ELIMINATE … REDUCE … AUTOMATE … SCHEDULE … EXTERNALISE. ©

If you haven’t read part 1. Start there and come back.. we’ll wait. x

REDUCE

If we can’t get rid of something altogether the next step is to reduce. How much we have, how long it takes, how often we do it, how much it costs.  The aim is always to save time, space, money, effort. You do a big grocery shop every week. Do it fortnightly. Fortnightly.. do it every 3 or 4 weeks. YES. You can. Better yet do it online and have it delivered your time is likely worth more than the delivery cost and you won’t buy things you don’t need or get side tracked in other shops along the way. You have clothes and shoes, kids toys in more than one place… time to cull. 27 photo albums .. can you scan most of those and reduce that number. If you think you need more storage space – it’s time for things to go.  If you or your children are in so many extra curricular activities that you’re spending hours in cars and outside the home with reduced family time and increased take out meals. Time to reassess. If what you want to do isn’t happening if you’re not getting the time you want with the people you want it with but you’re spending time in gyms, meetings, committees, unpaid work hours, activities. You’re just prioritising wrong. Stuff has to go…. what’s it gonna be?

There is more than one way of reducing so pick what works for you. For instance. If you have a small family or just you. Batch your washing into days.. say…  Thursday nights or even twice a week. One night clothes, one night sheets, towels etc. I’m a fan of always trying to keep your weekends free if you’re in paid employment. But if the weekend suits you – do that. Here you are reducing the number of times you wash. If you have a large family. You may want to do a load most nights of the week so that you wash more often but you can wash, dry and get it away quickly rather than try and batch it like above and lose your whole Saturday because of the amount you have.

Before even doing this though. You also will want to seriously look at how much clothing you and your family has ( go back to elimination) and how often it gets washed. Unless your kids got in the mud, or you husband is in construction or it was a hot and sweaty kind of day most clothes can be worn more than once. Besides washing it will save wear and tear on your clothes from unnecessary washing and money when they need to be replaced less often and while you’re at it only use half to 3/4 of the washing powder/liquid they tell you… it will be more than enough. Try it for yourself and see. Again this will save money.

Social media and emails etc. Where do we even start. Maybe we save that for another post.

This is just a couple of areas. If there’s something specific you want me to address. Let me know. Automate. Schedule. Externalise. We’ll look at next time.

 

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