Save Time with 1 minute races- Can you finish your task time?
There does not seem to be a direct Industrial Engineering principle or tool here, but I’d like to propose a new tool: The 1 minute race.
The concept being, take a job that takes a somewhat short amount of time, like ~5 minutes, and see what that job looks like complete after a 1 minute sprint.
This may cause you to find innovations out of necessity. Sometimes you do silly things that fail, other times you do ridiculous things that save you so much time you change your routine forever.
The Goal- Don’t lose the spirit by sticking to the letter
The goal here is to save time by finding innovation, tracking task time, and motivating yourself to work quickly(scientifically works).
When doing my own, I found myself taking 1 minute and 39 seconds to do a daily task I previously thought took about 5 minutes. This is a huge win, 3 minutes saved over the next 50 years is 912 hours saved(or visualized as 112 days working!). This was on the first try, and even if I was unable to further refine the process, I should be happy about the lessons I learned and the ~1000 lifetime hours saved.
You can also cut the time down further, we have a goal of getting the kids in each car seat in 30s. When that got too easy 10s.
Ideas
I apologize about the tone below, constantly asking the question. It just felt like if I wasnt direct, it wouldn’t be clear.
Morning Routine
Can you shower in 1 minute? Or at least do things like wash hair/shave/soap each in 1 minute?
Can you style your hair in 1 minute?
Can you do each makeup product in 1 minute? Or your entire makeup process?
Can you pick out your clothes in 1 minute?
Kitchen
Can you get all kitchen ingredients needed out? (This one isnt as good, because if you make a mistake you lost some time, however depending on the time savings, you might be better off going for a second trip)
Can you load (or unload) the bottom rack of the dishwasher in 1 minute? The top rack?
Can you start the rice/noodles/slowcooker recipe/passive cooking in 1 minute?
Can you add all the herbs and spices in 1 minute?(This is best for recipes where spice quantities do not need to be exact, indian and mexican food are great for this)
Laundry
Can you start the laundry in 1 minute? Including transportation time, you may need to literally run.
Move the laundry to the dryer in 1 minute. If that isnt hard enough, include the time it takes to transport yourself to the dryer.
Kids
With these, there is definitely less freedom for the kid. An uncooperative kid will have their body contorted as the parents need.
Can you get each kid dressed in 1 minute?
Can you get each belted in the car, from living room to car in 1 minute?
Cleaning
Can you clean your floor for vacuuming in under 1 minute?
Can you wipe the surface in under 1 minute? Can you get it spotless?
Pets
Can you feed/water your pet in 1 minute? How about all of the pets?
Home improvement/fixes
Can you find a solution to the problem you’ve been procrastinating on for months in 1 minute? If you already know the solution, can you find the exact first steps in 1 minute? Got that too? What about the first minute of the job? Maybe the problem was all mental. (Although, when I use this trick, I usually require myself to work on the task for 10 minute before evaluating how much it sucks. After 10 minutes, I usually think the task isn’t so bad.)
Single-minute exchange of die(SMED) Applied to life
The closest principle I found to this was called SMED. They break up this even into two types: Internal Tasks and External Tasks. Internal Tasks are those during the 1 minute when you are live working on something. Its suggested to reduce the time of internal tasks, to move as much as possible to external tasks. External tasks cover everything else. As an example, if you were trying to get your clothes on in under 1 minute, try to envision ahead of time what outfit you are going to wear so you don’t need to think about it during that 1 minute.
Only other generic tip is to remind you to use the right tools/tech and have your process/tool locations/material locations standardized.
Continuous Improvement
According to the textbook, once you have a good process, you have two possible futures: degradation or improvement. Thus the concept of continuous improvement.
However, today I’ll give an alternative take: Its probably impossible to continuously improve every 1 minute process you’ve ever done. Even if you did, you are quickly going to run into diminishing returns/pareto principle. It was easy to shave 3 minutes, its hard to shave another 20 seconds.
My advice here, go for continuous improvement, but don’t let it take energy that could be devoted to better causes. I have my 1 minute hair routine down, it would be nice to get even faster, but I’m not going to hyper analyze my 1 minute hair routine. Its already good.
Stop trying so hard and save time – Overprocessing Waste
I dedicate this article to my wife, who seems to make the fanciest desserts on Tuesday mornings at 6am, just so we can have some and maybe give some to the in-laws. The in-laws are dieting btw, their frontal lobe(thinking) doesnt want desserts, even if the hypothalamus wants it. If we just wanted to appease the hypothalamus, why not get any store bought or simple to make treat?
Overprocessing – Doing less to save more time
If you aren’t leaving home(or recording yourself), would you spend time to fix up your appearance? No, that is Overprocessing waste. You have no hair requirements, yet you are meeting a specification required when people see you.
Are you Overprocessing?
Kitchen
Meal quality. The following take time, and its debatable if they taste better than their disassembled counterparts that can be made quicker and in bulk: Perogis/Ravolli/dumplings/samosas/empanadas, homemmade noodes/gnocchi, Sushi, stuffed peppers.
Cutting food: Its easier and faster to cut an onion 5×5 into cubes than 20×20 diced. This one depends on the recipe, but the general idea is that if you can get away with doing 7 cuts instead of 8 cuts, save the time.
Slow or Traditional favorites require modern solutions: When making things like Perogis/Ravolli/dumplings/samosas/empanadas, everyone has their own rules you must abide by. I ignore this in favor of the fastest way to seal this food, which is usually my fingers, fork, or tool. No egg wash, no fancy twist. When doing slow recipes, consider what is actually important: Is it the ancient process? Or the flavors and textures of the food?
A dessert is going to taste great, why try hard: Sugar and fat tastes good, I can relent on special events and holidays. If there was some expectation(a Wedding) for fancy desserts and you are going to DIY it(save money), it should be relatively high quality(spend time). Or if you were going to spend time with family/friends making fancy Christmas cookies one time per year, its a special, pleasurable, occasion rather than something you are trying to save time on.
Bulk food prepping unrelated foods: Sometimes I’ll see videos of someone doing a ‘Sunday Meal Prep’ making like 3 entirely different meals, packing them in neat little containers, and asking me to subscribe. At home, I’ll typically just make regular dinner, but 2-3x the size the family eats. We were going to cook dinner anyway, so we get time savings from only taking out ingredients once and only cleaning up once. You still must spend extra time comes from processing the extra material by cutting and cooking. If you do insist on a ‘Sunday Meal Prep’, consider the time savings are in reducing the taking out and cleaning up, every extra pan dirtied and every extra trip to the cupboard/refrigerator is your lost savings.
The best breakfast? Does it need waffles
I once read a line “>2018 >Still eating for taste”, and it was profound. Not everything you eat needs to taste good, it can taste okay, it can taste bland. During the ~50% of meals I eat at a TV, I’m more invested in the content than the flavor of food. This can also be used for nutritious purposes, instead of adding extra fats and sugars, I’ll eat something healthier and just pick out a great video.
Laundry
Is Folding/hanging necessary? My dress shirts are hung to eliminate wrinkles, this is value added. My gym shirts are quickly tossed into a drawer, I don’t care about wrinkles when working out. There may be value added in folding clothes for space saving reasons, but if you can get away with unfolded, unhung, 0 effort laundry, you should take the opportunities when they exist.
Who knows if Ironing makes a difference in your life. Will spending 5 minutes a day ironing your clothes get you closer to a promotion or getting a Significant Other? I would probably put that 30 minutes/week(25 hrs/yr) into something with a better return on investment, like reading a non-fiction book that is relevant to your life/field/interests or learning a useful skill/hobby(Sewing if you are really into appearance).
Wash clothes less. Pretty obvious here, only wash when needed. No sweat, no stains, no smells, looks good to be worn again.
wear difficult to process clothes even less. My favorite daily work shirt is a polo that is made out of some non-wrinkle fabric like a polyester spandex blend
Kids
“Who wants to get Ice Cream?” Does not need to be said in a quiet and happy house. How much work are you creating for yourself to get everyone dressed, shoes on, and transport yourself? ~10-20 minutes? What does this cost? $10-20? How much joy out of unhealthy calories do you get, ~5-10 minutes? Is it worth it
Do you need to cut your toddler’s food? Toddlers can handle eating things in multiple bites, we don’t need to feed them like babies forever.
Do you need to peel your kid’s oranges and apples? Kids are capable of peeling their own oranges (clementines), apples don’t need to be peeled.
One time my kid insisted on eating the Biryani cold, ok. She ate it all. Easier than warming it up. I’ve been curious to have cold Biryani since.
What’s for lunch? For some reason my family has the tendency to make fresh lunches instead of eating leftovers or ready-to-eat foods like carrots or granola. You can pack lunches in 2-3 minutes, it does not need to be a 15 minute activity.
Save Time With An Industrial Engineering Study On Wiping Counters
Using path studies, motion studies, equipment options, quality metrics, and more, we find ways to save time cleaning counters.
Optimal Path
Try not to wipe back and forth over the same spot. Wipe in big strokes, not overlapping, hitting an area only once. Start in one corner, go across, move up, and across a not yet touched area. This is under the category of Coverage Path Planning.
Some best case optimizations is to start and stop in the same place, assuming that same place is the end destination. For instance, I need to wet a rag at the start and rinse a rag upon completion. It would be best to start and finish near the sink. It would be inefficient to start that the sink and end at the other side of the room. Sometimes this is unavoidable based on the size of a surface.
An important factor can be the shape of the surface. Theoretically a spiral motion reduces the number of times you decelerate, however if you don’t have a round table, you will be wasting time doing the corners that were not covered in a spiral motion. For a square/rectangle table, I found long motion across the table was more efficient.
For more reading about optimal pathing, here is a link to a study I found interesting:
http://retis.sssup.it/~giorgio/paps/2018/RAL18.pdf
The right equipment
Small sponges can take longer to clean a surface than a larger towel. The idea of using a larger towel seems great, you may need extra soap but you can accomplish more, quicker.
Use the right cloth, absorbent with some abrasion. Microfiber or cotton could work, but each cloth will be woven differently. Waffle Weaves are popular for cleaning because the ridges can help apply extra pressure on surfaces that would otherwise be spread out with a flat weave.
Environment
Good lighting will help you see dirty spots and will save you time and effort from straining to see these spots.
On a similar note, the quieter the area, the less distractions and higher focus you can have.
Do you need to move items out of your way to clean under? It might be worth finding a permanent spot for those items to avoid freqent cleaning underneath them.
Consider the placement of rags/towels, cleaning supplies, trash/disposal areas, and laundry baskets. They should be easily accessible and preferably along the path of your workflow.
What quality is needed? Perfection, good enough, or damage control?
If you can only use one section of your counter, you won’t need to clean the rest.
It may be worth letting things soak for ~3-10 minutes, bonus points for soap and hot water. My personal process for perfection is,
- Hot water and soap round
- Wait a few minutes
- Wipe with a mostly dry water only rag, soaking up lots of the old dirty water and scrubbing any spots that need it
- Final round where in one hand I have a lightly watered clean rag, then a completely dry clean rag(or paper towel) that soaks up that water
However, if you are only trying to prevent newly dirtied surfaces from getting messes stuck on: don’t get your rag too wet. Too much water will require extra wipes to dry. It might not be worth using soap which would require an extra round of wiping to remove the soap.
Finally, if you are ultra efficient and rarely clean, you could use a dry rag and wipe only solid objects off. This is a ‘debatably good enough’ quality.
Motion
Some Therbligs. To turn on faucet water, you release a latch/use a faucet. You search for a rag and grasp it. You use the water or rest, waiting for the water to get hot. You may also search and grasp for soap that you will use with the rag and water. Mixing the rag, water, and soap is assembly. Then you transport the load to the counter. Finally you use the rag on the countertops. Upon completion you disassemble the water, rag, and soap by releasing the latch/use the faucet and rinse the rag. Finally you may throw the rag in the laundry, releasing empty.
To make this process more efficient, we look at all the Therbligs. Here are some opportunities for optimization and elimination.
- Ensure rags/towels are visible and easily accessible. We keep ours in an open bin on the counter.
- Do something useful while the faucet water is heating up. Fill up nearby empty water bottles to increase your Water Per Second, pick up items that might be covering the countertops, load/empty the dishwasher, etc..
- Ensure soaps are visible and easily accessible. We keep ours on the counter.
- Don’t spend too much time mixing the water, rag, and soap, it doesnt matter much. Ensuring a perfectly lathered rag is Over Processing waste. A quick mix is good enough.
- Upon completion, rinse the rag, but only as much as needed to get large debris off. If you are putting it in the laundry, no reason to ensure all soap and dirty water is gone.
AI suggestions
Clear surfaces ahead of time, to prevent setting down towels/rags/sponges to get to necessary surfaces. I might disagree, you could multitask lifting surfaces and wiping.
Potentially using a bucket/spray bottle to prevent trips back to the sink. This personally wouldn’t work for most of my messes.
Use a spray bottle.
Use microfiber
Challenge yourself to get under a time
Alternative Ideas
Trade favors with roommates, have them clean the counters in exchange for you doing something else. For instance, you could bulk cook food and trade that. Bulk cooking benefits from reducing the number of set up and tear down actions, win win win.
Hire someone.
Use a disposable cleaning wipe. This eliminates a few steps such as turning on water, waiting for water to warm up, and doing laundry. This would be dependent on how dirty the counter was, if you are cost conscious, and if you are an environmentalist.
Use a vacuum cleaner.
Attach a handle onto a rag/use a kitchen mop, this will let you push further without taking steps.
You could use a towel to push everything on the floor and have a robot vacuum cleaner clean the mess.
Conclusions
This was a first step into Efficient Cleaning. While this wiping counters/tables task might only take a minute or two, the ideas about quality, motion waste/Therbligs, optimal equipment, and optimal pathing might help influence other cleaning activities to help you save time.
How To Multitask In 5 Second Increments
As you go through this article, take note of which multitasking is useful to you. There are too many for you to remember when you have only 5 seconds. Pick a few, make it a habit. I’ll share my personal choices for multitasking.
Admittedly I used chatGPT to answer this near impossible question: “How can I multitask during the 3 seconds it takes to turn on the shower?”
The questions asked
Chatgpt is great tool for mixing ideas, its bad at validating them. When using the tool, your job is to validate them. In this case, I wanted to generate time saving tip ideas that I could later review and present.
Given the amount of nonsense generated, there is no way I would post more than this one example
You: How can I multitask during the 3 seconds it takes to turn on the shower?
Chatgpt: There are a few things you can do during the 3 seconds it takes to turn on the shower:
Brush your teeth
Put on your shower shoes
Take off any jewelry or clothing that you won’t need in the shower
Organize your shower essentials (shampoo, conditioner, soap, etc.)
Stretch or do a quick workout
Plan your day or make a to-do list
Take a deep breath and mentally prepare for the day ahead
Do a quick meditation or mindfulness exercise.
Time Saving Tips
I read that list and I find the stretch/quick workout, plan your day/todo list, breath, and mindfulness exercise most interesting. I could further ask chatgpt for quick workouts that only take 3 seconds and that can be done while turning on the shower. As someone with terrible posture, I already know what I can spend that time on.
I will spare you further chatgpt queries, but they are for every moment of the day, such as “How can I multitask during the 8 seconds it takes to get out of bed and walk to the shower?” and “How can I multitask when I am talking to my wife about her day?” Sometimes I’ll say things like “No, those answers are terrible because they involve moving and I’m lazy, can you give me 20 more ideas that don’t involve moving?”
Sub 10 second multitasking while physically busy
With only 10 seconds, you basically need to create a habit of doing these. You will not have time to think about them.
- Repeat a positive quote: I liked the suggestion for taking a few seconds for mindfulness. You should decide your own. As an example, as someone that both wants to achieve and be efficient, I found a quote from Marcus Aurelius “No pointless actions” perfect for this.
- Breathing exercises: Supposedly it works. I don’t practice it, but I’ve seen 9-20 second long exercises on the low end.
- Review your goals for the day: This isn’t going through a todo list, this is reminding you of your 1-3 goals for the day.
- Reviewing important information for an upcoming exam or meeting: Similar to the goals, sometimes I’ll remind myself “Don’t interrupt” or “Make sure you bring up X”. To be honest, I’m not sure this works, but it could just be my fumbling through meetings.
- Concentrating on your posture and maintaining good alignment: Good reminder. Do it now too.
- Practicing visualization techniques for high stakes activities or public speaking: One of my favorite authors swears by this, although I should mention I was a fan of this author’s first book.
- Reviewing the steps to complete a task: Want to kill procrastination? Think about the first physical step that needs to happen. Work out the problem in your head first.
- Reciting a prayer or spiritual text: Could you knock this out before sitting down at the dinner table or before getting into bed?
- Saying numbers/letters/facts to your kids : GPT did not come up with this. I just do it. Maybe memorize the Periodic Table of Elements song too.
10 seconds to 5 minutes while physically busy
The 10s multitasking activities can be extended, but here are ones that you probably need more than 10 seconds to get a decent benefit from
- Listening to (new) music, practicing singing or and tapping your feet to the beat.: Practicing beat changed my skill level with other instruments.
- Podcasts/Audiobooks: Bonus points for nonfiction, but you do you. GPT also said ‘learn something new’. I’m combining that here.
- Make a phone call: I highly recommend calling best friends, friends, acquaintances(maybe let them know you are going to call one of these days).
- Self Reflection: Everyone has different reasons. I recently failed to be a good manager, I was able to run a half marathon without podcasts/audiobooks because I had so much to reflect on.
10 seconds to multitask while the brain is busy
- Close your eyes and take three deep breaths: I’ll let you decide if this is worth doing. I don’t. I’m also flawed, so maybe this is a good idea.
- Smile: Supposedly this makes you happier. I believe it.
- Stretch/Fix posture/engage a muscle: This is redundant from above, but good enough to recommend twice.
- Drink: Sip water/tea/caffeine drink/other liquids.
- Look outside/at nature: Supposedly this can be relaxing and mood boosting
- Clean: Clean your workspace or wherever you are at.
- Eat a bite of a snack: Works best with things that are ready eat and doesnt need to be preserved. Fruits, peanuts,
10 seconds to 5 minutes while your brain is busy
- Crochet/Knit: GPT didnt mention this, but I picked this up precisely to do something during work meetings. It was too easy to drift on the internet and not pay attention.
- Do laundry, clean, or other chores: Hope you don’t need to unmute a meeting. Cooking can work if you know the recipe by heart. If I am talking to a rambler, I can usually clean my entire home including dishes and the kitchen. That usually takes more than 5 minutes.
- Draw or Sketch: Not sure if you can learn things like depth and shading while thinking of something else. I found drawing/sketching quite valuable to portray my ideas.
- Play an instrument: I don’t mean to learn new songs, but specifically techniques. For guitar players, the hardest barre chords and galloping. These are strength and finesse things
- Stretch or light exercise: Anything beyond light exercise will make you pay attention less.
- Give yourself a quick scalp or neck massage: Might improve your mood for no cost.
10 seconds to 5 minutes of waiting, hands and mind free
- Answer email/messages: Duh! Now that I see this, I need to merely remember that when I’m waiting a minute
- Read a book: I’m particularly fond of this one. Epub is my favorite format, followed by the Libby library app.
- Write a thank you note: My wife writes these and people will call her in praise at how nice the thank you note was.
- Plan your grocery list/next meal/snack: Research a new recipe or decide which recipe you want. You could check your kitchen inventory to see what is running low.
- Nap: I thought a 5 minute nap was silly, but… the other day I’m pretty sure I fell asleep in less than a minute. I was tired. So… maybe this could work for you.
- Declutter digital devices: Clean up pictures, organize notes, unsubscribe from emails, delete apps, etc..
- Write in your journal: Supposedly writing in a journal makes you more productive, more accountable, and I can assume makes you more money as a result.
- Knock out a short task you are procrastinating on: I like the idea of either breaking down the task into a manageable part during this time, or actually doing the first step. You can handle 10 seconds to 5 minutes of pain.
- Meditate: No suggestions here, I have utterly failed to meditate every time I tried.
My Conclusions
These are not the best, this is my experience.
During 5 seconds of being physically busy, I review some sort of ‘next steps’ or ‘goals’. During 5 seconds of mentally busy, fix posture/stretch. With 5 minutes of being physically busy, podcasts/audiobooks, the time cost to turn it on is worth it for 5 minutes of knowledge. ~5 minutes of being mentally busy, cleaning or crocheting, the kitchen is a favorite mindless place to clean. 5 minutes when my hands and mind is free, I’ll read a book on my phone.
Wish you the best in implementation and being more efficient.
Double Productive Friendship – Multitasking In The Best Ways
This one seems controversial among my friends, so be wise with how you announce it.
Since going full Stoic last year and dedicating all of my time to projects, I’ve decided I cannot just hang out with friends for pleasure. However, I still believe hanging out with friends is the right thing to do. I have made it a requirement for us to do more than sit around and chat. The goal here is to have much needed conversations and knock out necessities. Never again can someone say ‘I’m too busy’. These are necessities in life, why not do them in good company?
Here are some of the ways I’ve made spending time with friends double productive.
Cooking
Cooking with friends is a way to try new foods from your friend’s recipes, experiment with something new, or do a labor intensive recipe that you wouldn’t otherwise do. Hanging out with my friend taught me about how Indian food is made(layer lots of individual groups of flavors rather than mixing everything together). Another time we experimented with sashimi grade Tuna to make our first raw homemade sushi with my ‘high roller’ friends. Finally my favorite is to put everyone to work on a time consuming food such as ravioli, dumplings, spring rolls, or pierogies.
Exercise
We currently do this in two forms. 2 times a week we lift with the same gym crew. Seeing someone for 2 hours a week for 6-9 months turns you into forever friends, its very rewarding. (This is the 2 hour/week workout that is free here)
I also do an ‘occasional workout with friends’. I’ve added extra workouts during the week to keep my energy levels up without caffeine. A Friday or Saturday workout with a random friend means they get gains and you get gains. My friend specifically said ‘This is great!’. He also is an insanely hard worker, so consider that personality type is most interested in Exercise.
DIY
This one you should be careful with, don’t just ‘ask for a favor’. For instance, don’t have a mechanic fix your car for you. However, we made gourmet cupcakes with some friends and they got to learn how to make gourmet cupcakes. Win Win Win.
Influence Me
Sometimes I hang out with people that are better than me. I am often looking for these people to rub off on me, so I don’t exactly require double productivity from these people. I’ll ask these people about my problems and absorb. I will often prepare for these by writing down questions or subjects to bring up. These aren’t necessarily people that are enormously wealthy, famous, or influential, but more often peers that excel at something I want to get better at.
As a lesser example of this, I had a friend show me a feature on FreeCAD that I wasn’t aware of before. It was like a personalized tutorial. She got her ego stroked, I learned something new.
Watch Kids Together
For people with kids, this is a great way to catch up during the time you would otherwise be managing the chaos. As a bonus, the kids get to practice sharing.
My wife thinks that this is called a “play date”.
Final Thoughts On Being Extreme
I will make exceptions for people I haven’t seen in a long time. I make exceptions for parties, as they are an efficient way to catch up with many people and meet new people. Exceptions can exist.
After the productive period I will also spend time before and after where we will be regular 1x productive time together, enjoying company.
Efficient Careers, Youtube Cooking Videos, Essential Fats and Amino Acids, Physical Cookbooks
5 new releases this quarter
- Our first ever physical cookbooks, Efficiency Is Everything In Cooking and New Perfect Eating. These recipes are free digitally In Cooking pdf and Perfect Eating article.
- New Recommendations – Essential Amino Acids and Essential Fats when eating for ~$1.50/day. Bonus nutrition information as we are building a calculator including every essential nutrient, essential amino acid, essential fat, antivitamin, and provitamin the human body needs(Minimum/RDA) and max(Dangerous).
- We Cook on Youtube- See how we eat for $1.50 per day, feat Dr. Mandy Kirk.
- Minor Article: Long term conclusions from our Restaurant study
Feature Article
The decisions you make at 18 years old changes everything. A veteran contacted me having no college debt and $400k in mortgages at the age of 23. We have 3 others compete to beat ‘5 years to the American Dream’.
American Dream Per Dollar– Efficiency Is Everything studies Career paths, change your life and make money in years.
Bonus Shoutout: Dr. Alex Harrison has a DIY Gatorade for endurance athletes
Tips/Reminders
Read books/play musical instruments while watching your favorite sports. (~6hrs/week)
Eat more $1.50/day recipes, try once a week until you learn the recipes. (Saves $100-$10,000/yr + delicious healthy food)
If you must go to restaurants, dollar menu/loss leaders (400 Calories Per Dollar vs 100 Calories Per Dollar)
Bored and ready to buy entertainment? Save money and watch Philosophy videos on youtube. (Stoicism and Tao Te Ching are popular)
Invest.
Wish you the best,
Michael Kirk
Lead Engineer
American Dream Per Dollar, the lowest cost path to a degree and 400k home.
I was talking to an Efficiency Is Everything User who is the owner of multiple homes and a college degree with no college debt, age 25.
I was curious what the most optimal path to this ‘American Dream’ of being college debt free and owning a 400k USD home. Note- I personally don’t know if I support personal home mortgages, but this can otherwise be viewed as-
“Paid College degree and $80,000”
We have Michael and Mandy Kirk, Austin, and Francesca racing to 80k.
Michael(Me) and Dr. Mandy Kirk
I saved a few thousand dollars by being stingy as a child, knowing I’d need to pay for college. I worked a retail clothing job making ~9k yr until I got coop job turned midnight shift job paying 38k/yr. This worked out as I took 60 credits at the community college and 68 credits at our local university, living off campus(19k/yr expense). Year 2 my parents loaned me $9k USD to pay for college and I was able to pay it back by graduation with the help of my process technician job.
From there it was engineering money. And both the costs and the benefits of my wife’s Doctor of Physical Therapy degree. We finally bought our house 9 years after high school graduation. Speaking of benefits, Dr. Mandy now has over 40 patients per week.
9 Years.
Michael Kirk(Individual Run)
Suppose in 2012 I didn’t buy a wedding ring and doctorate degree. I hit 80k+ savings year 7.
7 Years.
Austin
A veteran Active Duty Marine uses benefits to get free college and VA loans that require no down payment. The catch is that you need 4 years of Active Duty. (Austin did 5 years Active Duty)
Austin then found a college that you could take tests to get credits toward the degree. He could study for the tests, take them, and get credit for the classes. The total cost of his bachelor degree was $~7200, the government paid for almost all of it by being in the Air Force or Army Reserves. In 2020 Austin finished his Bachelors degree and got a pay raise to $115,000/yr. Or so he expected, until he was called upon in the reserves. Its both a pay cut and cost of living cut as he no longer needs the place he currently rents. He currently is getting the government to pay for his masters degree.
This is a way to get the same outcome and meets the goal-line. Reminder, this could be shorter with 4 years active duty or using reserves.
7 Years.
Francesca
Our conversation started off with her teaching piano lessons and saving money since she was 13. Even with us only tracking her from 18 on, she had Money figured out. After her first year of college she worked a intern job, taught piano, and did school. When you make ~20k profit per year before graduating college you are going to win this race.
Some notes about this lifestyle. She said her parents were annoying and work was more tolerable than being home. And one time she almost fell asleep teaching piano lessons.
5 Years.
Conclusions and Errors
Here is the raw data. Francesca wins the race by the numbers.
However, is the race to a downpayment on a 400k house a good metric?
Upon finishing the race the Engineer and Dr of Physical Therapy has a revenue close to 300k/yr, Francesca makes teacher pay.
The Final Ultimate Answer – Job/Reserves for 2 years while working a second job and getting a high value degree.
Marry a doctor.
Possibly join the reserves as they have $5k/yr or higher benefit toward school plus access into potentially high paying ‘top secret’ government jobs. It takes ~39 days per year x8 hour days, a benefit of about 16$/hr.
Or maybe you get a factory engineering job and learn about Industrial Engineering while attending engineering school.
The trend is having no time and high value degrees. Anecdote: I thought the weekends and money was nice.
Bonus note: Western Governors University allows you to test out of classes, saving money. Might be worth considering a college that lets you do this.
Outro
Hope this was engineering enough, but for such a critical life decision as a career it seems necessary for Efficiency Is Everything to cover it. Completing a suggested path is going to be difficult, but consider it like exercising a muscle in toughness- wait, that’s not engineering.
Wish you the best,
Lead Engineer
Michael Kirk
Industrial Engineering Laundry – Ergonomics For Quicker And Easier Laundry
Lead Engineer- Michael Kirk:
There are two sections, theoretical “By The Book”, where you will hear the most optimal situations you can hope to achieve. These are good to know, so you can think about them when doing laundry. There are lots of good ideas in there.
Finally, we will go into real world tips to get closer to optimal, so you can save time and effort right away.
This study was funded by Elizabeth P. Thank her for donating to study Efficient Laundry!
Engineering Theory- The Most Optimal (by the book)
Ergonomics is a hybrid of human health and engineering. This combines the mathematical and logic rigor of engineering to studies in humans. This data comes out as measurements, estimations, and best practice.
Enhancing Attention
- One book suggested human attention is limited to ~30 minutes on a routine job. No reason to feel bad about getting bored of household tasks, you are only human.
- Room Temperatures above 79 degrees are bad.
- Work quickly, being motivated is proven to make you work quicker. Literally, thinking, can make you more Efficient. Rally! Don’t be weak!
Information Processing
- Making a decision is fatiguing. Regardless if its trivial, the mind needs to see, understand, think, and convert into an output. It should be noted that after basic skills are obtained, people get better at speed.
- Since these tasks require decisions, both in muscle control and mind, proficiency will happen with time.
Best Practices- For Reach
- A 5th percentile female can reach approx 2 feet, and this can be extended an additional 9 inches when standing.
- Bending over is not desired. A rolling cart may help elevate baskets off the floor and ease transportation.
- Motion is not desired, if you can grab multiple items per bend, you will save time and effort.
- Another reminder, Motion is not desired, items that need to be put far away can be tossed aside. Hang up all necessary items, once.
Ergonomic Facts
- Pulling motions are best done between 120 and 180 degrees, with best performance at 150 degrees. while pulling >120 degrees. This means its easier to pick items up below you, and put away higher.
- However, any sort of grabbing without bending over or reaching is encouraged.
- Use a power grip! Instead of using fingers, use your fist to pick up. This is stronger than fingers.
- Discomfort will cause inefficiency, even a 5cm/2in too high counter can cause shoulder pain.
- Static, holding still, restricts blood flow and requires longer rest periods. Dynamic movement allows blood to circulate during relaxation.
- To reach further, bend your hip(8.2in/20cm) and rotate(1.8in/4.5cm) and extend shoulder(4in/10cm). Those are your 3 ways to extend.
Conditions
- For long tasks, if you can adjust between sitting and standing, this is preferred. Equipment exists to change the height level.
- Sitting is better for blood flow.
- Try not to hold the same position for more than 15 seconds, that is when lactic acid begins to build up.
- Avoid moving/transportation to put something away.
Reduce or Increase Stress
- Stress can be good, according to one book, a 10/10 is too stressful, a 3-5 stress is beneficial. 1/10 stress was not enough.
- The arrangement of your workplace(dimensions, relative locations, etc…), makes a major contribution to how a task is handled.
- What are the accuracy requirements? Do things need to be folded/unwrinkeled? Could you change this to be happier doing laundry? Or make more challenging?
- Is there flow? Work-rest cycles may be beneficial and for extended tasks, having start-stop times.
- Environment- Temperature, family/pets, surroundings.
Reduce Boredom
- One book had root causes of boredom, here is a take on how to make tasks less boring.
- Short cycle times may be boring. Is there an opportunity for process flow?
- A task with few opportunities for body movement gets boring, its okay to stretch/exercise muscles.
- Could cooler temps get you motivated?
- Have coworkers. Should we be doing laundry with family?
- People with high abilities and eager to excel find boredom, so next time you do laundry, try to be more Efficient. This is your new challenge, let us know if you find any discoveries.
- Dim work environment causes boredom. Changing color RGB light strips are a solution to boredom, or maybe the book intended to use brighter white light.
Real World Tips – Applied Efficiency
Here are applicable to everyone efficiency tips.
Sort Clothes Faster
Upon research, there are Efficient Comparison Sorting Algorithms. These can be used to sort your laundry faster. A take at Laundry Quicksort–
- Pick 2 items to collect, one for each hand. IE: Mrs Socks, Mrs. Underwear
- Collect these with minimal digging, and put away
- Put away large items that prevent seeing new items, don’t think too hard about this.
- Continue with this routine, picking large quantities as a priority, and removing large items that inhibit seeing.
The goal here, limit motion like digging around and extended searching. Like Quicksort, your visible items are your ‘sorting set’, and items you cannot see are not sorted. All while picking up many items reduces the number of times you bend/turn to get clothes.
Hanging up clothes may be better separated into a different task. This is highly dependent on if you are sorting clothes near your closet and are near hangers.
If laundry is done at the individual level rather than family level, it be quicker due to less sorting.
Workspace Tips
- Limit Transportation. Do your work within range if possible. Consider Swapping the contents of drawers to make sorting possible without taking steps.
- Turn Less, consider that turning your body is motion, if doing laundry on the bed causes you to turn significantly, consider sorting in a different location.
Equipment
Note: this equipment suggestion is best practice, it serves to give you an idea what an Ergonomic Laundry Basket would be. Elevated, with wheels.
If you are interested, these are called Laundry Carts.
Even better, some laundry carts have false/auto adjusting bottoms to elevate laundry to make it easier to reach. Push laundry carts instead of pulling. Although changing muscle groups has economic advantages as well.
Next Steps
Get excited about doing laundry, like you never have before. I was shocked at how fast Quicksort had me putting away clothes.
With 5 ergonomics books under my belt, I expect more household tasks to get optimized, and laundry to be further studied with MODAPTS, which are used to code task time like reaching and grabbing. They use this in Sweat Shop Sewing.
Make More Efficiency
If we can reach 5,000 dollars, we are currently at ~2000 dollars, I will match and we can finance 2 interns to work 12 hours a week for 28 weeks completing studies that will help everyone.
The goal is to raise 5000 dollars to create more studies on Industrial Engineering Life.
Too Important Not To Cover: Future Value vs Present Value is a Multi-Million Dollar Decision
Lead Engineer- Michael Kirk:
Some topics are far to critical to Life to remain untouched. Your allocation of resources and assets is a choice that changes your life whether you like it or not.
The goal is to compare various opportunities for Future Value so you can make a decision based on your current life conditions and goals.
Cash on Hand
This is the fancy way of saying ‘United States Dollar’ in the US. This is your combined bank account, wallet, safe, under your bed, etc.. value of USD. This is a special number because the government has the ability to print money, and has historically devalued currency through ‘inflation’.
The US government claims ~2% inflation, others report 4% yearly inflation.
Your goal with excess Cash on Hand is to allocate it outside of USD to beat 2% inflation.
Interest Rates, Risk, Returns
The goal is to beat 2%/year inflation. But you also have other Qualities- Risk and Liquidity(ease of selling)
- Do you need your investment to pay for something soon? If so, less risky and more liquid.
- Do you have a loan? Refinancing is a good option
- Lots of excess income? Gambling vs long term investing.
Safest Asset Locations
A US Treasury Bond returns at 2%/year and would be ‘cost neutral’. Which explains its worldwide popularity. Its safe, it makes money, and it can be liquid.
Hoarding USD is popular, but runs risk of inflation.
Real Estate is popular, but isn’t liquid. Warning, real estate is also work, consider real estate a part time job rather than a passive investment.
Debt is worse than Inflation
Student Loans, Mortgages, Credit Cards. That % interest per year, is your new number to beat. A 4% mortgage means that any investment, should return more than this.
To convert Cash on Hand into a debt payment and make a positive impact on your interest payment, you must refinance. Paying more money each month, makes little to no difference as your loan is the same size. More payments means saving thousands of dollars, rather than refinancing for tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Its best to wait until rates are favorable to refinance.
Unimportant, can skip – A note on Amortization
Loans often have an amortization where the first payments are 75% interest/25% principle, and at 15 years in 50/50, and year 29 its 75% principle/25% interest. Refinancing resets this clock, and you do lose a few thousands dollars. We calculated if this is significant and if there was an optimal time.
Note, this is a ~400,000 dollar mortgage:
If 15 years are spent before refinancing and the amortization never works in our favor, we spend over 50,000 USD on amortization. At worst case its about 6% of your mortgage, totaling likely tens of thousands of dollars.
However, after refinancing, you will have saved likely hundreds of thousands of dollars on your mortgage and interest, about 20% of your mortgage.
Very Important- Refinancing
When refinancing(20%+) you will eliminate tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in future interest payments.
This is why saving up for a large debt payment is a safe way to ‘earn 4% interest’.
Re: Tax Write offs- There is a myth that spending more money on interest can save money on taxes. Your taxes will be slightly lower, but you will have spent more money on interest. Its wrong to spend, to spend for taxes.
Investing/Gambling
Abundance is a strange thing. People of all types are throwing money in investment apps.
As we try to increase our assets, we can try to beat our debt interest or exceed new highs.
Long term, safe, market investing can expect 7-30% yearly returns, or 30% yearly lows. This needs to beat our 4%/yr mortgage interest. Buying on a bad year can be disappointing and worse performing than USD.
Pick your favorite assets that you believe will perform better than USD. It is a good idea to have at least some diversification.
Maxing out your 401k/IRA is a good start. Diversify. Use your experience/knowledge to make niche investment decisions. Gold/Bitcoin. Diversify. SPY. Unicorn Projects. Your own project. Diversify.
The goal is to keep Cash on Hand low, and assets invested either passively or actively. You have millions of future dollars at stake. (But don’t stress, you do the best you can).
Re Gambling: The word Gambling was a misnomer for the unpredictability of investments. Actual gambling? No way, that’s bad math.
Recap- Your Options
You have Cash on Hand that loses value at 2% a year. Beat this.
Treasury Bonds are safe and liquid return 2% a year.
Debt often costs more then 4% a year, whatever your highest debt interest is your new number to beat. Beat this.
Investing comes in many shades from long term index funds vs gambling. This is the risky way to earn money.
Lead Engineer-Michael Kirk:
Given the current economy, we are choosing to save up to refinance. 4% isn’t bad when everything else is sinking.
This decision comes from many inputs, including political climate, like it or not. Your experiences should make an impact on your decisions.
Wish you the best on your asset allocations,
Michael Kirk
Big Efficiency News + How To Start An Efficiency Lifestyle for 2018
First, we have been hard at work studying various restaurants for the best Calories and Protein Per Dollar. If you haven’t visited our Food page, its a comprehensive list of optimizing food. Note: This article is how we eat 99% of our meals.
Hopefully this is every restaurant you would like. Feel free to comment any others you want studied.
It seems Google is starting to pick this up, you can ask ‘The highest Calorie per dollar food’, and it should tell you.
Burger King Per Dollar
Chick-Fil-A Per Dollar
Hardees Per Dollar
White Castle Per Dollar
Wendy’s Per Dollar
Five Guys Calories Per Dollar
Panara Bread Per Dollar
Jimmy Johns Calories Per Dollar
Panda Express Per Dollar
Pizza Per Dollar (Jets, Little Caesars, and more)
Chili’s Per Dollar
Taco Bell Per Dollar
McDonalds Per Dollar
Efficiency News
I don’t like to talk about myself, I really just want to provide you high quality data. However I had people reach out about my absence. Skip ahead for this weeks article.
I’d like to make quality articles rather than hit deadlines. I had been working more than 70 hours a week between Efficiency and my Engineering job. Paying an Intern only made me raise the quality of the articles rather than reduce workload.
I want to spend a few months programming an App that will make Mutual Funds feel like Cash. “Cash” with a 7% yearly return but with an ability to exchange without fees. This isnt cryptocurrency, this is a solution to a problem I had since I worked at a clothing store. I asked my boss if I could be paid in NASDAQs instead of USD- No. USD inflates, Investment provides value. I’m excited to program for a few months, I hope to come back to Efficiency with some new skills.
In addition, we have a team starting a charity, Kids In Kitchens, where we teach 5th graders how to make a no-chop slowcooker meal to feed 5 people for 6 dollars.
I stopped playing video games and started sewing with a focus on fashion. I post my creations on Instagram.
While I take a break, I’d like to set some very reasonable goals to work toward an Efficient Life.
You Need To Be Efficient
“Oh, you really do this in your life?”
My neighbor was shocked when I was telling him about having shelves in our kitchen to reduce time opening and closing cabinets.
While I don’t expect you to remodel your kitchen, I want to you implement major improvements that will pay dividends throughout your life.
Make Life Lazier, Apply Process Flow
Reducing steps in daily routines are something that pays off instantly.
Something like your daily morning routine should be optimized in detail, setting aside time for timed and recorded trial. Either having a partner write down every detail of every step of your routine, or recording and reviewing your routine will give you an opportunity to find waste.
Find steps that do not add value and make it a goal to either remove or reduce that time.
This is something you can do on smaller scales. When cutting food, moving the cutting board and knives closer to the refrigerator. Simply being aware that (movement) Waste is significant will begin to make a serious impact to giving you more free time.
You Know Expensive Foods, Its Time To Change
You know what I’m going to say,
The data has shown over and over that processed foods, frozen, canned, fast food, restaurant food, are not as cost effective as fresh foods.
Could you make it a goal to stop eating out?
3 quick solutions to laziness:
Protein Shakes– Can be made in 1 minute, filling, add some veggies and its a real meal.
Breakfast– Eggs and Breakfast Sausage take me less than 6 minutes to get 1000 calorie.
Bulk Food– We make 6+ servings for 2 people every night. Tupperware!
If you must eat out, limit yourself to only top calorie or protein per dollar items. This is a self-control thing. Eating out isnt going to be healthy, might as well eat it cheap.
Otherwise we eat out for birthdays.
Would you try Biphasic Sleep?
Regardless what time you go to bed or wake up, biphasic sleep can work with almost every lifestyle. Misses Efficiency Wakes up at 6am and takes her nap as late as 9pm. After that, she has a shot of energy and we have 3 hours of productivity, fun, or whatever the situation needs.
Take a look at our sleep articles. Many other users have made the change and say they are not going back.
Save 12 Hours A Week By Taking A Nap- Efficiency Articles
Our First Time Doing Biphasic Sleep + 4 Tips To Fall Asleep Fast
1 Year of Biphasic Sleep Later- Lessons Learned
Testimonials and Tips from other Biphasic Sleepers
Jim’s Experience And Tips on Biphasic Sleep
Jake’s Testimonial on Biphasic Sleep
Warnings- Why Biphasic Sleep Didn’t Work For Hailey and Ryan
Next Steps
I want you to think about your daily life and where there is waste, fix your food (dont be weak), and try something new.
Keep me excited about Efficiency, implement Efficiency in your homes and teach people how to optimize their life.
Check out my favorites from 2017
Save Money Without Shopping For Gas (Applied Secretary Problem)
Water Per Second. Non-trivial amounts of time are spent obtaining water.
Removing Non Value Added Marketing -Essential if you never taken a marketing class
Save Time Eating-Intermittent Fasting