Changes you've made to make life easier

[TipsyTraveler]

Schwans has unattended delivery too. But with in a 3 hour window, and all in the afternoon. Given that DD has to be at work at 2 am, I have to be at work at 3 am, and DW has to be at work at 4 am, not sure Amazon delivers THAT early.

They have a 9pm-11pm delivery window (in my area, at least) if that would work better with your schedule.

 

[Klayfish]

Oh dear! I’d have to go to bed at 7:00 PM in order to wake up at 4:00 AM every morning! It’s still light outside then. Not sure I’d ever adjust.

I wish we could go to bed at 7pm. Bedtime is usually around 9:30-10:00pm. By Friday night, we're pretty exhausted. We usually have our "cheat meal" around 8:30pm and then go up to bed and pass out. Weekends we get to sleep until about 8am...assuming none of the kids have super early games.

 

[eeyoresmom]

This sounds trivial but a couple of years ago I organized my closet by color. All my tops are grouped together by color, pants by color, and sweaters by color. Makes finding what you need in the morning so much easier. When doing this I also found that I had multiples of the same color and kind of top.

Not trivial at all. I do this as well and it makes my mornings a bit easier. I also wear the same pair of diamond stud earrings every day. They are classics and look good with everything. One less decision to make.

 

[mamacatnv]

Three things I have done this year:


3 months ago we hired a once a month housekeeping service. They do all the heavy scrubbing, the toilets, tubs, floors, baseboards, blinds and ceiling fans etc. DH and I keep things picked up and I vacuum and change the sheets in the middle. We had a housekeeper for years when the kids were young but gave it up 10 years ago when DS went to college.

I no longer self wash our 130# Great Pyrenees. The groomer who owns the self wash gave me a very reasonable quote to groom, I tried it, I LOVED the result and my spoiled rotten mama's boy of a dog now goes to the groomer every 3 months. Its worth the couple of hours of getting the stink eye or being ignored, he looks, feels and smells wonderful!

Last week we hired a yard guy to mow and trim - twice a month in the summer every 3-4 weeks in the winter, if we actually have a winter.

DH and I have cut back on eating out since the kids are now gone, its easier to eat better and our grocery bill has declined thus we decided that these little extras were worth every penny.
When I walk in my clean house or pull up to the freshly mowed/trimmed yard and am met by my beautiful clean dog, I sigh in pleasure, its worth every single penny!

 

[eeyoresmom]

mickyzzzzz05 said: ↑
I started using Fly Lady over 10 years ago and wish I had started earlier. My house is always ready for company. I follow a morning routine that takes less than 10 minutes most days and I can not emphasize how much easier my life seems. You can follow the suggestions as much or as little as you want and the peace of mind it has brought to me is wonderful.

I tried that years ago, but the constant e-mails overwhelmed me.


Some things I've done at various times over the years (some temporary, some permanent) -

Stopped folding wash cloths. The stacks were always falling over in the linen closet. We just have a big basket for them in there now.
One particularly bad cold season, I switched to paper towels by the bathroom sink. It cut down so much on passing germs around!
One summer, I declared one night a week "breakfast for dinner" so I didn't have to think.
Last summer I set up two plastic storage crates (like milk crates, only narrower) and moved the pool towels downstairs. - So much more convenient!
I also did a lot of decluttering last summer. I need a refresher, but it really helped.
Hiring someone to mow the lawn!
A checklist for daily tasks that I go through every evening (when my brain is otherwise mush) to make sure it's all done.
Got rid of the loveseat in the "formal" living room and put in another bookshelf.


And the newest and best has been DS getting a car. I had no idea how much easier life was going to be!
...

As the mother of 4 kids I can honestly say, and do quite often, is that the day my youngest got his licence was the most freeing day of my life!

 

[clothesmindedmom]

Own fewer things. I have maybe 50 pieces of clothing, including shoes and coats, so I can grab what I need without too much thought. I also wear a lot of dresses, which is an instant outfit.

I'm a massive planner, so I plan everything. The kids' schedules, date nights, meals, etc. I have the kids lay out their outfits the night before, as well as pack their lunches.

I do lots of things in 5, 10-minute spurts. Vacuum one floor, then Windex, then clean a bathroom, then check in on Disboards

I schedule all my errands on one day. I even arrange them by location, so I can maximize my time (starting from farthest and working my way back home). I'm super efficient one some days so that I can lounge and watch Netflix another day

 

[PlutoRocks]

Got rid of the top sheet on the bed....my life is much better....and I am serious. I always hated the top sheet but felt it necessary for some reason. Now its a fitted sheet and comforter and we are happy!!!

MJ

That is so funny. My daughter hates using a top sheet. She hasn't used one for years and it drives me crazy. Every time I wash her sheet, I ask her if she's sure she doesn't want me to put the top sheet on her bed. lol.

Thinking about it now after your post, I guess it's really silly to try to convince her if she just doesn't want it. How silly that we just do things because that's the way it's supposed to be done!

I will leave the poor girl alone from now on. lol

I haven't used one since I was a kid and my mom stopped making my bed. She always told me I was crazy and she would just shake her head at me.

My time saver is to clean as I go so I don't have to spend the weekends cleaning.

 

[tvguy]

They have a 9pm-11pm delivery window (in my area, at least) if that would work better with your schedule.

LOL. We all are in bed by 7 pm!

 

[arminnie]

I worship Amazon Prime. As an Arkansas resident I have a loyalty to Walmart as they have done so much for education and health care in our state - but they just can’t deliver like Amazon Prime. When I need some odd thing like a shaker to mix vinaigrette there it is on Amazon.

I am retired so don’t need a lot of dress clothes. I wear denim and black jeans in the winter and white ones in the summer. I found a brand that fits me and is cheap at Costco and bought multiple pairs. Got rid of the older stuff that didn’t fit right etc. I did the same thing for summer shorts - found a brand that fit and is the right length. Now it is so easy to grab a pair of pants and then find a top.

As I have diminished physical stamina and ability because I am so old I now have a cleaning person and yard workers. It killed me to accept my limitations- but it did make life easier.

 

[aprilchem]

I've done a lot of things that have made my life easier in the last couple of years:

• I've removed all the clutter in the house. We don't have knickknacks, or pictures around, or souvenirs and such that we have to clean. Surfaces are kept clear to minimize cleaning time.
• I've minimized my wardrobe. I have ten shirts and ten skirts and two pairs of PJs for winter and two for summer. I own 8 pairs of shoes. That's it! So no rummaging through a messy closet to find something, because my closet is mostly empty.
• We keep the house really clean all the time. I'm working on the kids to put everything away right away. Each night we go through and vacuum, clean the floors, clean the kitchen, etc. before we sit down and rest or do any leisure activities.
• I generally try to keep up with things and not get behind. My laundry basket is empty each night most of the time, I recycle or process mail as soon as it enters the house, the kids papers from school get recycled as soon as I take a look at them. If there's a flyer for school I take a picture of it with my phone and then recycle it.

All of these things have made me MUCH more relaxed!

 

[js]

I order online when I can.

I have a cleaning lady. No way am I cleaning, changing sheets, and cleaning toilets on my two days off from work.

My dh has a service do the lawn.

My dh pays the bills online.

When I go on vacation, I always have my clothes pressed at the dry cleaners no matter if they are casual or dressy so I dont have to iron them. I have started doing this for my dh and me for our upcoming cruise.

Sure I have more but going to bed lol

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Got rid of the top sheet on the bed....my life is much better....and I am serious. I always hated the top sheet but felt it necessary for some reason. Now its a fitted sheet and comforter and we are happy!!!

MJ

Yup this is me too. After enough time of the sheet ending up at the bottom of the bed anyways and washing something I wasn't using I stopped putting it on the bed. It's been fitted sheet and comforter (separate from my husband's comforter he uses) for quite a while now.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

~I don't know if it's so much a change I made but probably something my husband has paid more attention to since meeting me- If possible I do errands in a circle, rectangle, whatever shape so long as I minimize crisscrossing or backtracking along with having a plan on what places I'd be going to. I learned this from my mom and we adhere to this whenever possible. My husband's family and consequently my husband didn't have so much of an organized plan when I met them. Going out to eat with them was so strange to me when I first met them- We'd be in the car going out to dinner with them moving in the car and then it would be "well where do you want to eat" a back and forth conversation would ensue, we'd eventually figure out the place and so many times the place would be the other direction of where we were headed.

~My husband likes to do walmart grocery pick up while at the present moment I prefer not to. They don't take manufacturer coupons and they can charge more online through grocery pickup than the item would be in store. But if he's really wanting to do it that time's grocery run that way we'll do it.

~We buy chicken in vacuum sealed pouches from Costco. It's easy to cut the pouches apart and put them in the freezer and then defrost ahead of time in the fridge for a meal. The chicken will last us months by doing that as we only take it out of the freezer when we plan on making something in the next day or two and there's never been any freezer burn because of how the packages were sealed.

~About a week or two ago I downloaded a shared calendar app for my husband and I. We joked that I was his secretary/social calendar person and so I decided to check into shared calendars. He now can go to the app and see what we have going on for a specific day or time and he can add stuff to it as well. It's already come in handy several times lol.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

LOL. We all are in bed by 7 pm!

Perfect, they’ll be waiting for you when you wake up!

 

[AnnaFloridaLover]

It helps not to be picky with this routine. I won't eat a sandwich that is probably older than 12 hours. Not worried about sickness or anything, I just like my food to taste like it was "just made." I could never eat a sandwich on Thursday that was made on Sunday. Fully admit I'm a princess!

I don't think that's princess behaviour. Eating a sandwich that has been made more than 6 or so hours ahead of time is unpalatable, in my opinion. I can't imagine what it would taste like 5 days later. I'm guessing like it came out of a lunch truck's vending machine. Seems so wrong.

 

[Toolulu22]

When doing this I also found that I had multiples of the same color and kind of top.

Upon organizing my closet, I found the same thing and it really surprised me.

I made a master list of all my logins and passwords and keep it handy in a file. Also made a travel packing list that I made a bunch of copies of and pull out every time we travel.

Repeat delivery from Petco and from Amazon for some things.

Biggest way to save time is to stay on top of tasks, and I learned to stop committing to things just because someone asked. Saying "no" more makes life easier.

 

[ten6mom]

Got rid of the top sheet on the bed....my life is much better....and I am serious. I always hated the top sheet but felt it necessary for some reason. Now its a fitted sheet and comforter and we are happy!!!

MJ

OK- so I got remarried a couple years ago and my husband hates the top sheet, as do my two kids (who are products of my first marriage, so no blood relationship there). I thought THEY were weird for not wanting to use a top sheet, but judging by the number of people who liked your post, maybe I am the weird one! What's not to like about the top sheet???

 

[mousefan73]

i save all passwords for online stuff as a contact. wx. disney/ netflix ex. even banking. I know, I know. there are other , safer solutions but I am just mentally tired of remembering or putting those some where safe. i have my phone locked. still realize not really safe. same at work. we have so many system passwords. all in my outlook contacts.

 

[Klayfish]

I don't think that's princess behaviour. Eating a sandwich that has been made more than 6 or so hours ahead of time is unpalatable, in my opinion. I can't imagine what it would taste like 5 days later. I'm guessing like it came out of a lunch truck's vending machine. Seems so wrong.

If the ingredients are already sitting in the fridge, it makes no difference if it's assembled as a sandwich. Turkey slices taste the same sitting in their original package as they do on a piece of bread. Same with cheese slices, and peanut butter. But YMMV.

 

[Disneylover99]

If the ingredients are already sitting in the fridge, it makes no difference if it's assembled as a sandwich. Turkey slices taste the same sitting in their original package as they do on a piece of bread. Same with cheese slices, and peanut butter. But YMMV.

For me, it's all about the bread. I hate soggy bread or bread that's been sitting in the fridge for a few days. I might still eat a sandwich that has been refrigerated a day or two. It might taste okay, depending on what's on it, but it would taste so much better freshly made.