Mass Production

                                       Obviously I like to mass produce!                                  

If you made kids as cute as these, you would too! But I also like to mass produce in my daily life. If I am going to put forth the effort to accomplish one task, why not get the most out of it.

Take for example food prep. When I cut up my veggies, carrots, celery, etc. I do all the veggies, not just the ones we will be eating for that meal.

Let's say I prep each time I want a carrot - get out carrots, cutting board, knife, cut, eat, clean up cutting board, knife, counter, put rest of carrots back in the fridge. Repeat when hungry.

Or I can mass produce -  take out carrots, cutting board, knife, cut up all the carrots, put away, clean up cutting board, knife, counter. When hungry - eat carrots.

Which is a better use of my time?

If I am heating the oven I will throw in anything that needs to be cooked so I don't waste the energy it takes to cook just one thing. If I cook chicken - I throw it all in the crock pot and then refrigerate the leftovers. When I am ready to use them in a meal, they are already cooked, all I have to do is reheat. If I can double a meal and freeze the other one, I do it. It takes the same amount of effort to prep and cook so doesn't it make sense to double or triple it. The clean up is basically the same - I've used the same utensils and pots.

I used to stencil slates for a living (actually I had a craft business). When I would do a pattern, I would do all the same slates at one time. I would go down the table in an assembly line fashion. It saved a ton on clean up and time by doing it this way.

When I see a gift that I like, I buy or make a number of them and put them away. Then if I need a last minute gift, I go to the "Gift Drawer" - not to Walmart.

When the kids were little and I made baby food for them, I never prepared just one meal - I would cook up all the sweet potatoes, carrots, chicken and beans and then grind them up and put them in ice cube trays. I would freeze them and then pop them out into a Ziploc. When it was time for a meal, I could pull out a variety of foods, defrost and serve.

When I do haircuts, I let the boys know this is it for the next 2 weeks - get it now! To pull out the kit and clean up is the same whether I cut 1 boys' hair or 4. And I would rather get it all done in one shot.

Now that gas is $25 a gallon - oh is that just in Newtown?? I try to make the most of my trips out - lumping all my errands together, not making unnecessary trips to the grocery store, etc. Not only will this save me gas, but also my time.

I've said it before - time is money - if you do things more efficiently and as cheaply as possible, you get it! So think about what you have to do each day - can you lump several activities together, can you double or triple your effort, it's all these small decisions that add up to make a lot of cents!