How do we find more TIME? More SPACE? More MONEY?! One step at at time!!! Just keep plugging away and slowly, slowly you will find that which you seek. Don’t try too much at one time or it can lead to a feeling of being overwhelmed and that can lead to failure.
When trying to find a balance, we tend to be seeking help with time, money and love. We seriously need to gain back some time in order to help us make more money and find time for better quality relationships. There are a billion or so tips for us to gain from others, so here’s 3 more for ya. Any tips I give are intended to help people inch their way closer and closer to their goals of life’s balancing act.
Sometimes it just takes something small to help us say, “ahhhhh, that’s better!” Life can get hectic, cluttered and very time consuming. Today I want to share just three little tips you can begin to incorporate into your home life right away. With these three suggestions, you will find help for three areas in the home;
-Find more storage space, instantly in the bedroom
-Less conflict in the shared bathroom
-More time and money in your pocket with my kitchen/grocery tip
TIP 1 - Storage
If it’s more storage space you seek, look no further than your own bed. NO. Do not
start shoveling stuff under the mattress 😉 - go a little lower… I know we have already been sliding things under the bed for years, but just a little reminder in case you aren't making the best use of that space. Did you know you can go to your local Bed & Bath store and purchase rubberized posts which are intended to lift your bed up by 6 inches? You can use the extra vertical space to slide boxes or bins beneath the bed. Clear plastic bins are my favourite, because you can see what’s inside without struggling and digging through them, wasting valuable time. So you see, you CAN have extra storage at the ”drop of a hat” (well, literally at “the lift of a bed”) 😆
TIP 2 - Washroom
Do you share your washroom with anyone else? If the answer is NO, this tip is not for you - you can move on to the next paragraph, or keep reading, “for a friend”. If the answer is YES, I hope this tip helps! Have you ever wondered, as you dry off after a shower, “is this towel clean? Who used this last?” You may be friends or even family
with the one who used it, then hung it back up, but truly…. Ewwwww! I have never been a fan of sharing a towel with anyone, no matter how much I love them. I recommend hooks with names over the hooks and/or towels with specific colours for specific people who share the washroom. Make sure you have 2 or 3 of that same colour put away for each person. Let me give you an example: Brother Bobby gets brown towels, sister sandy gets blue and Grandma Gayle gets the beige ones. This way they keep track of their own towels and if they are independent enough to be doing their own laundry, you will never have to deal with their towels again…. Hopefully. 😊. You definitely have to make sure all the washroom users are on board with this idea or it may not work, as Bobby could pick up grandma’s beige towel and just think, “who cares”. Explain to him what body part grandma may have wiped dry just before he wiped his face on the same towel - that otta do the trick! 😉
Oh and if you have extra money to spare, consider getting the towels monogrammed. That way you don’t need to get towels that may not match your decor. Everyone will just have their own name on their own towel. Yay 😃
TIP 3 - Saving… at the Grocery Store
Do you write a list before you go grocery shopping? There’s an APP for that! But if you are like me, you still use paper and pen. I am lost without my list.
For starters, if you go to the grocery store Willy-nilly and list-free, it can lead to all kinds of problems. Think about it: Is it possible you could even gain weight?!!! Well, you could end up over-spending and over-shopping which can lead to overeating and in turn, Gaining weight! Oh, and of course, you could totally overlook the items you actually need and waste a ton of time, arriving home without them!
Having a piece of paper and pen beside or on the fridge allows anyone in the household to write down the name of an item as they finish it off. At the end of the week, tada! A list is ready. But let’s make sure the list has some organization. Sometimes just a list on the fridge isn’t enough. When you write on the list, one thing after another with no rhyme or reason, it gets scattered. You could end up forgetting items. You go in the aisle with the eggs and milk, get what you think you need, only to find that when you are closer to the end of your list….Uh Oh… BUTTER - you forgot the butter! Now you have to run back to that aisle just to get the butter.
Most people know their grocery store floor plan. I know I walk into mine and begin to the right, where I find produce. I travel along the outside, taking me to breads, then meats, dairy, frozen and then the general aisles. I know the last aisle I will hit before the register will be cleaning products and pet supplies. So, since I know they will be the last things I pass by, any of those items go directly to the bottom of my weekly list. I am recommending you start your list with a few headings and you will find yourself going around the store much more at ease and without having to circle back around, wasting valuable time. As I pick up items, instead of crossing out with a pen, I simply fold the paper back and back until I end up with a very small portion by the end of the store. IF you don’t like to carry paper, you can just take a picture before you leave the house and use the pic on the phone as your list.
At the beginning of the week, place your note paper near the fridge in a convenient place with a pen. Here’s an example of how it could lay out:
PRODUCE
-
-
-
MEATS
-
-
-
DAIRY
-
-
-
MID-STORE/PANTRY
-
-
-
-
CLEANING/PET SUPPLY
-
-
-
This only takes about 30 seconds. There are obviously more categories you could list, and we all shop just a tad differently. Make the list to suit yourself and once you start using it, after a few times, you will learn what categories make sense for you. Once you get one you like best, try putting it on the computer and printing a few copies. Cut them out and you will have weeks worth, all ready for you to use again and again. 😁
I hope these tips can help save time and space in your life - even just a little.
Thanks for tuning in 😊
Tanya
Your Neat Life
Professional Organizer & Interior Consultant
416.428.5929