How to Streamline Your Life, Part Four
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more details, please see our disclosure policy.
Find yourself in a mess you need to dig yourself out of? Here’s how to streamline your life!
Want to save this post?
Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I'll send you time- and money-saving tips every week!
This is what my life feels like somedays. Messy and disorganized. Like the breakfast dishes that could have been rinsed and put in the dishwasher right away, but weren’t, things can start to pile up.
There’s goo lurking in that pile that I probably don’t want to touch. But, the only solution is to slip on my gloves and dig in.
Experience teaches me that it’s better to prevent the pile than to have to dig out. That’s where streamlining your life can be so beneficial.
How to Streamline Your Life
This is part four in a series of ways to make life easier and more efficient. Go here for the beginning. Here we go with #26.
26. Find a calendar system that works for your family.
FishPapa uses Evernote at work. I like Google Calendar. We’ve both found systems that fit the way we operate. I’m reticent to join the Evernote crowd, but he’s been good enough to have a gmail account so I can very easily “invite” him to things I want him to plan for on his calendar.
Do what suits your family to plan events and communicate expectations with each other so you don’t have two babysitters — or no babysitter — scheduled for your date night next week.
27. Prioritize your tasks.
Do what only you can do and find the most opportune times to do it. Yesterday during my morning out, FishPapa called and urged me to go shoe shopping. Although it wasn’t part of my plan, he made the point that I needed to do then what I couldn’t do with six children in tow. Point taken. Since I had free alone time, I needed to spend it on those things that I would want to do alone.
28. Clip coupons? Don’t leave home without them!
You never know when you might find a great sale price that when coupled with a coupon will bring you great savings. Having them with you will prevent another trip out later. Likewise, don’t let the inserts and printables pile up on you.
Take a few minutes every day to clip and file and then put them in the car. Some people like to have their kids help them cut coupons. This doesn’t work for me, but try it – you might like it.
29. Create shortcuts to dinner prep.
Whether you fill your freezer or plan a bunch of 30-minute meals, find ways where you can make dinner quick and easy.
Check out these past series that will help you make dinner lickety-split:
30. Find yourself buried under aforementioned pile of goo? Take some time to climb out from under.
You’ll feel so much better if you know where to find things and can give yourself a fresh start. Consider digging yourself out with Zone Defense, my game plan for getting your house in order. It’s designed for “normal people” and to work with real life.
I’m not so sure about the “normal” part, but I’ve got plenty of “real life” to attend to. Be sure to read my series Organization for Normal People.
31-50. To be continued….
Got another great way to streamline Life as MOM? Share it with us in the comments because we can all use a new, good idea.
I use Outlook at work and Google Calendar at home. You can sync them up so that your events appear on both calendars. It’s very helpful when I keep it updated… but sometimes the paper version is more up to date in my house. 😉
Great reminders! All those little tasks, like doing the dishes, only take minutes but if you hold off, they just seem so overwhelming. Every time I do that, I’m left with a feeling of “ugh! Why did I put that off? It would have only taken 5 minutes!”
I’ve used Cozi and liked it. I did stop using it though when my laptop crashed. When I finally got it fixed and up and running, I ran across this great program. http://dailyhomeplanner.com/ Take a minute to check it out. She offers both a desktop version and a web-based version. Download the trial and check it out! It’s amazing! In no way am I affiliated with the program, the blogger; it’s just a system I found that I love.
Love your site! Keep up the great posts!
Well, I’ve found that I have to do most things IMMEDIATELY. Folded laundry? Put it away NOW and don’t let it sit. When I don’t do it right away, it sits for a long time. Same with wiping down counters after making a mess… if I don’t do it right then, it sits.