The Nally Notes

As an avid fan of Gina Trapani’s first Lifehacker book and follower of the Lifehacker blog, I was thrilled to hear that edition two was coming out, titled "Upgrade Your Life":

I did something rare for me: I pre-ordered it and have been poring over it since it arrived, absorbing the new tips (and refreshing myself on the old ones to see if they may apply to me now) and deciding what I want to implement. I’ve already successfully implemented a few and am loving my new Foxmarks extension to coordinate my recently purchased desktop with my laptop!

This "lifehack evaluation" has inspired me to want to share with the world some of my favorite personal lifehacks. Some of them are common place and some of them are my own quirky little things, but I hope that in there some of you find a nugget of something useful.

So, here are some of my personal favorite lifehacks:

• Two laundry baskets: I use two side-by-side laundry baskets, approx. the same size as my washer, to pre-sort dirty laundry as it is generated. Then when one of the baskets is full I know I have a complete load, all ready to go in the washer.
• A full pantry & freezer: I try to keep an extensive pantry and freezer on hand of all basic household foods and supplies which means that we are flexible on when we have to grocery shop except for a quick run for perishables like milk. This is great for when schedules get tight or we are all laid out by the latest cold or virus going around. This plan also extends to having backups for cleaners and toiletries – when a tube of toothpaste gets opened, it goes immediately on the shopping list to buy a replacement the next time out. We started this practice as an preparatory measure when I had a high-risk pregnancy with a high probability of bed rest, but discovered that it made our lives easier on an everyday basis and so we’ve kept doing it.
• Two shopping lists: I keep two magnetic shopping list pads on the refrigerator for easy writing on of items that we need to purchase. One list is for the grocery store, and the second list is for "other stuff" – fertilizer from the garden center, etc. Keeping the two lists separate avoids cluttering the grocery list with irrelevant items, and avoids the labor of rewriting it after shopping to put "non-grocery" things back on the list.
• Online shopping: Where we live it takes 20 minutes or more each way to get to any decent stores. I’ve found that for a lot of items I save time and money shopping online, comparing prices and just having the item shipped to me. I buy most of my electronics, books, and craft supplies online, as well as occasionally clothes and other items.
• Online bill pay: I use my bank’s services to their maximum potential. Not only do I use the online bill pay to schedule automatic payments for items like the car and house payments, but I also have several bills set up to come electronically to my bank’s bill pay service and then be paid automatically on the due date. I literally don’t have to do anything! (I do receive a copy of the bill so I know what is being paid.) The rest of my bills are paid in seconds by entering the amount and the desired date into the bill pay service.
• Silk plants: They are always green and beautiful and require no watering, fertilizing or trimming. And even I can’t kill them!
• Routine: Despite the fact that I work at home and could actually have a lot of flexibility in my day, I try to make as much of my day as possible run on a routine. Routines cut down on decision-making about what to do next, which takes time. Routines require no thought – they are automatic and thus quicker than deciding at intervals what the next step will be.
• Do like tasks together: If one small trashcan in the house needs emptying, I try to do all of them. I grab one big trash bag and just move from room to room. Doing them all at once when you already have the bag in hand is faster than getting a bag out every time one can needs emptying. Same thing for dusting. If I notice that my bookcase needs dusting, I grab the box of Swiffers and move about the house for ten  minutes hitting all the favorite dust hide-outs that I can for a quick touch-up on the whole place.  It’s way more efficient (and means I only have to have one big allergy attack instead of several small ones).
• Storage Baskets: My husband has called me the basket lady on more than one occasion. (I suppose that is better than being a basket case?) I have baskets of all kinds in use all over our house to corral things and instill a sense of neatness while still making them easy to use. The bathroom counter has plastic baskets to contain the jumble of toiletries (and make them easy to move for cleaning). The living room bookcase shelves have fabric and woven baskets to contain the plethora of my daughter’s toys and books that have invaded the space. Most of my craft supplies are stored on a bookcase in a variety of wood and woven baskets. I use baskets inside our kitchen cupboards to make things easier to pull out and get into. Baskets can be cheap, but can also be decorative if you want. For me, they are the perfect easy storage solution to instill order out of chaos.
• Keep things where I use them: If I find myself regularly getting up to get something, or walking into another room to get it, it means it is stored in the wrong place. That means I need to find it a new home near the place that it is being used most frequently. I did this recently with my stamps. I used to store them in the kitchen desk by my greeting cards, but found myself often walking from my office out to get them because I was much more frequently using them for business than for personal correspondence. They now have a home in my office to save me time and footsteps in my work day.

I hope that my list inspires some lifehacking in some of you! Go to it!