This morning was a pretty busy day. We had a lot of people in and out and a lot of phone calls to make. This is because we used a pretty sturdy strategy to save both money and time. We used combinations.
What are combinations? Well, you can have combinations in many different aspects of your schedule and your tasks. You can also call this multitasking, but I like to call it combinations, because unlike typical multitasking, combinations are planned out and don’t always happen at exactly the same time.
Here is an example of our morning. We scheduled several people to come in for home maintenance. The furnace guy came and cleaned and inspected the furnace. The water treatment guy did the same for our water system. The septic tank guy came and pumped out our tank. Our friend and neighbor, who is a contractor, came by and gave us and estimate for new windows. By scheduling this all back to back, only one morning of work is missed for four different tasks.
I was reminded of another way that we practice combinations when I received the standard phone call reminding us of our doctor appointments. We try to schedule my husband and myself on the same day. We also attend a family dentist who can see all five of us at once. This saves time, headache and gas money.
You can practice combinations almost any time you go out for an errand. Instead of just going to the grocery store, combine that trip with a drop off at the dry cleaners and a stop to pick up books and movies from the library. I frequently schedule park days for the kids in combination with days I have to go to the post office, since it is on the way.
What combinations can you practice?
You can read more blog posts by Mary Ann Romans here!
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