finished with something, just get it done. Don’t stop. I mean, sometimes we have to because that’s just real life and you’re like, oh my gosh, I’ve gotta go pick up the kids or whatever. It’s, but. If you’re close and you can just finish the thing because leaving it and starting it all up there is this timeframe of like having to start something back up.

[00:12:55] That that does take more time. So it might be five minutes to finish it, but it’s gonna be 15 to 20 minutes if you have to leave and start up just to like get yourself back in the zone. Okay? Number five, stay at your kids’ practices or activities. This is only if it works for you. Sometimes we’re spending a lot of time dropping the kids off and then driving 15 minutes back to the house, trying to do some things, and then drive the 15 minutes to go pick ’em up.

[00:13:24] What if you rearranged and planned, what could I do sitting on the bleachers or in my car or over at a, at a little coffee shop nearby that could give me a little bit more? There was a time when my kids were doing swim over the summer and we lived 30 minutes away from the pool, so I, you know, would drive them to the pool and I’m like, I am not driving all the way home for 15 minutes to then come back.

[00:13:54] So I ended up choosing to use that time as my exercise time. So I drop ’em off, lace up my tennis shoes, and then go for a run while they were doing swim. It’s just looking for how can we use this time? Maybe you, you bring something fun that you’ve been wanting to learn, like maybe this could be your time, like special time where you get to use it to just catch up with friends, call people, read a book that you’re loving and it, it almost becomes like this, this sacred special you mama time where you’re like, I am.

[00:14:29] And it’s glorious, right? So, so just looking at what that could look like. Okay. Six, five helpful gadgets. I have Fred and George, and Fred is my vacuum mop, and George is my Roomba. So cleaning looks like. Uh, George being turned on every night and vacuuming the entire downstairs while we are asleep. And Fred being able to, or sorry, and George being able to like, mop the upstairs or whatever it might be.

[00:15:00] So it’s just looking for like these helpful gadgets. The Roomba is for sure one of those. Um, I’ll link in the show notes to all the things that I have and I’m, I’m talking about for sure. 

[00:15:12] An Instapot, your crockpot, are you utilizing those, the air fryer, like some of these things that just speed things up? I have this chopper that one of my girlfriends introduced to me, and it is so amazing. I just put the onion or the carrots or the potatoes or whatever it is in the chopper and just slice down and it’s.

[00:15:31] Done in a second and I used to hand chop everything that, hold on. Gadget is amazing. I will link to it cuz it is so awesome. But just what kind of gadgets can you use? And instead of looking at it like, oh, I mean, do I really need that though, Kate? We can all question that. Like I will, I will say buying the, the Roomba was really expensive, especially because I wanted one that self emptied.

[00:15:59] I realized my first one didn’t self empty and that was its own problem. Cause it constantly stopped and I’d be like, what? What happened? And realized it was full. And so yes, it was an investment, but to get to wake up and be like, oh, the whole downstairs is vacuum. This feels so nice. And I didn’t take the 15 or 20 minutes to do.

[00:16:18] You start stacking that, that let’s say it’s 20 minutes. Okay? Let’s be honest, I so don’t vacuum every night. Not even remotely close, but say I vacuumed twice a week, that’s probably wouldn’t even be true either, but still that would be like 40 minutes. If you are like one of those amazing, you like vacuum or mop every night before you sleep, how much time would you save?

[00:16:43] What an incredible in. And how could you spend that time Instead, could you like cuddle more with your hubby or with your kids or read another store with them or read your own book in bed? Or take a bubble bath. I dunno. You deserve it. Like what could you do with that? Okay, seven. Simplifying meals. This could be cooking advanced.

[00:17:04] I’m gonna be honest, I’ve never really been good at that one, but for those who aren’t, that’s what that could look like. Making double and freezing half. That is something that I’ve been doing for the last like six months, and it’s been really great. Every time I make something that would do well frozen, I just double the recipe and then I put the other half.

[00:17:22] Into a Ziploc bag and put it out in the freezer and it’s fantastic cause I’m like, yay. That was two dinners. I feel so good. Especially coming into, you know, when you have fall and you’re making more soups, that works incredibly well using meal prep kits. I’ve talked about that a million times, but that really simplified meals because I am not good at remembering the sit down and meal plan.

[00:17:43] And so when you’re like, hey, Here we go, these three look good. And the box comes, that helps. And then we can go even simpler and be like, call DoorDash or make every Friday night pizza night. How can you just simplify mealtime? And for me, this looks like having kind of the same things that I eat for breakfast and lunch.

[00:18:03] I really don’t. Devi. Much. I, I’m not a big breakfast person. I’m not a big lunch person. I love dinner. So dinner has more creativity, but to simplify my life and to save time, breakfast and lunch are just like the same things. Um, breakfast usually looks like daily harvest with a scoop of protein Powder.

[00:18:22] Lunch is either something Addy made for me, which is always really exciting. Or I rotate between like two things and, and that’s lunch and then dinners ideally. Each of the kids cooking one night at a week. So that’s three nights down. Then take out for another. That’s four. Um, we call it fend for yourself night, but I recently heard it called Yo-Yo Night, you’re on your own.

[00:18:46] And I thought that was so cute. So if you’re introducing it, you should call it Yo Cause that’s way cuter than fend for yourself. Um, okay, so then you’ve got Yo-Yo Night, which that’s, I think we’re at five. Is that five? And that leaves two nights that I cook. Talk about like me simplifying, mealtime. Okay.

[00:19:03] Eight. Stop grocery shopping. Unless you absolutely love it. I know there are people who like you. Love that time. Well then don’t stop. That brings you joy. Go for it. I am not in that category. I do not in any way enjoy grocery. The average shopper spends 53 hours a year in the grocery store. That’s assuming that you are in and out in the average of 41 minutes.

[00:19:29] So I don’t know about you, but that’s not what mine looks like because I am like, okay, I gotta run to the first store, and then I’m running to Costco, and then there’s the drive time in between and it’s just, it takes so much time and then I have to load it into my car and then I have to unpack it. But if all you had to do was just unpack it, it is, it’s amazing.

[00:19:48] It’s wonderful. If you love the alone time, if this is your like, no, Leah, you don’t understand, this is like, this is my time. Then take it. That is for sure. But if you don’t let this go, stop doing the grocery shopping. Yes. Yes. I do pay a little bit more. Per item to use Instacart. Okay. But I also save a ton because I don’t end up me at the grocery store being like, that looks good and that looks good and that looks good, and I’m grabbing all kinds of things, putting ’em in my cart that were not on the list.

[00:20:22] So in a way I might be like spending just a, a little bit more I have compared and looked. And I will say it like, yes, I am. Between my time and the amount of excess things that end up in my cart, especially if I was hungry when I went, it is so worth it. Okay. The last thing that I add to this one is like, if Instacart can’t deliver it, then Amazon Prime can’t.

[00:20:48] Right? Like I just. Utilize these resources. Stop grocery shopping unless you love it. That’s my caveat. Okay, number nine, outsource. I have an entire two episodes dedicated to this, which I will link in the show notes. Those episodes are an entire paid training that I normally do, and it explains everything about outsourcing.

[00:21:08] I have to say, I’m so proud of those episodes. So if this is something that you’re like, Ooh, I would love to do it, or I’d love to be better at it, go to those. But bottom line, there are people who are better and faster than you. And even if they’re not, it’s still not you doing it. So could you outsource your cleaning?

[00:21:28] Could you outsource your laundry? Could you outsource your scheduling? Could you outsource whatever it is that is the task that you positively loath that you like, never want to do? And here’s another reason to really consider outsourcing. A Harvard researcher reported that people who spent money to buy themselves time, and I’m a huge, huge advocate of this.

[00:21:54] I spend money to buy time. I have been doing this for a decade now and, and. Well, let me finish what he said. He said, people who spend money to buy themselves time, such as by outsourcing, dislike tasks, reported greater overall life satisfaction. I would like to say amen to that, that I ha I I don’t think we needed a Harvard researcher to like solve that because any of us can just try it and figure out, we feel a whole lot happier when we don’t have to do the things that we loathe, but, He’s backing me up and, and, and I’m backing him up because I have experienced that too.

[00:22:29] And our very last one, number 10. This one I think is gonna surprise you, but I am telling you this is a truth. If I had Harvard backing me, I’d make them research it and prove that I’m right. But create breaks. We need pauses, we need rest times. Sometimes I call ’em recesses. We need breaks in between we.

[00:22:53] Actually use all of our time better. When we have those breaks, we will be more productive. We will manage our time better, we will have a better mindset. All of the things. So go, go going, it leaves us more easily distracted. There’s no question, because we’re just mentally. So build in transition times.

[00:23:15] Okay. Make yourself pause, get up, move around for, uh, a few minutes, come back. It is amazing how much we are able to focus in and get added clarity when we bring ourselves back to something. So if you’ve been doing something for, for quite a long time, get yourself up and move. When you are going from thing to thing to thing, if you’re listening to this, you know you are someone who’s like, I need more time.

[00:23:44] I need more time. Part of how we can stop feeling that franticness, that chaotic feeling, that’s you’re always rushing, is building in a pause, a transition, a few moments in between your activities and your tasks. I am telling you, you will feel like you have more. By inserting, adding, implementing, scheduling in pauses, breaks, moments where you get to just take a breath and then go into the next thing.

[00:24:24] Okay, there you go. That is this episode That is 10 ways to Help You Save time, and why are we doing it? So that we can use the time that we have for what matters most to us, not so that we can mindlessly, numb out, veg out, scroll out, whatever, so that we can spend it in ways that when we look back we say, that felt so good.

[00:24:47] When you, when you lay your head down on the pillow at night, you think. It was a really good day. That’s how I want us to think about getting that return on our investment in how we spend our time. All right, I’ll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening to The Balancing Busy podcast with me, Leah Rele.

[00:25:08] Remember, you are meant to live alive. That lights you up and we are all capable. We can do this. You can do this. So go have an incredible.