If you read my blog titled, My letter to year 12 students, a few weeks ago you will know that after 13 years we no longer have any children at school. Just like that special feeling when you can finally get rid of the baby seats in the car, I felt the same packing up Jess’s school uniforms for the final time. Some of the clothes are so worn they are going straight into the rubbish bin. A few items will be sent to the second-hand uniform store but there is one piece that I will keep as a brilliant example of Jess’s efficiency.

Her school tie

In Year 7, and without my knowledge, Jess cut her tie, sewed elastic to it and smothered the knot with glue so it would never lose its shape. That is six years of never having to knot her tie… bloody genius I say. Imagine the accumulative time she saved.

Efficiency Hacks

I am always on the lookout for efficiency hacks. So, you can imagine how annoyed I was the other week when I realised there was a short cut key to insert a page break in Word. To determine the amount of time saved, I even timed myself. On average inserting a manual page break took about four seconds as opposed to one second when hitting the command and return key. That is three seconds longer every single time. I do love page breaks especially in long articles and book manuscripts. Clearly, I have no idea how many page breaks I have inserted but I can’t believe I didn’t discover this 10 years ago when I first started writing. Anyway, better late than never!

So, what is your best efficiency hack?

By the way one of my efficiency hacks happens at the end of every year when I unsubscribe from newsletters that I don’t read on a regular basis. Please feel free to do the same with me. If my weekly posts don’t give you joy, do a Marie Kondo and unsubscribe by clicking the button below… I will not be offended.