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TIME SAVERS; HOW TO REDUCE TIME CONSUMING CHORES

1.0 OVERVIEW OF SAVING TIME

Time is money, so the old saying goes. Today this is more true than ever.

After working a long day at the office you can chose to buy fast food for your family for about $20 or you can prepare it yourself for an hour for about $5. Of course making the meal yourself involves more than just cooking, it also requires shopping and doing the dishes.

So is this a good trade off of time for money? It depends on your family, your time constraints and the kind of diet you need to eat. If you can trade an hour of food preparation for an hour of quality time with your kids, it might be very worth while.

Not having enough time is the main cause of stress today. Employers have been demanding longer hours and the average work week has been rising for some time now. After work there are endless errands, and then meals and then household chores. Is there some way to simplify some of this work so that you have more time for yourself and those you care about?

I believe that most people can save at least 10-15 minutes a day with very little trouble. While this does not seem like very much it adds up to over 50 hours a year. With a little thought you should be able to save 30-60 minutes a day which is equal to 100 to 200 hours, equivalent to several weeks off.

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With little time at their disposal, most people will simply buy fast food, convenience food, and hire others to do simple repair and maintenance jobs.

If you have more time, you can spend less money. You will be able to do many things yourself that you had paid others to do.

1.0.1 REMEMBER

== Standards change over time. Now that both parents are working, people are spending less time cleaning and people do not expect a house to be as clean as it was 10 years ago.

== New "time saving" technology like vacuum cleaners and computers have a way of creating their own demands. When vacuum cleaners were introduced years ago, it was supposed to save time. Yet it also meant that people were expected to keep their houses cleaner than before.

See our list of time-saving books at the end of this topic.

Look for ways to save time in these areas: cleaning, shopping, cooking, driving, paperwork.

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