I’ve been trying out various things in this domain in the past few weeks and have a few new things to recommend:
Batching emails: For ~$150/yr, Boomerang will batch your Gmail inbox. (In detail, it will auto-redirect emails into a special label, then move them into your inbox on schedule.) I now get emails at 1pm and 5pm. This saves a lot of time and even more attention – having an empty Inbox when I wake up in the morning is a huge boon.
I think this is substantially better than other approaches, such as blocking Gmail except at certain times of day, for reasons I’m happy to get into if people are sceptical.
This requires Boomerang Pro (it’s not included in the lower paid tier), and is the only Boomerang feature I use regularly. Inbox batching alone is worth the price, but if someone developed a cheaper, more focused tool I would happily consider switching.
Laundry service: This especially applies to Europeans without driers, but even in the US giving a big sack of laundry to a driver every so often can still save substantial time and attention over doing multiple laundry loads yourself.
Some care is needed with this one – many commercial laundry services are much less careful with your clothes than you would be, which can lead to damage. Our first laundry service in Oxford didn’t turn out well; we’re currently trying others.
I’d recommend starting by outsourcing laundry for items you care less about (socks, underwear, towels, bed linens) and/or are more robust to rough treatment (many T-shirts). This is like 75% of laundry bulk for us; we wash and hang the remaining (delicate/important) items by hand and have the cleaners fold them.
Ready meals: The last couple of decades have seen a huge boom in actually-healthy frozen meals, including many online services. Doing a bit of research and stocking up can save money and calories vs takeout while preserving most of the convenience.
Some services in the UK for this: Cook, Planty, Field Doctor. The latter has a range of certified low-FODMAP vegetarian ready meals, which I don’t personally need but is a lifesaver for people with IBS.
Buy a printer: The jury is still out a bit on this one, but being able to print out Amazon return labels at home is pretty valuable, enabling e.g. quick and easy return pickup from home. I also find it useful for efficiently using FVP on printed-out to-do lists.
Taskrabbit for everything: The central use case of Taskrabbit is handyman stuff, like assembling furniture or putting up shelves. But you can use it for almost any well-defined task, including online stuff. I’ve only used it for a couple of tasks so far, but have a number of other things I’m hoping to try. So far I’ve used Taskrabbit for:
Finding me a flu vaccination appointment when the local pharmacy didn’t have any;
Picking up medical prescriptions (basically paying someone else to be bored waiting in line for me).
I’ve been trying out various things in this domain in the past few weeks and have a few new things to recommend:
Batching emails: For ~$150/yr, Boomerang will batch your Gmail inbox. (In detail, it will auto-redirect emails into a special label, then move them into your inbox on schedule.) I now get emails at 1pm and 5pm. This saves a lot of time and even more attention – having an empty Inbox when I wake up in the morning is a huge boon.
I think this is substantially better than other approaches, such as blocking Gmail except at certain times of day, for reasons I’m happy to get into if people are sceptical.
This requires Boomerang Pro (it’s not included in the lower paid tier), and is the only Boomerang feature I use regularly. Inbox batching alone is worth the price, but if someone developed a cheaper, more focused tool I would happily consider switching.
Laundry service: This especially applies to Europeans without driers, but even in the US giving a big sack of laundry to a driver every so often can still save substantial time and attention over doing multiple laundry loads yourself.
Some care is needed with this one – many commercial laundry services are much less careful with your clothes than you would be, which can lead to damage. Our first laundry service in Oxford didn’t turn out well; we’re currently trying others.
I’d recommend starting by outsourcing laundry for items you care less about (socks, underwear, towels, bed linens) and/or are more robust to rough treatment (many T-shirts). This is like 75% of laundry bulk for us; we wash and hang the remaining (delicate/important) items by hand and have the cleaners fold them.
Ready meals: The last couple of decades have seen a huge boom in actually-healthy frozen meals, including many online services. Doing a bit of research and stocking up can save money and calories vs takeout while preserving most of the convenience.
Some services in the UK for this: Cook, Planty, Field Doctor. The latter has a range of certified low-FODMAP vegetarian ready meals, which I don’t personally need but is a lifesaver for people with IBS.
Buy a printer: The jury is still out a bit on this one, but being able to print out Amazon return labels at home is pretty valuable, enabling e.g. quick and easy return pickup from home. I also find it useful for efficiently using FVP on printed-out to-do lists.
Taskrabbit for everything: The central use case of Taskrabbit is handyman stuff, like assembling furniture or putting up shelves. But you can use it for almost any well-defined task, including online stuff. I’ve only used it for a couple of tasks so far, but have a number of other things I’m hoping to try. So far I’ve used Taskrabbit for:
Finding me a flu vaccination appointment when the local pharmacy didn’t have any;
Picking up medical prescriptions (basically paying someone else to be bored waiting in line for me).