Work smarter, not harder

This has been a mantra of a good friend to me for many years. She's the queen of finding simpler, better ways to do anything. I thought of this this morning.

There's a reason "picking low-hanging fruit" is a synonym for taking the easy route. I've harvested all of the low-hanging unripe figs from our trees already. They were easy. Now I'm left with figs 10 feet or more above my head. Even on a ladder, picking those figs would be a difficult job.

I usually prune fruit trees in winter, after the leaves have fallen. Today I decided to do the winter fig tree pruning and harvest the high figs all at one time. Smarter, right?

Fortunately, unripe figs are firm, like the texture of cork. After cutting the branches off, I easily plucked off the figs.

I filled a salad spinner filled with those figs, enough to work with this morning.

One full salad spinner makes 2 quarts of preserved, sweetened unripe figs.

When I can, I double up my jobs, sometimes combining two jobs into one or sometimes making twice or more of the same recipe. If I have two occasions for which I need to contribute cookies, I make a double batch and freeze one half. In fall, knowing I will be baking a lot of pies between Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, I make a 5-pie batch of pastry and freeze it all in rounds. 

If I had picked figs directly off the tree this morning, with the plan to prune branches after the leaves fall, I likely would have spent the same amount of time climbing a ladder and picking one by one, moving the ladder, picking more, moving the ladder again, etc. as I did sawing and quickly plucking figs off the fallen branches. And now I don't need to prune this tree in winter.

What are some ways you've found to work smarter and not harder?