Doc Snipes' Top 15 Time Saving Tips | Save Time and Get Things Done

Hey there everybody and welcome to this video on my top 15 plus one bonus time saving tips. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. Number one menus and meal prep. When I sat down and I looked at where I spent a lot of my time, it was deciding what to eat, deciding what to make, figuring out if I had all the ingredients, making it and cleaning up after it. If you have a set of menus, whether it's the same thing, you eat the same thing every week, which I probably would get bored with, or you have a month or two month menu that you use in rotation, having a menu can help save you from some of that time where you're debating and again trying to figure out if you've got all the ingredients because you can do your shopping off of your menu. Meal prep I've talked about before. You've got your menu, you know what you're going to eat this week. So you can pre prepare the majority of the things one day. So you're making all the dishes dirty only one time. And then when it comes time to actually make the meals throughout the week, you can just put everything together on people's plates, plate or in one casserole dish or whatever it is and heat it up so you don't have that ginormous mess that you've got to clean up every single night. So that can be really helpful. One dish meals can be super helpful, especially when my kids were little. One dish meals, casseroles, slow cooker meals, those tended to be a staple in our household. And you can do a modified one dish meal where you make a slow cooker meal and then you have rice or pasta or something that you pre prepared that you can serve with it. So you can do a little bit of monkeying around here. But again it saves a lot of time having to clean up multiple cooking dishes and ovens and all that stuff. Stuff you can make calls while cooking. If you know that you have to make some call and you're going to end up being on hold forever, whether it's to your insurance company or well, often it's the insurance company for some reason. You can make that call while you're cooking and put it on speaker. Then when you finally get off eternal hold, it's easy to get your question answered or get whatever it is resolved and then go back to cooking. But you weren't just sitting, sitting there twiddling your thumbs for 45 minutes while you listen to their very crappy music fridge lists. This is really helpful, especially if there Are multiple people living in your household. We have a whiteboard on our refrigerator and when people run out of something, they put it on the whiteboard. So I know what to get at the store or I know what to put on the shopping list and order to have delivered to us. In the video on prioritization, I talked a lot about Click and pull. We spend an inordinate amount of time shopping, going through stores, waiting in lines, blah blah, blah. Click and pull is a godsend in terms of time saving. Have your order at whatever store you go to, your grocery store or wherever, and keep that running list. You can modify that list as you need it, order stuff, pay for it online. You know that takes about a tenth of the time as it takes to go and do all the shopping yourself, show up and they bring your stuff out to you. How awesome is that? It also keeps you from getting distracted from other shiny things that might attract your attention in the store. Run all your errands on the same day. It saves all the time getting from your house to the store or to where all the stores are, and it tends to keep you more focused. Pre select outfits for work or the gym or both. For the week, I have my work clothes on a hanger and then I put my gym clothes in a cloth bag that I hang around the hanger. So I know that I've got both sets of clothes clothes for that day. However, affording seven pairs of good gym shoes that would be really expensive. So I only have one pair of really good gym shoes. I do have one pair of cheapy gym shoes that I keep in the car just in case I forget my shoes. But we'll get to that in a minute. But pre selecting these outfits again saves me time from having to sit there and mull what should I wear? What should I wear? I've got seven things to choose from and I just pull it out and I go. When I make those selections, I've already looked at the weather, determined whether I need long sleeves or short sleeves or what have you. Don't have to do that every single day if you do it once. Make lists. I love lists. My husband will tell you I love lists. Packing lists. I have a list in my briefcase, I have a list in my gym bag. I have a list when I go shopping. It saves you a lot of time. Instead of thinking about, oh, what do I need to pack? Do I have everything? Just go through your checklist really fast. Same thing with to do lists. If you're not one of those people who schedules everything in having a to do list that you can look at can help you stay focused. I have a daily to do list, but then I also have an ongoing list of things that need to be done at work and around the farm that when I have free time, when I don't have something scheduled in, I can look at it and go, oh yeah, I've got an extra 30 minutes. I can just go ahead and do that right now. Have an email or. And or social media blackout time. Email. I check it when I get to the office in the morning and sometimes I check it before I leave the office in the afternoon. I do not check it throughout the day. If I check it throughout the day, then I get sidetracked with other things and it makes me much less efficient. So around my office, they know that I will check my email first thing in the morning, but if you don't have something to me by first thing in the morning, you got to reach me by other means if it's urgent. I also do not go on social media except for to do posts that I've got to do for work during the workday. I just, I know that if I do that then I may get sucked in and I will lose a lot of time during my workday. I have a blackout. And that includes YouTube dumping ground. I don't know what else to call it. Some people have a foyer, some people have a mud room. I encourage you to have a place that you put your purse, your briefcase, your gym bag, your backpack, whatever it is that has the stuff that you need for the day, leave it there so you know in the morning that your, your purse and your keys and what have you are all there in that dumping ground. Instead of having to run around the house and going, did anybody see my briefcase? Did anybody see my backpack or whatever it is that you're looking for? Please remember to like subscribe and share. It really helps. Another tip, I mentioned the shoes earlier. Have spare keys around just in case you do misplace those keys. Because without our keys, a lot of times it's hard to actually get to those things like our job that we need to do and it can be very stressful. That just causes you to dump all kinds of cortisol and adrenaline unnecessarily. If you're rushing around the house trying to find your keys because you got an 8am meeting. Glasses. If you wear glasses. I have my current prescription glasses and then I have what I call my backup glasses and those are my last prescription. My vision hasn't changed. That Much. It's changed a little bit, but it hasn't changed that much. So I can use those as my backup glasses. I keep those at work. If I forget my good glasses at the house, which happens, then I have my backup glasses at work, that will at least get me through the day. And shoes, if especially workout shoes, most of the time you're walking out the door to go to work, you got your work shoes on. But it can work the same way if you go to the gym first. Having a pair of dress shoes in your car that you can put on in case you forget your proper shoes, if you forget your tennis shoes, have some cheapy tennis shoes in in the car. If you forget your dress shoes, have some cheapy dress shoes in the car. Yeah, they're probably not your favorite, but it's a whole lot better to have a cheap pair of dress shoes on with your business suit than sneakers and you feel better about yourself if your outfit is at least, you know, in the same ballpark. Telehealth, Think about how much time and 13 mobile vets, they kind of go together. Think about how much time you spend sitting waiting in doctor's offices and veterinarians offices. A lot of time. Sometimes things need to be taken care of. But if you establish yourself with a particular doctor, then telehealth can be very helpful. Some of those services that claim to be telehealth, you call them and you want them to look at this freckle or you've got this concern. And pretty much they say, yeah, you don't need to go to the emergency room, but I'm not going to diagnose you. You need to see your primary care. And you're like, well, what was the point of that? But if you get set up with a primary care doctor that does do telehealth, then a lot of times it's a whole lot more effective because you can call them and say, hey Doc, this freckle I showed you when I was in at my annual checkup, can you take a look? If I send you a picture of it, can you take a look at it again? And they can do it so you don't have to go in and wait in their waiting room. You can be putzing around until they call you for your telehealth appointment. Mobile vets are similar. Instead of having to go home and get Fido and get Fido all stressed out and drive there and wait and wait and wait, mobile vets come to your house. There are so many veterinarians in a Lot of places I know our place is that way that mobile vets really don't charge that much more if any more than doing a standard in office visit. And that can be a great option for saving you time at the farm. Obviously we have a vet that comes out to do our large animals, but I've always preferred to have a mobile vet to come out and do our small animals as well because it keeps them from getting exposed to other sick animals. It makes it a lot less stressful for them because they don't have to get in the car and go to the vet. There's just a lot of benefits to it. But time saving is a big one. Have one set of dishes that everybody uses and I mean one set of dishes for every person. This means that after breakfast you have to wash your silverware, your plate or bowl and your cup so you have something ready for lunch. And if each person only has one set of dishes, then they get in the habit of that. What I like to do at our house is we have a two chamber sink. I have at the beginning of the meal I run hot water and soap in one and I have rinse water in the other one. So when people are finished eating, they go to the sink, they wipe off their, their dish or they let the dog clean it and then, then they wash it in the soapy water, they rinse it in the rinse water and they put it in the dish dish drainer and it's done super easy. Takes each person maybe a minute and a half and it just keeps things organized and running. Well this can be done even if you've got smaller kids in your house. Obviously my kids are both adults now, but even little kids 5, 6, 7 years old are pretty capable of wiping off their own dishes. Wipe down your car after a good rain. Not only does this save money, but it also saves a of lot, lot of time in my opinion. I mean you can go to some of those car wash places, but after a good rain, you know, I let God do the hard work and I just go out and I wipe my car down. It keeps it looking good enough for me. I'm not one of those people who is a super car fanatic. I just don't want to have people be able to write things on my car because it's so filthy dirty. And a bonus, I saved this for the last one because there's probably, probably going to be some snarky comments. But you can shower with your dog. We have three dogs now, but giving them a bath, oh my gosh, that can make a mess. And putting them in the tub, they get all stressed out. They try to jump out. It's just. It's kind of crazy. And I don't like giving them a bath outside because I hate using that really cold hose on them. I just. I feel bad. So you can bring them into the shower with you. A lot of times, they're a lot less stressed if you're standing there with them. If you're grossed out by that, you can always put on a bathing suit when you are taking your shower with your dog. But it is a great way. You're already running the shower water, you've already got the bathroom heated up, you've already got the towels out. So you might as well just get both of you clean and smelling fresh.