From Get the Most Out of Your Trips
Like death and taxes, there's no escaping errand running. Supermarket, drugstore, dry cleaner, library, post office. Pick up, drop off, wait for kids -- or parents. If you're not careful, you can spend more than half of your leisure time with your butt glued to your car seat running errands.So what does any of that have to do with health? Plenty. All that errand running stresses you out and sucks you dry of energy. It also eats up hours better spent exercising, relaxing, cooking, having fun -- the healthy stuff of life. So our goal here is to get you through your errands faster, easier, and with less stress. Just be sure to use the time you gain wisely!
1. Group your errands. This is a golden rule: Never run just one errand at a time. You'll save time, gas, energy, and stress hormones by grouping your errands into batches. If you have to drop a kid at piano practice, you can also swing by the bank and deposit the check, pop into the market for a gallon of milk, and pick up the dry cleaning.
2. Run your errands in off hours. In other words, not on weekends (which is when 92 percent of us run our errands). Instead, make sure your dry cleaner, bank, doctor, supermarket, etc., are near work so you can take care of these mundane tasks on your way into or out of work, or on your lunch hour. You'll avoid the jammed stores and byways on the weekends, and have those two days just for you and your family. One of the best times to grocery shop? After dinner, when the kids are in bed. One parent stays home and one goes to the store. You'll be in and out in half the time it normally takes with kids in tow.
3. Create an errand center in your house. This is where the library books that need to be returned, the dry cleaning that needs to be delivered, the packages that need to be mailed, all live. Everything in one place (ideally near the door you use most often) will make it easier to run "bulk" errands. Another option: Keep these things in your car, in the passenger seat. They'll be a visual reminder of all you need to do.
4. Keep an errand list with you at all times. This includes both the ordinary errands that must be done (dry cleaning, library, post office), but also those little things you keep forgetting (pick up socks for the six-year-old, make vet appointment for the dog, buy underwear for husband, find organic potting soil). Use a sturdy notebook that you carry with you at all times, and make sure the rest of your family knows where it is so they can add things to the list.
5. Buy in bulk. The less often you have to go shopping for mundane items like toilet paper, paper towels, dog food, cat litter, toothpaste, deodorant, tampons, etc., the less time you'll spend running errands. Storage space tight? Most of these items will hide under the bed quite nicely.
6. Always include a little fun. List all the things you find joyful. Maybe it's reading a novel, writing in your journal, or hitting a few golf balls on a beautiful spring afternoon. Now, plan to include one of these items in any extended errand run. Stash a novel in your purse as you head to the post office; you can read in line. Keep the clubs and plastic golf balls in your car -- any vacant field you pass makes a perfect driving range. Carry your journal in your glove compartment -- jot a few lines as you're waiting for the car to be washed.
7. Turn waiting time into you time. Anytime you're stuck in a line, shift the negative, glass-half-empty thinking ("Darn, I don't have time for this") into positive, glass-half-full thinking ("Ahhh! A few minutes of peace."). Close your eyes (yes, while you're standing there in line) and picture yourself in the most peaceful place you can imagine. It could be a desert at sunrise, the vast ocean (and you in a lone canoe), or the middle of a massage in a luxurious spa. Let your mind go and take several long, deep breaths. Now how do you feel?
8. Offer to run errands for an elderly neighbor or a mother with young children. Studies find that helping others actually reduces our own stress hormones and makes us feel better.
9. Use the Internet for as many errands as possible. These days, you can bank online, order office supplies, buy garden perennials, shop for shoes, even grocery shop online. You can buy stamps at www.stamps.com, renew your library books online at your public library's Web site, arrange for a FedEx or UPS pickup from your house, even file your taxes electronically. The Internet, used smartly, can save you hours of time and immeasurable amounts of stress. Still worried about giving a credit card number over the Internet? If the Web site uses a secured server, then it is safer than giving your credit card over the phone and in some cases, using it at a store!
10. Keep an "errand bag" in the car at all times. This includes such things as bills that need to be paid, stationery and envelopes for writing letters (yes, letters!), a variety of greeting cards (birthdays, graduation, "just thinking of you"), pens, an envelope of coupons, your calendar, magazines you haven't read, a good book. Then whenever you're sitting in a waiting room, stuck in traffic, waiting for a kid's too-long soccer practice to end, you're also completing other tasks on your list and/or catching up on your reading.
11. Keep your grocery list on the computer. Most weeks, you're buying the same things anyway; having a master list on your computer makes it easy to add and subtract items. Organize the list in the same order as the store in which you shop. So, for instance, if the produce section is the first area you see, fruits and vegetables should be first on your list. Hit the print button, and off you go!
Be Efficient
12. Keep a cooler and a basket in your trunk. The cooler is to keep frozen and cold foods cold while you're running errands; the basket is to enable you to carry parcels into the house without making umpteen trips.13. Learn to run errands with your kids and not go crazy. There are few things more stressful than being stuck in traffic with ice cream melting in the trunk and a two-year-old melting down in the backseat. But today you're more likely than ever to be running your errands with kids, given government statistics showing that kids under five spend up to 65 minutes a day in cars. To cope:
- Run your errands at the right time of day for the kid. If you've got a toddler, that's morning, before naptime.
- Stock the car with snacks, juices, and toys. Keep a cooler up front with cool drinks and cut-up fruit that you can hand back to your toddler when he or she gets fussy. Keep the car stocked with a bag of toys that only come out when you're running errands.
- Keep an extra diaper bag in the car. This way, you don't have to worry about forgetting something, Make sure the bag is stocked with diapers, wipes, change of clothes, diaper medicines, crackers, even a couple of videos if you're lucky enough to have a DVD or VCR in your minivan.
- Combine errands for you with a treat for your child. It could be lunch out, an ice cream, or a side trip to the park.
- Don't forget your child during the errand running. So during grocery shopping, for instance, play patty-cake and peekaboo while your child is in the cart. Turn trips to the post office and dry cleaner into learning experiences. Many proprietors will even give you and your child a tour if it's not too busy.
- Play games while you're shopping. Give your school-age child a calculator and have him total up the cost of the groceries as you toss them into your cart. Let preschoolers put nonbreakable items into the cart. Toddlers can pick which color tissues to buy.
- Bring the right equipment for infants. That's a backpack type of carrier, or a front sling, both of which leave your hands free.
- Play a mind game with older kids to keep them disciplined and keep your mind focused and relaxed. One good game is "jotto." You each pick a word with five letters, no two the same, and have to guess the other's word by stating five-letter words and being told how many letters match. Keeping track in your head is challenging, but fun.
14. Run your errands mindfully. That is, rein in your racing mind and focus solely on the task at hand. Start by walking slowly and deliberately to and from your car to the stores. As you grocery shop, focus on the colors of the produce, the rich scents from the bakery, the abundant luxury that is an American grocery store. Pay attention to each step, each movement. By living mindfully in the moment -- even while picking out brussels sprouts -- you are performing what relaxation experts call walking meditation. Do errands this way and you'll find yourself far more calm and engaged, and at the end, less exhausted and frustrated.
15. Buy yourself a treat. Your kids aren't the only ones who need a little motivation during errand running. So make sure you add one more item to your list -- something nice for you. It could be flowers, a scented bath soap, an imported brand of beer, or a fancy cheese. Life is too short to limit it to Velveeta.
16. Use your time running errands to take a break from noise. Turn off your cell phone, your car radio, leave the MP3 player at home. Instead, as you drive from store to store, listen to the silence and let your own thoughts have a chance to come out. This quiet time will help recharge the energy that gets sapped by the overwhelming stimuli of daily life.
17. Keep several bottles of water in the freezer. When it's time to run errands in the summertime, grab one of them to take with you. You'll have plenty of icy-cold water to drink throughout your errands.
18. Listen to inspirational tapes or books on tape in the car while running errands. It's a whole lot more relaxing than the commercials, the deejays, and the intensity of everyday radio.
19. Alternate tasks with your neighbors or kids' friends. For instance, one week you do the grocery shopping for your neighbor; the next week, she does. Or she watches your kids while you run the errands for both families (or vice versa). Another option: Run errands with a friend. Not only will you benefit from the social support, but your kids will be much better behaved having a friend along.
20. If you're a dad, run errands with your kid. A University of California study finds that children who clean, cook, and run household errands with their fathers are better behaved and have more friends. An added bonus: The wives of these men find them more sexually attractive.