5 Time-Saving Life Hacks for Tired Moms and Disorganized People in General

5 Time-Saving Life Hacks for Tired Moms and Disorganized Humans

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Hello, dear, long-lost friends! It is I, Sarah Eliza, your favorite Boredom Devastator, Capsule Wardrobe Expert, and Exhausted Mom. I am eeking out this post, the first in many moons, because my friend Lisa at Syncopated Mama believes in me. She has been encouraging me to get back into blogging a bit, and also kindly consented to write about stuff pertinent to mom-life for February’s Friday Frivolitys. That part is because my friend Tara wisely suggested I write about stuff relevant to me right now, to make that writing easier on my poor sleep-deprived noggin’… so here we are! 

You should follow both of them on social media ASAP. They’re beautiful and inspiring people. 

And if you’re on my site for the Capsule Wardrobe stuff, and feeling confused (mom life, what?), don’t despair, I’m still going to write those posts too. If you get annoyed with my life updates you can always hop over to my Capsule Wardrobe newsletter list instead! I’ve got a newsletter update waiting in the wings for the spotlight really soon, I swear. 

Our theme at this week’s Friday Frivolity is 5 time-saving life hacks… which will be relevant to All Humans, since who doesn't like saving time?, but especially to ALL MOMS, since we would basically give our left arm for 15 extra minutes of sleep each morning.  Well, maybe not our left arm, because that would make lugging a baby around extra difficult, but at least a toe or something.  

So here's the scoop on 5 life-hacks, that have been helping to keep my life orderly lately. 

5 Time Saving Life Hacks for Moms (and All Other Disorganized People Too)

Life-Hack:  Green Chef Subscription

Green Chef is a meal delivery service like many others available, but it currently is the only one out there that specializes in USDA organic ingredients, sustainable seafood, grassfed meat, etc.  We've been using them for a couple of months now, and I think there has only been one meal that we weren't crazy about.  Most of them are super tasty, with flavors and ingredients we wouldn't normally buy.  If you are on a special diet you can pick a plan that matches it (vegetarian, paleo, keto, etc) and the prep is easy enough that even I can handle it.  (My husband has pretty much always been the chef in our relationship, a situation I am very thankful for since I myself have a "hate / tolerate" relationship with cooking. So, technically, Green Chef has simplified his life more than mine, since I already had it pretty good in this department!)  They are a little more expensive then other meal delivery services due to the organic thing, but they save us the errand of shopping and also save us money on impulse buys at the store, so it is an indulgence worth making for us right now.

ALSO, fun news that made me even more excited to tell y’all about Green Chef – I can "gift" up to 5 people a week of meals (3 meals for 2 people) TOTALLY FREE! If you’d like to get in on that, email me via the contact box in the sidebar. :D Note that this is different than the offer you'll receive if you just click on one of my links... which is 2 free meals.  That's still a sweet deal for easy, tasty, organic food though!

Life-Hack:  Read kindle ebooks 

You would not buh-LEAVE the fine I racked up at the library in the first few months of Baby L’s existence. *Dramatic Southern Belle swoon* I was checking out all of these books about parenting, and babyhood, and I DID read some of them… but it could be awfully hard to make it out of the house and back to the library to return them on time. So I switched to checking out kindle e-books on our local library's website, and pretty much haven’t checked out a print book since. For one thing, using ebooks makes it easy to read on a phone or device when baby has fallen asleep on top of me (Desperate Naptimes call for Desperate Measures, okay??) and I need to keep the lights dim… for another thing, NO FINES. When the book is due, I simply lose access to it on my device. No harm, no foul!

I’ve been checking out a lot of ebooks from my library, as I mentioned, but you can also find a lot of ebooks for free on Amazon… some being offered as a promotion from the author, and some that have been in print long enough to have entered the public domain. There is also a number of books you can read for free with your Prime membership... or try Kindle Unlimited for free for 30 days, to access even more books!  Secrets of the Capsule Wardrobe among them...  *innocent*

Life-Hack: Find a place for all the annoying things 

If you think this is about to be a humble-brag about how my awesome organizational systems have made my life so simple, you are WRONG. Nope, I’ve spent the last 9 months constantly searching for my pajamas, and never seeming to be able to find my bras. Apparently I get dressed and undressed alllll around the house lately. #reallife 

Finally I got annoyed enough to do something about it, so now when I take off my pajamas, I – wait for it, it’s genius 😂 -- put them in a specific place. No, it isn’t a drawer, why on earth would you think that? – a drawer makes too much noise if I forget to get them out before baby goes to sleep and also involves too many steps.  Step One: open drawer. Step Two: place pajamas in drawer. Step Three: Close drawer.  Nope, 3 steps is wayyyy too many!  It almost never happened in 9 months lol. 

Now I hang my PJs on a coat rack, which is positioned in the corner of our room to serve as a tripod for the baby’s video monitor. Hanging something on a coat rack is just a slightly more precise version of the same physical movement of throwing them on the floor, or dumping them in a heap on top of a piece of furniture, so it is exactly the right amount of effort for my current mental state. 

Other annoying things I now have exact places for – the baby’s bibs, the baby’s socks, the baby’s shoes, the baby's Lilebaby carrier (I swear that thing has legs and walks away when I’m not watching), baby’s washcloths, etc. 

Whenever I find myself wasting time looking for something, I also try to see where I actually end up find it… ideally, it’s Official Spot should go around wherever it gravitates towards naturally.  Andrew and I recently used this theory to reorganize where we keep our shoes… we bought a sleek bamboo shoe rack (we got ours from Target but that one looks exactly like it) and put it against the wall in the spot where we usually kick our shoes off and leave them in a pile. Yay effortless tidiness!  

Life-Hack: Use Amazon Prime for All The Things

Some friends had joked to me that they had packages coming from Amazon every day for the first three months of their baby’s life, and while we weren’t QUITE that prolific, we did step up our usage of Amazon Subscribe and Save, as well as that lovely Amazon Prime free 2 day shipping for all those little odds and ends you don’t realize you need until the baby is screaming and whatever it is that you lack is THE ONE THING THAT WILL POSSIBLY HELP!! Whatever that one thing might be differs from day to day, of course, ha! For us it included a couple different kinds of all-natural diaper cream, different brands of diapers (we had kind of an epic struggle finding a brand L wouldn’t poop her way out of), baby socks, a dog harness (after Jayne chewed through his one idle morning), etc etc. 

You can find some legitimately good deals on Subscribe and Save too, especially after you add in the 15% discount for 5 items or more in a month, and it saves running-errands-time which sometimes is even more valuable than money, haha…. It also saves your back, if one of the things you’re ordering is two 50 lb bags of dog food. So sorry, Mr. / Ms. Postperson… but ummm…. better you than me? #sorrynotsorry 

Life-Hack:  Being Strategic with Time / Timing

This is still a work in progress for me, but even doing it inconsistently has already made a difference so far! Two different philosophies of "Time and Getting Stuff Done" have made a difference for me lately -- One is the “do it now” philosophy, that says if a task is going to take a minute or less, do it now. That philosophy can suck ADHD-me down an unending rabbit trail of tiny tasks, but I at least try to use it in moderation, and it definitely helps me prevent piles of random stuff everywhere waiting to be put away. 

The other philosophy is to time your tasks at specific moments during your day, for maximum cleanliness and efficiency. (I got this one from Crystal Paine’s Make Over Your Mornings Course, which I really found even more helpful than I hoped I would... check it out!) 

Dishes are a prime example of how to put this philosophy into action – if you are able to EMPTY your dishwasher at a strategic time of day, you can load your dirty dishes into it going forward from there and not have them pile up in the sink. The time of day has to be when it will actually get done consistently, without a backlog having a chance to occur. The natural time for this would seem to be first thing in the morning, but a lot of times baby L is clingy in the morning and wants to be in her Lilebaby carrier while I make coffee and breakfast… all well and good, but having a 20 lb baby strapped to your chest while unloading the dishwasher involves a lot of squats / deep knee bends and turns into kind of an intense workout. #coffeefirstplease 

I THINK that unloading the dishwasher last thing at night will work best for us, if I can manage to run it after dinner and still be motivated to unload it before heading to bed. The couple of times I’ve managed it so far, it has made the next day very smooth from a dishes perspective.  Which is an odd sentence to write, but does make the day more pleasant overall, lol

I feel like this post has gotten more and more rambling the longer I wrote, so I'm just going to stop there!  😜  If you have time-saving life hacks for me, I DEFINITELY want to hear them!!

Now on to the party!

Now on to the link-up! :D

 

The Hosts:

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Sarah Eliza is on a mission to Devastate Boredom by living life with laughter and intention! Her blog is your spot for Capsule Wardrobe how-to's and inspiration, humor, encouragement, life-hacks, Read / DON'T Read book reviews, and more!   

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  Lisa is an awesomely hilarious and authentic writer who marches to her own drum on her blog Syncopated Mama, providing an "un-labelly spot" for all the happily off-beat folks out there who have been wishing to find kindred spirits. She shares her adventures building a natural home, teaching her adorbs daughter, establishing and refining positive communication skills, camping, creating, cooking, and so much more! Lisa recently threw a Peg + Cat birthday party for her daughter, and you've got to read all about it! 

 

Calling all bloggers looking for an upbeat and supportive group of pals to join in hosting the weekly #FridayFrivolity par-tay! We are hoping to add to our ranks of dedicated hosts and co-hosts, and would love for you to consider joining the fun! Co-Hosts are welcome on a temporary basis (usually a month), while Hosts make a more ongoing commitment. :) Swing by here to express interest and ask any questions!

Now time for the new stuff!

This a link-up for all things funny, fun, encouraging, hopeful, and happy. That includes free printables, giveaways, and other fun stuff to make us SMILE and start the weekend off on the right foot. If you're here in search of fun and uplifting reading materials, skip the rules and just start clickin'! Bloggy buddies, thanks for coming to par-tay! You are welcome to link up to 3 posts, and old posts are always welcome!

There are three rules only:

Join us at the #FridayFrivolity link-up party for all things fun, funny, happy & hopeful!🎈 🎉 😎https://t.co/X9RC3juSNU Thurs 8 pm central

— Sarah Eliza (@REALsaraheliza) February 9, 2017

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