Ten Personal Life Hacks for Efficiency at Home

A simple guide to simplifying your home life

As a follow-up to my post on how to be more efficient at work, I thought I’d share some of the ways I try to be efficient with my time and energy in my personal life.

1. “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down”. I only let myself listen to my favorite podcasts or play an online game (yay, Settlers) when I'm working out. By taking something I want to do and bundling it with something I don't, makes it more palatable, and it ensures I'm consistently doing both activities.

2. Cook in bulk. I love to cook, so every weekend my three kids and I prepare our family meals. We save the leftovers for lunch and dinner the first couple of nights of the week. When making a recipe, I double or triple the recipes and freeze some for later use.  When prepping ingredients, I cut extra meat and vegetables when making one meal to prepare for use later in the week. Batters for crepes and pancakes or doughs for bread will hold up in the fridge for a week. We bought an extra fridge from a Facebook Marketplace group so we can have extra space to store food. 

3. Multitask. I do things in parallel threads. When cooking, the Instant Pot, Zojirushi rice cooker, and a great Breville oven can be running without monitoring. I fold laundry while catching up on my favorite show. I catch up on email while I’m on the elliptical.

4. Take shortcuts. In my family, each person is designated a different brand of socks. Then we buy socks in bulk and never have to match them. We store our underwear near the bathroom to make it easier to get to after a shower. If I find a shirt I like, I buy it in several other colors. I plan out meals with similar ingredients and make a single Costco run.  

5. Split decisions so that only one person takes the load. Couples often discuss decisions in great detail and both invest energy in them. But it is better if one person takes the decision and sees it through from start to finish. My husband plans all of our meals (including shopping), sets up our vacations, and manages our charitable donations without much input from me. This also means that I have to trust him and go along without complaining. I do most of the cooking, managing the finances, and paying bills. We make sure things are done without reminders or asking.  

6. Care less about the little things. People care too much about things that don't matter much in the long run. My husband and I picked the paint colors in our newly renovated house in about an hour, and if you asked either of us the color of our bedroom I'm not sure we could tell you. The same is true of the cars we drive. They get us to the places we want to go, and that is sufficient. We remind each other not to sweat the small stuff and save the mind space for things that matter.

7. Make TV time a choice. In many households, people will leave on the TV to pass the time. But we make TV watching a fixed activity with a start and end time. By timeboxing it, the time we spend is finite and we think about how we want to spend it. We prefer to turn off video chaining and autoplay to help manage TV time.

8. Reduce cognitive load. I move as many things to autopilot as possible. I spent a few weeks setting up autopay for bills, moving to completely paperless statements, and canceling our magazine, newspaper, and catalog subscriptions. I order our prescription medicine to be delivered, set up recurring deliveries of household goods (e.g. soap, shampoo, lotion), and have set menus we plan out ahead of time. Our house is generally clean, but definitely not neat. The goal is efficiency, not perfection. 

9. Don't procrastinate. When something needs to get done, do it quickly. Don't let things pile up whether in the sink or in the “to do” box. What could be a few small tasks will end up being a massive pile of work if I’m not careful.  If you see something that needs to be done, whether it is changing the toilet paper roll or going through the mail, do it immediately so it does not take up mindshare. Thinking about doing something often takes longer than doing it.  

10. Enlist the kids. My three kids have set chores they do end to end. Starting when he was eight, Jonathan loaded the dishwasher after dinner each night. At first, he was terrible at it, but over time, he became an expert. He handed that off to Bethany last year and now sets and clears the table. Danielle does all of the composting, recycling, and toilet cleaning. Because there is a set person for every task, it is clear when something is left undone whose responsibility it is. The kids complain, but they have learned that we all contribute to the household.

Running a household between work and everyone stuck at home has made things more challenging than ever. But working together means a bit more time for everyone and a bit more sanity as we weather this lockdown together.