Inspired by my IRL friend and blogger-hero Sara’s recent reflections, I asked myself where I might be able to come up with some five-minute solutions in my own life right now. By five-minute solutions, I mean really small things I could do that would make me feel WAY more efficient, happier, productive, whatever. And guess what? I found a few!
- This one is embarrassing. I’d put off signing up for TSA PreCheck for several years. It lingered on my Later List and every week I actively rejected it. I assumed it would mean a massive amount of work and a long line at the airport, and so I kept procrastinating. But articles like this got me into gear, and when I finally clicked on the actual website, it literally took five minutes. I breeze through the airports now.
- Copied my favorite salad dressing recipe into my digital recipe box. I make this dressing every single week and every single time, I get annoyed with having to scroll through my iPhone with my slippery olive-oiled fingers. Finally, I just pasted it into Evernote for super easy access.
- Purchased a second wireless mouse. Inspired by Ryan’s advice to own doubles of everything, I realized that when I traveled this was something I often forgot to pack or unpack. It was super aggravating to always dig around for it. Even worse was to not have it at all when working for hours on a train, often on detailed slide work.
Some major time-savings and stress-savings here, and not one of these tasks took a lick over five minutes. What are your five-minute solutions?
PS Due to some serious Together Travels over the next five weeks (including one week of personal vacation with my family), I am proactively going dark on the blog through much of July. As always, the newsletter skips July as well. Of course, you can still get Together with me in other ways. You can always follow @togetherteacher on Twitter to find great articles, Facebook for some personal musings, Instagram to see behind-the-scenes photos, and Pinterest for pure inspiration! See you in August for back-to-school planning galore!
PPS If you will be at the National Charter Alliance in Nashville or KSS in Atlanta, come find me and say hi!
