1. Delegate to players: I have players that keep the party journal, track the building and maintenance of their keep, and run some of the NPCs that are their associates.
2. More planning: I try to plan the outlines and maps for adventures pretty closely and set up appropriate encounters (not prescribing when and where each encounter will be, but having some around for the adventure. Balancing the encounter levels takes a little bit with big parties, and it's hard to get right doing it spontaneously during the game.
3. Don't split party: The party really tries not to get split. Too much history of bad things that have happened when they've split, so this is relatively easy for me.
4. Streamline combat: I use a program that rolls and manages initiative for the party and monsters - all are placed in initiative order on a single list. The players agreed to give up control of their initiative rolls to a random number generator because they saw the huge benefit of using it. It cut down our encounter prep time or almost nothing. Prior to that rolling initiatives for 8 players, 6-10 monsters, and ordering them appropriately could take 15-20 minutes.
5. Things outside game: When possible, I try to do item management in email after the game. And, I always do that for experience and leveling.
6. Take shortcuts: I map out dungeons on a whiteboard for everyone to see. I reuse encounters that don't get used during an adventure for random encounters or as challenges when PCs go off the beaten path. And, I use software as shortcuts for creating encounters, tracking experience for the encounters in a game session, tracking treasure that's found during a session (and where it was found), creating NPCs (randomly or with specific stats, classes, and features) and linking encounter creatures to their book and page for quick referencing.

All of these things really saves our group a lot of game time, so we can get further through our storylines and adventures.

"The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory."

By: Paul Fix

Pandora is a really cool website. It lets you create your own personalized radio station based on bands and songs that you like. The Pandora software figures out other types of similar bands, songs, and genres and plays them for you like your own radio station. What can I say? That's just great.

Also, on a gaming front, if you want to create your own session playlist, you can start with songs you like and let the site figure out what else to play. I haven't tried this for a game session, but it seems to work pretty well for just listening to music.