Is It Possible To Buy Time?

I’m in the grocery store, standing in front of the produce section sniffing heads of lettuce (mom taught me that one), and thumping watermelons (I saw some woman do it so I thought I’d give it a try), wondering how I’m going to get everything checked off my to-do list and wishing that, instead of buying Portobello mushrooms at five bucks a head, I could buy me some more time.

It’s a dilemma that has haunted me since I became an adult.  Children are cursed with not knowing how amazing it is to pretty much run your day based on what interests you from moment to moment.  It’s shocking to think that I complained all the way through the college years when that’s the last time I can remember getting to do what I want for more than a single hour in a day—it’s also the last time life seemed easy but that’s a topic for another day.  But, you can’t go back unless you’re Marty McFly and you’ve befriended a creepy guy who happens to own a time machine, so here I am, staring at a potato that seriously looks like Obama’s head, trying to buy time.

I’ve heard that you buy time by getting organized.  The theory is that if you can find whatever you need instantly, that you’ll save time by not having to look for it.  I try to be organized, but I can’t seem to get my family to go with the program so we’re always hunting down sharpened pencils and I haven’t been able to track down a pair of nail clippers in over a week.  Getting organized is also supposed to save you money because you’re not replacing lost items.  I say this as I’m adding two pairs of nail clippers to my grocery cart at $6 a pair, which means that I’ve spent roughly $250 on clippers in the past 20 years I’ve been married.

My favorite idea was to have an “all hands on deck” fifteen-minute clean up time every night to get the house back in order.  It seemed like such a wonderful idea until we gave it a try.  In fifteen minutes the boys managed to reduce my daughter to tears because they were trying to stuff her favorite bear into a trash bag, my husband had accidentally locked the cat in the laundry room and the vacuum was running unmanned across the hard-wood floor.

There is one time-saver that I’ve actually stuck to and it’s really worked so far.  My youngest boy is notorious for putting all stray clothing, dirty or not, into his hamper.  Based on the contents of the hamper, he had worn four swim-trunks, two pairs of church pants and 18 pairs of underwear in a single week last December.  So I purchased an industrial sized bottle of fabric refresher spray and stuck it down in my laundry room.  As I’m doing laundry, I inspect the clothing and if it doesn’t look dirty then I just spray it a couple of times and fold it back up.  Works like a charm, and it cut my laundry in half.  I kind of pushed the envelope when I tried it with socks—that didn’t go too well.

So tell me, do you have a time saver that actually buys you time?  If it works, I’d love to hear it.