Ok. Step 14 gets us a bit closer to the close of this series.  I originally wrote about shopping at Walmart: 

“14. Shop Walmart–less trips

I love to shop at Walmart.  I can go to just one place and get groceries, car tires, a birthday gift for Aunt Millie and take out for dinner all in one stop!”

But the truth is that any place that allows you to combine your efforts to save you time and energy is a great tip and part of the 14th step in Getting Out of Survival Mode.  This also saves you gas, frustration, and overwhelm.  Anything you can do that combines things into one trip, one store, one outing, will be a helpful step in getting out of survival mode.  So here are other ways I combine things:

1. Amazon and Online stores. You can buy just about anything online. I’ve talked about that before, but I can’t stress enough how letting your fingers walk through the virtual yellow pages takes the sting out of just about all manner of shopping!  It’s my best tip for so many steps along the way that will get your further from survival mode!  Walmart even has an online version of itself now!
2. Use your down time. I’ve had a lot of practice with having to remain in bed or on the couch due to chronic illness/surgeries.  Let me tell you that there are a LOT of ways you can combine your recovery (from surgery or resting from other trials and issues).  I did a lot of my work on my phone instead of my computer.  My dh bought be an iPad to help me do more that my iPhone couldn’t due to my overwhelming fatigue and pain of fibro and other health issues.  This allowed me the ability to do many of the things I needed to without having to get up and go to my computer.  
3. Sweeps.  Sweeps is a word I made up just for this.  It’s what I call doing what’s needed while you’re already in that room or store or event.  If you’ve already hobbled yourself into the kitchen, you might as well combine the trip for coffee with the trip you were going to take to wipe down the counters.  If you’ve already gotten yourself to take a trip for Thanksgiving, you might as well combine that with all the trips you were going to take to the post office mailing Christmas gifts.  If you’ve already driven to the gas station, you might as well get the car washed on the way out.  
4. Extra. If you’re already making a sweater or cookies or dinner for one person/event, you might as well make extra for other people/events.  It takes very little extra effort to make more dinner and freeze half than it does to make just enough for one night.  It takes just a bit more effort to make two batches of cookies than it does one so you can have twice as many to give as gifts at Christmas time.  

Anything you can do to increase the output without increasing the input by much is an opportunity to do more with less time/effort.  And that gets you one step closer to getting out of Survival Mode!

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