Favorite Life Hack

[rollycolly2007]

Hi everyone. What’s your favorite life hack for simplifying your life? You can list multiple life hacks as well.

I run the dishwasher every night. I unload the dishwasher while making breakfast in the morning. I can load the dishwasher during the day.


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[Melaine]

I love this topic soooo much.

We also do the dishwasher, it makes a huge difference. Little by little we've added other similar steps to our evening routine to make the mornings run smoother: pick up the house, refill our water filter (like a Berkey), check the backpacks, etc. But the dishwasher has made the biggest difference. I can't think of others right now....

[PunkyBoo]

Using the Paprika app. I look at it on Friday evening or Saturday morning, let the kids help scroll through to pick what they want to eat during the week, do a week of meal planning, then use the app (combined with the ongoing grocery list on Alexa) to go grocery shopping.

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[Melaine]

I did think of a few others: each person has their own hamper and we wash almost everything on cold so NO laundry sorting. DH and I do sort ours into delicates and regular stuff so two loads between us. So much time saved and the clothes do fine this way too.

block scheduling has worked really really well for us. Putting all of the routine tasks on the schedule so I start and complete tasks at the best possible time.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I did think of a few others: each person has their own hamper and we wash almost everything on cold so NO laundry sorting. DH and I do sort ours into delicates and regular stuff so two loads between us. So much time saved and the clothes do fine this way too.

Yep! We don’t even bother with a delicate load. Cold/cold, permanent press, dry low. Done!!

How the heck do people do one load of dishes/day? There are always dishes already waiting in the AM when I unload. I have to run it again after lunch then again after dinner.

Curbside pick up is one of my go tos.

Everyone is responsible for getting their own stuff together for pool, school, trips, outings.

For trips I have a master packing list. There’s a spot on them for quantities. Before a trip, I print them out, Update quantities and cross off anything unneeded (for example my list covers sleepovers- sleeping bags... but those aren’t needed for most trips; I have a wedding/special occasion category with dress shirt, tie, belt, socks...). If it gets left behind I know it’s not for my lack of trying!


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[SnuggleBuggles]

Another thing is I was big on naming things for a while. I have all tape, glue...in a bin I call “the bin of adhesives”. Everyone knew where to find that. All school supplies were in the “green basket” (which was bright green and impossible to miss). The art supplies were in the art closet (easier than saying the lower right built in cabinet in the dining room). I had more. For some reason it really worked!


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[Melaine]

Oh another homeschool solution. Clear shoe pocket organizer on the inside of a closet door for school supplies. Best option we have found because it’s clear and everything super easy to access. Kid stuff down low, stuff I use up high.

[carolinamama]

Since we haven't been having our house cleaned since March, I wrote a cleaning category on our kitchen whiteboard - Monday is dust and vacuum, Tuesday is bathrooms, Wednesday is laundry and trash and so on. It helps get some help when it feels more objective to the kids and I'm not scrubbing everything myself. It took a few weeks to help the kids learn how to do a good job but now they have new cleaning skills

[elbenn]

Similar to the dishwasher hack, I try to do a load of laundry at night, or at least start loading the washing machine with clothes and then add more in the morning to quickly start a load of laundry without going and checking all the hampers.

I have pretty wicker baskets in rooms to hold either blankets or books. I have a shoe bench with baskets and each kid has a basket for their shoes. Next to the shoe bench is a basket that holds various shoe related things (slippers, shoe horns, deodorizing spray).

[Liziz]

I have a small multi-drawer organizer by the door to our garage, next to the shoes. I moved socks into that (one drawer for each person), with the bottom drawer for dirty socks. It saves so much time when we're trying to get out the door (so kids aren't all running back to their rooms for forgotten socks), and the dirty sock drawer at the bottom eliminates the random dirty socks all over my house!