Time Saving Tips of the Soccer Mom Trade: Tip #2

So it’s been awhile since I posted about time saving tips.  I know what you’re thinking.  That I probably just didn’t have time.  Well, you are right on that one!  As a busy mother of three kids and five dogs I often do come up short on time.  And that was the whole idea behind this series of posts—that there has got to be a way to counter that at least a little bit!  And there is.

I have discovered a few of them, and I promised that I’d share (when I had the time to, of course!).  So here I am, finished with the “morning rush” of getting the kids up, fed, packed up and out the door (and joy of joys, nobody left their lunch on the counter today!), the dogs have been out and had their breakfast and are now roughhousing behind me, tearing up the area rug on the office floor as I type.  It’s not quite time for me to leave for my workout class and so…I found a few minutes in which to impart another of my time saving tips!

First of all, I am assuming that you make “To Do” lists.  I am queen of those lists, and thought I had the best method for making them until I discovered a little modification that saves me a lot of time.  I make one section of the list “errands” and then group those errands by location of the places I have to go in order to accomplish them.  I found a shopping center for example, that contains a branch of my bank, a UPS store, a dry cleaner (an environmentally friendly one at that!), a pharmacy, and a grocery store.  Every week it seems I have to visit each of those types of places at least once in my errand running efforts.  So, I started grouping these together on my “To Do” list.  I do the same for errands that can be accomplished at the shopping mall.  There is a Target at the mall close to here, and an Apple Store, several department stores, etc.  The Target has a grocery within it, so that ‘s an added bonus.  On a day when I have to buy/return something at Target I make sure to bring along my grocery list and pick up whatever items I can at the same time.

Bottom line, if I think of the things I need to do and then group them by shopping center, I can make fewer trips, save gas, energy, and most importantly, TIME.

If you haven’t tried this out yet, I highly recommend you give it a shot.  If it works for you (as I am pretty sure it will), then use the time to do something nice for yourself.  You can soak in the tub, have a glass of wine, take a walk, or read a chapter of that book you’ve been meaning to get to.  Enjoy!