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I think I’ve always been a non-linear, or out of the box thinker. The first time I learned how to use that to my advantage was probably during a high school leadership camp. We did a small group icebreaker where we tossed a ball to each other in a circle in order to learn each other’s names. Then, our facilitator had us do it again in the same sequence, while he timed us. After that, he gave us the goal of doing the sequence faster. He told us the parameters of the task : The ball must be touched by each person in the same order we started with, and then must be thrown back to the facilitator. We tried this over and over until we were happy with our time. The first time was the slowest- probably a minute or two because we were establishing the order. By the end, we had streamlined the task down to 2.5 seconds.
I’ve been watching a lot of Taskmaster, the British Comedy/ Reality TV show where comedians do silly tasks and compete for ridiculous prizes. I’m always surprised at how often the contestants fail at the tasks due to the time pressure. For most of the tasks, “the fastest wins”. When these words are read, the strategy seems to come from the contestant’s first thought, which isn’t necessarily their best thought. They often forget about the parameters of the task because they only read it one time. Perhaps they don’t want to spare another ten seconds for a second read. Let’s say the task is to bring a giant object, like a king sized mattress, for example, across a finish line. Many contestants rush to awkwardly carry or drag the mattress across the yard, dropping it multiple times, and taking quite a lot of time and energy. Others may take time to re-read the task and think for a few seconds before devising a system. They might find a tarp to put under the object so they can drag it. Others may even grab the finish line and move it next to the mattress so they only have to carry it a few inches. The winners are usually the ones who find the loopholes- in other words, those who think outside the box.
I get a huge dopamine hit when I find a new life hack that will end up saving me twenty minutes every week. From watching Taskmaster, I’ve been looking at many of my own regular tasks differently, pondering ways to do them more efficiently. After a friend saw my smoothie post in December, they shared a viral video with me that sent me into a food prep hack vortex. The content creator had made condensed frozen smoothie cubes, which she could later add milk to and shake. I started thinking of how I could incorporate this into my own smoothie food prep routine. Now I’m proud to say that I have halved the number of times I will be making smoothies (and washing the blender) each week. I thought about how I could do this with other meals, such as soup and chili. Measuring out all the spices and other ingredients takes up so much time I’d almost rather buy them in a can. My new plan is to make pre-made spice mixtures and pre-made frozen veggie mixtures for some of the ingredients that I will need to throw in the slow cooker on the day. I’m not changing the form of any of the ingredients, so it won’t lose quality, but it will result in less measuring overall and will save me time.
So back to the high school activity. Can you guess how we did it so quickly? At first, we moved so that we were standing in order, so we wouldn’t have to throw the ball across to each other. Then we got even faster by removing the step of throwing the ball. Instead, we had one guy drag it along everyone’s hands so that we all touched it. Then he tossed it to the facilitator. (There was nothing in the rulebook that said it had to be thrown the entire time!)
So give yourself a bit of time to think about your tasks. Really examine the parameters. Maybe watch “Taskmasters” for inspiration. You might end up finding some new life hacks and saving yourself a lot of time!
Thanks for reading!
Rebecca H. Lee
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