If you do something again and again, whether it’s on the computer or in “real life,” why not use this “assembly line” or “template” idea to speed up the process. For instance, if you’re cooking a number of dishes and will need the same ingredient for several, you could save some time by preparing all you need at once. If several dishes call for chopped onion, chop a lot of onion during your meal prep. Similarly, if you are making a dish, you can think of other dishes that would use some of those same ingredients, and make them too, or at least get them started. Perhaps you’re making baked potatoes for dinner. Why not throw a couple extra potatoes in the oven? Now your breakfast potatoes later in the week will be quick and easy to make – just chop up the potato, add butter, some of your already chopped onion, and some seasoning, and viola – you’re done. It only takes a couple minutes to cook. We’ve noticed this strategy employed on a number of cruises we’ve taken. Some of the ingredients used in dinner one night show up the next morning on the breakfast buffet.
Something that saves us enormous amounts of time is using email templates. We use Outlook in our office, and Outlook allows you to create a template email and save it so all you have to do is open it, make the necessary modifications, and hit send. You don’t have to start over from scratch with each email or reinvent the wheel each time.