Posts Tagged ‘save time’

Time Paralleling, Multi Tasking, Maximizing Time

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Time Paralleling, Multi-Tasking

What is time Paralleling according to my definition?  Time Paralleling is a way of maximizing your time, a form of controlled multi-tasking.  I define Time paralleling as running more than one activity at a time in parallel, so as to maximize your time, and to be efficient.  The most common example I could imagine that the average person would understand is a chef put in a complex cooking situation trying to juggle, or multi-task everything he/she does.  This chef would likely have 4-6 top burners cooking at all times.  The chef would have an oven with 2-3 shelves, and likely counter space with 5-10 different ingredients or foods to prepare.

     This chef, with there 10 different foods, different temperatures, different preparation times, different heating elements, etc all have to multi-task at the same time with everything they are doing.  They are extremely prepared and focused on how long everything takes to complete.  What makes it more challenging is that preparing foods, cooking on the burners, and cooking in the oven all take different amounts of time.  What’s more is each food item is at different stages of being prepared from being frozen to being almost done.  They have to keep everything started and slowed, or sped up so that everything is prepared and comes together at the same time.  This chef does a tremendous job of paralleling the time of each food they are cooking, this is a skill someone would go to school for.

      How would the average person use time paralleling in their average day life?  You would use it with running errands, you would use it at home with chores.  You would use it with the time leverage of other people quite often.  Let me use some basic examples of how someone would use it in their every day life.  Whether you are at a Laundromat, or doing laundry at home, you simply shouldn’t sit in front of a washer and dryer waiting for the load to be done.  Bring an educational book, bring educational MP3 audio.  If you are at home just choose something else to do.  I am sure at home you naturally do something else already, but if you are at a Laundromat than just bring something educational to do.   If you have a large food item in the oven, or even something in the microwave for even as little as 8 minutes, don’t just sit there and stare at it through the window, make sure you are working on other things at all times, your time is valuable.

      I think the above examples are pretty obvious, and I am sure you are already doing these things, so let me discuss some paralleling that’s not as obvious.  When I am talking to others in business, I often talk to them by text message, email, or instant message.  It’s not uncommon for people to take 5-10 minutes to get back to me even when they are engaged in a conversation, just simply get on more conversations, or fill that time with emails.  Don’t get too busy where you aren’t focusing, or giving good answers.   While you are waiting for a 25 minute oil change, make some phone calls, bring a book.  While you are waiting in line at the post office, make some calls.  TV shows and movies often have 5-minute commercial breaks these days.  Waiting 10 minutes for your favorite TV show to start, have something else going.  One of the best examples I can give you is listening to educational tapes or audio while driving.  To maximize this time is simply foolish.

       The reason that time paralleling is so important is that your neighbors, your friends are doing it to some degree, you need to do it more to keep ahead of the rest of the population.  This is not a game of keeping ahead of the jones’. This is not a game of showing off with material things.  95% of the population is broke by retirement.  You can’t afford to spend your time the same way as everyone else, you must be constantly watching it, working on it, and paralleling.  Over the course of a week, you will find that this time paralleling will save you a large amount of time.  You can also be doing something while you are waiting for the fax to go through for 5-10 minutes.

     If you are at a sit down restaurant by yourself and waiting 20 minutes, read a book, make a few important calls.  Even one step better, get a bluetooth hands free phone to use.  You can grocery stop while making calls on your phone. You can walk a mile while making phone calls.  Don’t just lay on the couch cramping your hand holding a phone.  Make yourself active, use your hands free cell phone with bluetooth and do almost any hands on activity at the same time, maximize your time.  Many people call this mutli-tasking.  I am fine with multi-tasking as long as you don’t become inefficient at it, and provide bad service or upset people.

 

      In closing, I believe time management, and time paralleling will become increasingly important in the future, As everyone has increased access to maximize it through new technologies, we will see who makes the best use of their time over the years.  You are familiar with the famous quote about a penny saved being a penny earned, why not a second saved be a penny earned.  Time is money!

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Save Fuel, Save Time, Save Money

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Save Time, Fuel, Money

If you stop to really think about how much time is wasted driving, I believe you will start to realize how much total time adds up over a week, a month, a year. For example, let’s take something as simple as picking up an item from someone, who is in a city that’s 30-45 minutes from you. Could they meet you half way? Could you meet them at a place on their end of town? How much does this 45 minutes really cost you in your life? Actually much more than you think, let me explain.

Let’s look at a simple component of driving 45 minutes to a place, and 45 minutes back. Some people will say, it’s their lunch hour, so they have time. You need to think of every aspect. If Fuel is near $4/gallon, and you spend 90 minutes on the road, let’s assume you are driving 80 miles for that trip in total. If your vehicle gets 20 miles per gallon, that’s 4 gallons of gas consumed for that trip, that’s $16. For someone that makes $10-$12/hr that’s well over 1 hour of additional overtime needed this week to make up for that. In fact you will have to work as long in hours as the trip itself just to pay for it, actually much more, keep reading. Also when you learn later to make your time valuable, you could have done something else with that 90 minutes, so that opportunity cost was lost.

I will explain opportunity cost more in future writings. $16 only is the cost of the fuel itself, if you take possibly another 25 cents per gallon for wear and tear, or in other words, you are using up your vehicle and can expect car repairs later, so 80 miles x 25 cents per mile=$20. Are you adding this up? We have $16 for fuel+$20 for vehicle usage(future car repairs) and also opportunity cost where you could have done something else. We still haven’t counted time spent on getting lost at least a little, you may not get lost this time, but maybe you will detour slightly 1 time every 10 trips you make on average. We have not talked about the time it takes to sit down and type out an address and write down, or print directions on the computer from a mapping website like mapquest.com

So what’s the alternative to this $36 up to an unlimited amount of lost money for this simple trip? How about a 41 cent USPS stamp to have it mailed to you. Which they may pay for anyways. Yes, I know that takes a few days by mail, it takes time, but in most cases this is time that shouldn’t affect your life too much. How about if someone faxes you what you need? Buy a fax machine, they cost very little these days. If you don’t have a fax machine, go to Kinko’s, or a local similar office supply store, even that trip isn’t nearly half the price. How about if someone emails you what you need? These days there are so many alternatives to driving so far away. Also filling your day with busy activities like this only stresses you out over time, if you have enough errands to do, stress as you know causes various health issues later in life after a period of time. Don’t just always feel rushed, don’t just fill your day with busy work.

By having someone mail you, email you, or fax you instead of going to pick up whatever you wanted, you have now just saved a minimum of 90 minutes. I would guess this one time saving tip could be used 3 times per week on average at a minimum of 1 hour per trip, so that’s probably 3 hours per week saved per person for this idea alone. In the example above someone that makes $12/hr just spent $36 for making that 90 minute trip based on the example above and that doesn’t even include lost pay of $18 if they had to punch out, off the time clock, for 90 minutes. Is it any wonder now why the middle class never seem to catch up with their lives, and are frantic and far too busy in life.

The Middle class feels like they are on a treadmill their entire life and never seem to be able to catch up. That person that just punched out, off the time clock, and drove that trip spent $36 + $18 in lost pay, that’s $54 in money spent because of that one trip that could have been done for 41 cents or zero to you, free by email, fax, or other sources. Maybe even something that can be done the next time you are in the area. $54 total for someone who probably makes $80 in an entire day after taxes?

You can see how time choices and wasting your time would be the equivalent of taking 3 steps backwards and 1 step forward. You can’t catch up, you will just keep getting more and more behind in life. Eventually this leads to going to seminars and spending big money on get rich quick type of stuff because you figure that’s all you have time for. Seminars and trainers themselves are fine, just don’t get in the get rich quick trap. Don’t be as concerned about getting rich quick, be more focused about going in the right direction, even if it’s a little slower because we all know that going quickly full steam ahead in the wrong direction can be disasterous.

Think of this scenario, let’s say you were so rushed, that you didn’t pay attention to your directions or didn’t look at a highway sign. Let’s say you drove 60 minutes North which was the wrong way on the highway. The question is how much time did this mistake cost you? If your answer is 60 minutes, then you’ll like this blog, I have some great time ideas to teach you J. The answer is 2 hours (120 minutes) because had you been traveling South is the correct direction, you’d already be 60 minutes south, but having made the mistake, you now have to backtrack 60 minutes to get back to your starting point, then travel an additional 60 minutes to get back to where you would have been, you just lost a minimum of 2 hours you can’t make up, unless you speed, and that will be another writing J.

All this talk about fuel prices, and time has got me now thinking about how much our choices may now change from Flying on a plane vs. traveling by vehicle. No question that airline prices have gone up some because of fuel, but Fuel for cars are up about 100% over the past 12-18 months. If the trip is long enough, it may just make sense to take a plane. For example I am in Minneapolis and have driven one time to Chicago, and I can tell you I will likely always fly in the future. This flying vs. driving concept I will explore in my future writings, so stay tuned. Remember Time is Money!

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