The Most Efficient Way to Do 10 Different Things

At Integrify, we love efficiency! We’re all about making work more efficient for our customers. We’ve written plenty in this space about business efficiency and workflow management already, and we’ll keep doing so. But today, we thought it’d be fun to do something a little different.

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There are tons of areas in our everyday lives where most of us could stand to be a little more efficient. Small productivity hacks like these can free people up to do more or just to have more time to relax. So with that in mind, we present the most efficient way to do the following ten things.

The Most Efficient Way to Study

There are many different approaches to studying, and it’s important to find what works best for you. Oxford Learning offers some pointers toward efficiency, though:

• Stay Organized: studying is easier when you can quickly locate what you need. Keep track of the things you need to have at hand and make sure they're always in your designated study area. This could be a notebook, pens, highlighters, rulers, etc., if you're studying offline or your digital note-taking apps, headphones, study music, etc., if online.
• Take Careful Notes: Take notes as you read or listen to lectures. And there’s some evidence that handwritten notes aid memory better than typed ones, by the way.
• Avoid Distractions: keep cell phones and social media out when you’re listening, reading, or studying. Use a focus app to keep you honest.
• Review Nightly: a short review each night is more efficient (and successful) than one giant cram session. You could even create your quiz each night and take it the next day. 

The Most Efficient Way to Pack Luggage

Our pick for packing luggage? The roll and fold. Roll your soft clothing tightly (this includes T-shirts, most shorts, some pants, and so on). Many garments won’t wrinkle when rolled well. Stiffer clothing that doesn’t like to roll gets folded. You’ll also want to prioritize wrinkle-resistant clothes and take less than you think you’ll need.

What is the best tip for packing efficiently? Don't overpack. Plan out your trip, day-to-day, and only bring what you need to wear. Layout your outfits on a couch daily to ensure you have what you need but also nothing extra. Use compression bags to get more into less. With the cost of extra baggage these days, you really want to become the Master of Consolidation.

The Most Efficient Way to Type

Learning touch typing (where you keep your hands on the home row and can type without looking) on a QWERTY keyboard is good enough for most people. Skilled touch typists can reach upwards of 70 words per minute. These typing experts have done several things to hit their typing stride. Some tips from Hongkiat:

• Get rid of bad typing habits like improper finger positioning
• Use all ten fingers
• Learn to touch type (no looking)
• Master keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl, Shift, Alt your way to success)
• Practice, practice, practice

But there’s a whole world of typing efficiency beyond touch typing. The DVORAK keyboard layout was developed so typists could gain speed and comfort. It’s far from the mainstream, but it may be more efficient. Columnar keyboards remain a niche item, but many keyboard users report significant efficiency gains after a week or two of an adjustment period.

The Most Efficient Way to Quit Smoking

The absolute most efficient way to quit smoking is, of course, cold turkey. It can happen in an instant, after all. You may think, like we did, that quitting cold turkey is exceptionally difficult to do and that another method may have a higher success rate. But at least one study reported on by Harvard Health disagreed, finding that cold turkey worked better than gradual reduction.

Unfortunately, either way, the relapse rate was high. Here are some tips to make it stick:

• Tell everyone you're quitting, friends, family, social media.
• Get rid of everything related to the habit (ashtrays, lighters, etc.)
• Get "smoking substitutes" ready: gum, carrot sticks, tea tree toothpicks, hard candy.
• Avoid places you go just to smoke.

The Most Efficient Way to Go to Sleep

Don’t hate us for the answer here. The most efficient way to sleep involves eliminating all screen time, TV included, something like 2 hours before bed. You should also dim the lights as much as possible and focus on less intense (“boring”) activities, like reading.

Reserve the bed for sleep (and other bedroom activities) and perhaps reading. There is no work and no TV in the bedroom. Most people also do better sticking to a stable sleep schedule.

If you’re having trouble sleeping or staying asleep, cut naps and add daily exercise.

The Most Efficient Way to Clean a House

Our favorite strategy for cleaning a house is called “clean as you go.” How do most people keep their houses tidied up? By waiting until they can’t stand it anymore and then spending an entire weekend cleaning. Cleaning as you go is far more efficient. Every time you leave a room, carry 2 or 3 out-of-place belongings with you. Used the kitchen? Clean it before you move on.

Pair this strong strategy with scheduling your deeper cleaning tasks, and you’ll be on track for an efficiently clean home.

The Most Efficient Way to Boil an Egg

The internet has some very strong opinions on this one, but if good eating is the goal, we agree with the conclusions found in The Kitchn. The boil-then-simmer method works perfectly in batches of up to six eggs. The whites and yolks' texture will be spot-on, and peeling is easy.

The Most Efficient Way to Prepare a Meal

It's all about meal prepping these days. YouTube is littered with examples of how to ensure you spend more time eating a meal than preparing it. Honestly, as awesome as this technique is, it's not for the organizing faint of heart.

The key is picking a day of the week, often Sunday, to plan and prep all the ingredients you'll need for each meal. You become your own BlueApron. First, come up with a meal plan for the week. You can use a spreadsheet, Trello, a notebook, whatever works for you. Log each day and each meal for the day. Look for a free meal plan generator if you have difficulty developing ideas. For each meal, list out the ingredients you'll need. For anything you don't have on hand, add it to your shopping list.

Once you have your week planned out and all the ingredients you'll need, do all the chopping, slicing, marinating, seasoning, etc., and store the prepped ingredients in sealed containers with sticky notes for the day/meal/dish. When mealtime comes, you grab the necessary meal parts and cook away. In some cases, for instance, you won't even have to cook many lunches.

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The Most Efficient Way to Manage Business Workflow

When managing your business workflow, we’re pretty confident we know the most efficient way! Plenty of approaches will yield some results, but if you want to maximize your efficiency, Integrify has a solution for you.

We’ve helped enterprise companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Sony automate and improve their business workflow, and we can help you, too. Contact us online or call (888) 536-9629 to learn more.

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efficiency   productivity  

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Productivity Tips