Author Topic: Single mustachians and time management  (Read 5505 times)

settlement

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Single mustachians and time management
« on: November 09, 2015, 09:28:33 PM »
Hi guys

I'm a bachelor mustachian. It seems I spend all day (when not working) either buying food (I eat a lot as am pretty big into weightlifting), cooking food, cleaning the house, doing washing, hanging washing, putting clothes back in wardrobe.

I only work 40 hours a week, sometimes 30, but I feel I have very little leisure time as these everyday chores interfere. Might be a strange question, but I feel there must be a better way to automate (yes I batch cook).

Anyone have any tips for reducing time spent on all this annoying rubbish so I can have more leisure time?

SimpleGuy

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #1 on: November 09, 2015, 10:14:58 PM »
TLDR: simplify meals, use dishwasher if you have one, live in a small place, reduce clutter, wear clothes multiple times, and shop efficiently.

I feel your pain.  I only work 37.5 hours a week and have a 5 minute commute so I should have plenty of free time but it seems like a lot of it is taken up by chores.  Cooking and cleaning dishes are big ones for me since I try to eat few processed foods and obviously don't dine out.  I try to keep my meals simple (less than 20 minutes prep time) and batch cook when possible.  I have a dishwasher which helps but I still wash a lot by hand because it takes a few days to have a full load to run the dishwasher.  I live in a small apartment (600 sf) and don't have a lot of furniture or dust magnets which keeps cleaning time down.  I wear my clothes several times before washing them to reduce the amount of laundry (2 loads per week).  My grocery list is organized by the store layout so I can get in and out fast.  If possible, only shop once a week (unfortunately I can't follow this advice because produce doesn't keep very long up here).

mandy_2002

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #2 on: November 09, 2015, 11:36:47 PM »
You did say that you're pretty into weightlifting. That is considered a leisure activity. So 1 hour a day means a good amount of leisure time.

There's a technique for cleaning that basically tells you to clean one area a day for 5 minutes. How much cleaning are you doing? In how much space? If you spend more than 30 minutes a day every day cleaning, you may be a neat freak. :)

For laundry, make sure you are doing full loads when you do it. I'm one person who does one load of laundry (in a pretty large but standard washer) once every two weeks. I rotate between darks and lights, with sheets included in the rotation.

WerKater

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #3 on: November 10, 2015, 12:17:47 AM »
It seems to me that you clean and wash way too much. When I was single and living alone I probably did not spend more than a few minutes per day on washing the dishes (had no dishwasher), maybe on average half an hour a week on cleaning clothes (the washing machine does most of the work and I don't think I even had a full load every week) and the occasional hour when something needed to be cleaned properly.

marty998

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #4 on: November 10, 2015, 12:23:00 AM »

 I have a dishwasher which helps but I still wash a lot by hand because it takes a few days to have a full load to run the dishwasher. 

Can you just not just scrape off the big bits of leftover food and leave the dirty dishes in the dishwasher until you have enough for a wash?

I do that and so I only have to run mine once a week.

dragoncar

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #5 on: November 10, 2015, 01:04:55 AM »
How old are you?  This is called life.

RyanAtTanagra

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #6 on: November 10, 2015, 12:02:33 PM »
I feel like this sometimes, couple things:

1) Do your necessary shopping on the way home from work.  You're already out, so it takes less total time.

2) I try to do all my cleaning/chores/errands during the week after work so I don't have to do it on the weekends.  Nothing disappoints me more than having to spend an entire weekend day (or the whole weekend) cleaning and running errands.

3) If you do batch cooking, it's hard to do that during the week sometimes, but if you split things up into multiple days it can be done.  ie, prep everything one night, cook it the next, which will feel less overwhelming, and then you're not spending half of every Sunday just cooking for the next week.

Lady Fordragon

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #7 on: November 10, 2015, 12:34:54 PM »

 I have a dishwasher which helps but I still wash a lot by hand because it takes a few days to have a full load to run the dishwasher. 

Can you just not just scrape off the big bits of leftover food and leave the dirty dishes in the dishwasher until you have enough for a wash?

I do that and so I only have to run mine once a week.

Ditto.

Bellatrix

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #8 on: November 10, 2015, 01:52:36 PM »
I run the dish washer once or twice a week.  I stopped washing things by hand once I realized how convenient the dishwasher was.  It also takes way less time to load the dishwasher than to wash things by hand.  I run my roombas whenever I remember.  I pull out my big vaccum like once a year.  The roombas keep my house pretty clean, despite having two cats.  I also batch cook on my days off since I would rather starve than cook a meal after work. 

SimpleGuy

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #9 on: November 11, 2015, 09:20:47 AM »

 I have a dishwasher which helps but I still wash a lot by hand because it takes a few days to have a full load to run the dishwasher. 

Can you just not just scrape off the big bits of leftover food and leave the dirty dishes in the dishwasher until you have enough for a wash?

I do that and so I only have to run mine once a week.

Ditto.

I still have to hand wash items that I don't have multiples of and I'll need before I can run the dishwasher: pots and pans, smoothie bottle, blender, cutting board, knife, etc.   

ash7962

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #10 on: November 11, 2015, 10:41:58 AM »
Someone already mentioned it, but decluttering is a huuuuge time saver when it comes to cleaning.  Think about how much time you spend trying to find something, putting things away that have gotten out of place, or moving things around so you can clean under/around them.  If you find yourself doing any of that you have too much stuff! Having said that, there is some upfront cost to actually going through everything and dealing with it, but once its gone things are so much better.  You should read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo if you're interested in reducing stuff.  Decluttering also has a nice side effect of helping to reduce the desire to buy things.

andy85

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #11 on: November 11, 2015, 10:49:41 AM »
my routine:

Saturday and/or Sunday: Grocery. Laundry. Clean.
Sunday: Cook lunches for the upcoming week.
Monday night: Cook dinner for a few days
Weds or Thurs night: cook dinner for a few days (if needed)

That leaves all of tuesday, weds/thurs, and friday nights for just whatever. Granted, I workout at work during lunch..so that saves an hour at the end of the day. I have quite a bit of time to piddle around.

Runrooster

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Re: Single mustachians and time management
« Reply #12 on: November 11, 2015, 11:31:12 AM »
I  dread working out at the gym.  It takes an extra hour or two between driving, maneuvering around other people, wanting for a machine to open up.  I ran in the rain Saturday and Monday but decided to hit the pool yesterday.  The evening was toast.  It was better when I worked out at an office gym, no commute and it was pretty quiet after work.  But I also used different muscles than usual and conked out when I got home.  Can you swing kettlebells or do home repair as weightlifting?

If doing dishes takes you more than ten minutes, you're doing it wrong.  I make a lot of one pot meals, eat one, portion out the 2-3, wash.  But whether I make enough for one meal or 4, cooking one dish takes an hour.  I put on some TV or podcast or music that I would have wasted time on anyway.  Frozen vegetables are less work, but good knife skills or a mandoline can minimize this.  I do huge, 10 pound batches of caramelized onions, because they do taste better if they're slow cooked.  Then most dishes start with 1/2 cup of those onions, maybe with some ginger garlic paste, tomato sauce and spices.  I've been cooking for a long time, so I'm comfortable chopping and stirring at the same time:  I tend to do my prep work while I cook: if I'm making chili I can pull out ingredients while pan heats up, chop the pepper while the garlic onion meat fry, open the tomato, bean cans while the pepper fries, pull out the spices whenever I get a minute.  If something needs constant stirring, turn the heat down so it doesn't. 

I don't live in Alaska and I'm not a heavy sweater, but I do one load every other week.  I also don't know why groceries should go bad faster there?  I would expect them to last longer in a cold climate, unless they're bad when they get to you.  I go twice a week but only because I hit different store, enjoy it, shop for 3 adults.  I can drop to once/three weeks with an intermediate trip for milk, by using more frozn veg at the end.  Good way to practice frig clean out.