
Ask HN: What are the things that you buy to save time? - jondot
Hello all,<p>In the past I was a minimalist, and today I&#x27;m growing to appreciate the need for extra time to be productive.<p>I&#x27;d like to know what are the things that you buy, in life, in order to make more time available.<p>Examples: dishwasher (kitchen), mixer (kitchen), Synology (NAS, automatic backups), etc.<p>Thanks!
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hanniabu
Not necessarily buying, but I took a pay cut when I changed jobs in order to
work remotely. Saves 3hrs/day in commute time, so the cut was well worth it to
me.

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Rainymood
On the other hand. I moved closer to school to live on my own (not with my
parents) and I thought the 2hr commute would make up for it. Turns out that my
time was eaten up by doing a LOT of stuff on my own that normally my parents
would do for me (cook diner, wash clothes, clean, etc.).

This new experience made me appreciate my parents efforts a lot more :)

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ruraljuror
Personally, I think continuing to be a minimalist is the best strategy, but
that may also depend on your personality. I need my environment to be tidy, so
keeping maintenance manageable is a priority. Apartment Therapy, the konmari
method and the book Home Comforts are good resources for this.

In terms of gadgets, my rice cooker (with timer) is essential for me. I eat
steel cut oatmeal every breakfast. The timer allows me to cook it overnight so
it is ready in the morning. If you are only doing oatmeal the microwave works
well, but I also do a lot of rice.

Speaking of which, (again) if you do cook, the microwave is also fantastic.
Fast and nutritious for whole foods. Try sweet potatoes(yams) in the
microwave.

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atomical
I bought a Vitamix and make smoothies in the morning. I buy 40lbs of bananas
at a time. I combine 8 bananas with strawberries and nutritional yeast. I have
so much energy in the morning.

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schoen
How do you clean your Vitamix?

I have a Vitamix and I love it, but I find it a bit difficult to clean well,
and that limits how often I use it.

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PerfectElement
I use it everyday too. Depending on the smoothie I can just rinse it right
after using it, while everything is still liquid. Other times I fill 1/3 with
water, a bit of liquid dish soap, put the blender in the MAX setting and turn
it on.

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schoen
I think my trouble is letting it sit for even 10-20 minutes after the smoothie
is done, which makes it much harder to rinse.

Thanks for the suggestions.

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monknomo
Fruit cement begins to form very quickly. I usually rinse blenders before I
start to drink whatever I've blended.

~~~
schoen
Huh, I also don't think it ever occurred to me to transfer the smoothie to
another container to allow washing the Vitamix sooner. But that's easily done,
and the other container could go in the dishwasher later.

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dennybritz
Following a meal plan and preparing your meals for the whole week (or 3-4 days
at once). Or buying Soylent.

Maid Service (Cleaning/Laundry).

Home Gym equipment.

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necrodome
Here is a useful list [http://matt.might.net/articles/productivity-tips-hints-
hacks...](http://matt.might.net/articles/productivity-tips-hints-hacks-tricks-
for-grad-students-academics/#philosophy).

The title is targeted for academics, but I find the list items general enough
for anyone.

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MalcolmDiggs
An unlimited data plan for my phone, and a hotspot. I never realized how much
time I spent looking for a good wifi-signal / cafe until I didn't have to do
it anymore. Being able to just stop wherever I am, open the laptop and address
the issue (or take the video call, etc), has been a huge timesaver.

~~~
j2bax
Location? Carrier? Plan? Cost?

~~~
MalcolmDiggs
Location: US, mostly California. I travel constantly. Never had a problem with
coverage anywhere in the continental US.

Carrier: I've used Sprint, MetroPCS and Tmobile for phones. I've used Verizon
and Tmobile for hotspots.

Plan and Cost: For phones I get unlimited-everything plans which cost between
$65 and $100 a month, depending on the carrier and the phone. For hotspots
it's hard to find anything like an unlimited plan, so I usually pay per GB.
Costs range from $5 to $10 per GB. But obviously if you can figure out a way
to tether your laptop to your phone (the difficulty of which will depend on
the your carrier and phone) then you don't need a hotspot.

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tmaly
I take a picture of important documents,receipts, and tax info and upload them
to the cloud. It saves time when I have to pull up a documents or do taxes
later on. It beats having to sift through mountains of paper.

So to answer your question, a phone with a good camera and a unlimited data
plan

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jeo1234
Multiple displays for my desktop.

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hanniabu
So true...the lack of resistance allows for a more fluid thought and design
process too

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tired_man
IMHO, it is more so that one can see multiple windows without messing around
with tabbing.

When dealing with desktop publishing as a technical writer, I frequently need
multiple application windows, a terminal window or two, a client window for
the app, my editing program and it's attendant windows, and several misc
application to support my work (eyedropper, wireshark, screen cap, gimp, a
text editor).

Three monitors would be ideal, but I just don't have the space on my desk. I'm
considering a triple wall-mount, another monitor, and rearranging my space so
the desk is pushed up to the wall.

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hanniabu
Yes, that's exactly what I meant by lack of resistance - by not having to tab
around.

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tired_man
That's it exactly. If I had four sheets of paper I needed to refer to while
writing on a fifth, I sure wouldn't stack the four and shuffle them to see the
next bit.

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SQL2219
I won't drive out of my way to save a few percentage points on my purchase.
This saves me time. I also signed up for google fiber, thinking I would spend
less time waiting for wired.com to download their bloated pages.

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cdvonstinkpot
Cab fare instead of bus fare.

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dpeck
housekeepers

Bonus it also reduces tension in any/all co-habitation situations.

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bro-stick
Plug de rigueur: HomeJoy (YC S10)

[https://www.homejoy.com](https://www.homejoy.com)

~~~
Jipha
They closed last month. Some alternatives off the top of my head:
[https://iamexec.com](https://iamexec.com) and
[https://handy.com](https://handy.com)

~~~
bro-stick
TL;DR: beyond cleaning ->
[https://www.amazon.com/services](https://www.amazon.com/services)

Ah thanks, it's been a while. I met some of the founders and thought the space
was a capital-intensive, uphill battle without a biz model defensibility-
component on its own. Also, I think the brand has to be crystal clear, and
PathJoy / HomeJoy didn't do that. HomeJoy was again unclear as opposed to
MerryMaids and the other million maid services. CleanJoy was nice, but I don't
think they got the 0->1 solid first before pivoting the brand to something
more general. Then, there's the threats of Amazon and Google are dropping in
to offer all sorts of home services, WalMart and Costco will also want in,
either acquiring established players per vertical or building their own.

It's a double-ended marketplace of getting customers and providers... it takes
big bucks/hustling to inform customers _and_ loads of sales time convincing
small/medium providers to prenegotiate fees, terms and conditions. (Small
business people can be a PITA to sell to, but it's possible with obvious,
immediate examples of bringing them more business.). And, how do you vet
thousands of suppliers meaningfully and keep only the good ones (feedback,
reviews, certifications, training, etc.)? Google, Amazon, AliBaba have the
scale to do this where a startup would be hard-pressed to match the meatcloud
scaling of human-involved business processes where automation isn't quite
there yet, but it's getting better (and lots of startups should focus on
automation of service industry and white-collar corporate processes).

~~~
Jipha
For sure - there's a ton of these services but not a lot of differentiation.
There's even a subreddit[1] with over 10k readers based around home services
like this mostly copying the same model.

I had no idea about those big players wanting in. Very interesting. Thanks.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneurridealong](https://www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneurridealong)

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airframeng
Accountant services

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AnimalMuppet
Yard mowing.

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tired_man
patch cables

