7 Secrets of Managing Extreme Busyness

I am one of those people who has a lot of irons in the fire. It’s the way I’m wired up, and while I do not have the breadth of activities I did 6 years ago, I still have a lot going on.

I have been extremely busy over the last few months, and it is about to get worse. (Everything will ease up in June) Several friends and acquaintances are amazed at what I have going on, and asked me how I manage it. So here are my 7 secrets of managing extreme busyness.

Use Appliances

Appliances were once hailed as the labor-saving devices of the future. They can be very helpful by taking over chores, freeing you up to do other things. Here are appliances that I use every week:

• My coffee maker with an appliance timer. I set it up when I am cooking the night before, and my coffee is ready to go when I get up. This pushes me into high gear first thing in the morning.
• My Roomba. The robot vacuum does my floors for me after I leave for work. I still have to do some sweeping, but the majority of it is done for me. My roomba charges in my office, so I set it up as I head out to work.
• My crock pot. I have discovered several wonderful sources for recipes for crockpot. During the week I go for ones that can cook a full 8 hours, and put it in before I leave for work. During the weekends I have husband or daughter pull the crock out of the fridge at the right time and start it up.
• My rice cooker and bread machine. We generally have rice or fresh bread for our starch with a meal. I set these up in the morning, and they are ready to go when dinner arrives.
• My oven’s timed baker. For those days when I don’t have a crock meal going, I will pull something out of the freezer. This goes in the oven, generally 1 to 2 hours. I use my oven timer and put the dish in when I get home from work, then set it up to turn on and cook for the correct time.

Minimize Prep Time

One of the things I strive to do is minimize how much time I need to prepare. This can mean everything from pre-measuring ingredients to having things ready to go. All involve putting things together so they are ready to be used.

• Pre-measured ingredients. Once a month, I make up bread mix. I measure out the dry ingredients I need for a loaf of bread into plastic bags. It takes little more time to measure out the ingredients for 8 loaves than it does for one. When it comes time to make the bread, I dump the contents into the pan, add the water, and turn on the machine.
• Wardrobe. On Sunday evenings I look at the weather and pull together my outfits for the next work week. This includes everything from undergarments to socks to accessories. I put everything on one hanger in a separate area of the closet. Getting dressed in the morning is just a matter of grabbing the hanger and putting on the clothes.
• My bags. I keep things together by bags: work, school, Girl Scouts. When I get home from work, I pull my planner, notebook and wallet out of my work backpack and put it in a small basket. That basket stays with me during the evening, and when I need to go somewhere else, I put the contents in the appropriate bag. The contents of the bag stay in the designated bag unless I am actively working with it, and then gets put back immediately when done. This means I can pick up and go at a moment’s notice.

Eliminate Shopping

I rely on online stores and services to do my shopping for me. This saves the time for me having to run to various stores as well as the time spent stuck in traffic.

• Buy in bulk. In the few cases when I need to shop, I buy in bulk. We stock up on everything we use over a three-month window, including paper goods, cat litter, dry goods, spices, breads, toiletries and meat at our local bulk retailer. It takes time to split the meat up and get it into the freezer (I freeze the bread, too), but it saves me a lot of time (and money) on grocery shopping.
• Order groceries online. I no longer have a personal shopper, but I do use the online ordering system of our local grocery store. I put in an order, drive up, and they load my car. It’s a bit more expensive to do it this way, but when you factor in my time, it comes out ahead.
• Amazon. For just about everything outside of clothing, I go to Amazon. They now have a bulk option so I can buy things like shampoo and soap and minimize the shipping costs. Even some dry goods apply to this program, so it saves me a lot of time.
• Gift cards. No flames here – I have consulted with my niece and nephews, and this is the gift of choice. For holidays and birthdays, I buy gift cards and put them in a card.
• Print at home cards. Standing in a card shop takes up a ton of time. Factor in the number of birthdays per year, and it is a huge investment. Instead, I make greeting cards through AmericanGreeting.com. Quality cards I can print from home…or I can have them print and mail it.

Hire Help

When I am short on time, I hire people to help me. I use Angie’s List to help me find people for work around the house, and the neighborhood teenagers who like to pick up a bit of cash.

• Housework. I pay my daughter to do my weekly cleaning. She gets a list, and performs the tasks. Not only does it give me some time to do other things, it gives her cash and also provides valuable training for her future life.
• Gutter cleaning. We have a ton of pine trees around our house, and that means a ton of pine needles in our gutters. I hire someone to come out and clean those out for me so I don’t have to spend a day wrestling with the ladder.
• Yard work. There are teenagers in my neighborhood that are always looking for cash. They don’t mind mowing/raking/weeding, I don’t mind being excused. We negotiate a rate ahead of time, and have always done a good job.

Automate Computer Tasks

One of the things that sucks up a large amount of my time is computer tasks. I automate these as far as possible.

• Auto responders. I have programmed additions to Gmail so that mail dropped into a certain label will have a specific response sent to it. This takes care of 90% of my business email.
• PC scheduler. Built into every PC is a tool called Windows Scheduler. I use this in conjunction with batch files so that most of the PC maintenance is done without my interference, including local backups, syncing music across the machines, and basic cleanup.
• IFTTT. This web service does an amazing amount of automation for me, particularly with regard to the blog. It pulls articles from my feed reader into the place where I process them for Open Loop articles. It retweets my mentions. It sends me the daily Dilbert to my inbox. It notifies me when a post goes live on the blog (so I can catch those that don’t go out at the right time)

Designate Days

I designate certain days of the week to tackle specific tasks. This gives me the power of batching and eliminates tasks from constant attention.

• Trip Paper Thursdays. I currently process and approve the trip papers for my Girl Scout service unit. I programmed Gmail so that the emails that come into a specific address get added to my task list to be processed on Thursdays. Until Thursday comes, I don’t even see them.
• Desk Mondays. Mondays are my designated desk time. I use this time to pay bills, plan menus and shopping lists, answer correspondence and otherwise clear the desk.
• Housework Thursdays Even for the weeks when I pay my daughter to do the weekly chores, they get done on Thursdays. This coincides with our trash pickup, and sets the stage for a relaxing weekend.

Plan

My biggest weapon for being super-busy is to plan.

• Weekly. Every Sunday I sit down and look at the time I have committed for the week ahead. This gives me an idea of what other things I can take on.
• Daily. Every night, or first thing in the morning, I make my daily plan. This allows me to write my tasks out – which gives me a better feel than just glancing at a list. It also allows me to move undone tasks from the day before and see if I can get them done, or if I need to abandon them.
• The Sprint. During my extreme busyness, I use my Productivity Sprint worksheets. I will take the daily task list from above, and schedule out my slots of free time. Because this tends to be exhausting if you do it more than three days, I make sure that every sprint ends by 9pm.

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There you have my methods of coping with extreme busyness. What do you do? Share below.

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Photo by Neil Kremer. Licensed under Creative Commons.