Tell me at one or two small thing you've done to make your life easier

[listsandbudgets]

I've done 2 this year

1. I've unsubscribed / marked as spam from nearly all my mailing lists. Now my inbox is an oasis of calm and I don't spend what feels like hours every week wading through emails I don't want My spam file is brimming over!
2. I found a sharpie and (once I was sure they were the right way round!) labelled my double fitted sheets with side and top - wish I'd done this years ago not having to shuffle them about trying to work out which way up they go

The 3 little dots on mn on my phone is for report, i cant edit at all

@FrothAndBubble for the lists use any note making facility on your phone eg I use yellow notes on I phone.

For a lot of us it’s also a survival tactic. I’m a much better and less stressed iteration of myself when things are under control.

Other people are happy in chaos but it really does increase my anxiety.

One more thing that’s been a gamechanger - two online grocery orders a week.

We typically order £70/week plus top up shops when doing one order, so I got a Sainsbury’s delivery pass and get a £40-50 delivery on Monday morning and Friday morning. We waste far less food this way and do fewer impulse top up shops.

The thread is about small things that make life easier, not things that are life changing.

‘Ditto replacing loo paper’ - I got a basket from Dunelm which holds about 6 loo rolls. It’s kept on the floor at the side of the loo. Saves the faff of keep replacing one loo roll.
thanks for your tips! 😊

Because every day is a school day I discovered tick lists on iPhone notes yesterday.. thought the icon was for bulletpoints 🙄 Currently making a list for few days in York at the end of the week..

A tiny tip which may eliminate a common stressful situation.
Have you ever cooked something on the hob before you go out, then worried when you are out ‘ did I switch it off??’
Tip: when you switch off, move the pan/casserole to a different part of the hob or move it onto the kitchen worktop.

All this talk about cards reminds me that each month I think if I need any cards, only send about 10 per year now. At the start of this month I stood in the newsagent's shop having bought my paper and couldn't for the life of me think whose birthday is this month, I knew there is one, eventually I remembered, it's mine!

The 2 most useful changes so far! Much of this thread seems to involve almost competitive 'decluttering' or people spending time devising ways of, er, saving time. I can't believe that a lot of this stuff actually saves time.

It’s not about saving time, but rather making things better, improvements in quality of life may well be worth it even if no time has been saved.

I've used a highlighter to colour the edge of my debit card so it stands out from the others in my purse. I noticed the edge of my Tesco clubcard is red so it's easy to spot amongst the white edges when they are all crammed in. So now my debit card has a fluorescent green edge. A source of almost daily frustration rooting through the cards for the right one eliminated!

It's not necessarily about saving time. I do the batch cooking when I have time, so that those days its manic I dont fret about what we are eating. I know fine well that theres x portions of lasagne and a chilli in the freezer.
Or we get takeaways. Soooo which is better for us I wonder, a takeaway that I waited an hour for or a frozen meal that I made myself 3 weeks ago?

I agree with you. I have some health issues that affect me in a few different ways, but mainly I get fatigued quickly and I have brain fog. So for me, anything that can smooth my day, and save me confusion and exhaustion, makes a huge difference. It isn’t about being anal, it’s about freeing me up to more enjoy the other areas of my life/family life. We’re all so very different, what helps one person might seem daft and pointless to another person, but no-one HAS to follow any of these tips!

Heartily agree with both of you. Having an organised home life and being a feminist are not mutually exclusive and chaos does increase anxiety.

2 of DHs relatives live in chaos. Have lived on benefits for years. At home/free all day. Bone idle. Organise nothing. Write nothing down.

Constantly late, phone up to check times/dates rather than checking back through texts, miss GP/hospital hair appointments, or turn up on the wrong day or time. They text relatives asking for household items which normal people would buy themselves ( have you got a spare pillow, one of ours has split/do you have any spare cutlery, ours seems to have disappeared/ any spare mugs, we’ve only got 2 left)
Fascinating in their fecklessness! 🤣

The exact opposite of this thread - I should start a new thread. 😂

yes of course - bear in mind you'll have your own calorie targets, but hopefully this gives you some ideas. I also highly recommend following @mybalancedkitchen on Instagram. She does a monthly meal plan which includes all macro counts for delicious, family friendly and simple recipes for only £9.99 month.

Here are mine - freezer meal is leftovers from one of the dinners that week or previous weeks, FYI. I also always add a vegetable side to each meal - like frozen veg or sauté spinach or a side salad (tomato, cucumber, spinach, shredded carrot etc.

Great idea.

If you go for a saver slot and choose a slot for £1 that makes it worth doing a smaller shop. They text you the hour it will be delivered beforehand.

So is everything a one pot meal? Or do you have a few pots on the go each meal time?

I've remembered another one...

The French way to deal with leftovers, is to never store them in the dish or pan they were cooked in. So instead of panda of soup/curry/chilli etc in my fridge, I decant into glass containers with lids, and wash the pan.

Any leftovers that go in the freezer are labelled and dated. I always used to think 'oh I'll remember what that is', but of course I didn't.

It makes everything so much more pleasant and appetising, and means easier washing up too.

Is that the French way? I’m in Scandinavia and this is what we do too then.

has anyone got a tip for this kind of problem which makes my life so not easy? I suppose the problem is: avoiding leaving mess when you start something but can't finish it, when to tidy up before youve actually finished is itself a big job

it often happens to me that I start to do something that I can't finish for some reason and instead of packing whatever it is away, I think 'I'll just leave it there for now to save packing/unpacking" thinking I'll do it tomorrow - and then for some unexpected reason, I can't do it tomorrow and it takes me ages to get back to it and there is a mess for days, sometimes weeks.

The kind of thing I mean is starting to do DIY and then the drill runs out of charge so you have to stop to re-charge which takes hours by which time its dinner etc. Or starting to sort out something like wrapping paper or the junk drawer and empty it all and then an emergency interrupts and then its dinner etc.

Does this happen to other people? What is your tip? Do you just pack it all up again even thought that duplicates labour?

Surely everyone does that. I can't imagine putting a pan in the fridge. I may put a casserole dish in for the next day, but usually, they go in a lunch box for work or a storage container for the freezer

Not all of us are as naturally perfect as you 😉

I don't really get the "men don't do this" line of criticism. I've seen how (most) men live when they're on their own and it ranges from barely concealed squalor to neat drabness. No thanks! I don't think feminism necessarily looks like "what men do". I'm lucky to have a DH who's on board with trying for a more organised and less chaotic house so it's a team effort (with intermittent success).