We live in an age of convenience, but most busy Moms will tell you that there’s nothing convenient about their day to day lives.
Juggling the trials and tribulations of parenthood alongside the responsibility of a full time job, desperately trying to stay fit, active and social and coping with the economic realities of the 21st century (which have seen many an industrious Mom develop a side hustle in her sparse free time) leave most parents with precious little free time to themselves.
This is a shame because “me-time” is important for everyone but especially mothers.
A little time to ourselves or shared with our partners allows us to achieve the restfulness of mind that makes us better parents, professionals and people.
The trouble is that this is hard to come by, especially when we factor in the responsibilities of maintaining the home as well.
Here, we’ll look at some easy and actionable changes you can make to ensure that your home works a little harder for you.
We’ll look at some ways in which you can make your home more convenient by implementing time or labor saving devices that will help you to claw back some extra minutes out of every day without breaking the bank.
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Remember… you are not alone in maintaining the home!
Of course, this is not our sole responsibility. Any Mom knows that her significant other and the kids should also be pulling their weight.
Indeed, giving your kids responsibilities around their house has numerous benefits, especially if it’s something they do in exchange for a little pocket money.
It helps them to understand the principles of effort and reward while also ensuring that they grow into neat and fastidious adults.
Moreover, it lightens the load on you. Nonetheless, even when the whole family is contributing to the upkeep of the house, there are many ways in which you can make your house work a little harder so that you have some much needed time to restore your batteries.
We all try to keep making little alterations and renovations around the home that will either save us money or add value to our homes.
But while both are admirable pursuits, we should also take every opportunity that we can to make our home more time-saving.
Time, after all, is the one thing which we can never make any more of…
Exterior and garage
You don’t even have to go into the house to find opportunities to make your life easier and save you time and effort.
Thanks to the internet of things we are now able to start making our home work for us before we’ve even stepped foot inside.
Through our digital networks, we’re able to activate an increasingly huge range of devices through our smartphones.
We can potentially switch on the coffee maker, turn on all the lights and start preheating the oven before we’ve even remotely opened the Merlin door opener on our garage doors and pulled the car in.
While automated garage doors are nothing new, we all remember a time when we’ve had to get out and wrestle with an unreliable mechanism!
Not only do today’s automated garage doors use robust and reliable motors, they also allow for huge customization of the doors themselves… making for solutions that are elegant, time-saving and attractive.
Bill Gates was one of the earliest advocates of “smart home” technology, but you don’t need to be a billionaire to benefit from the convenience and time-saving solutions that can be accessed before you even set foot in the house.
You can purchase a whole host of smart home accessories for under $100 USD.
Although the relentless heat of summer is behind us, most of us still want to ensure that we have a lush and verdant lawn even if we don’t really have the time or energy to water it every day.
Worry not, however, because the latest generation of smart sprinklers will transform any lawn into a zero maintenance affair.
They are fully programmable and can be accessed remotely via your smartphone.
Some can even sense the season based on ambient temperature and precipitation and adapt their watering schedule accordingly, ensuring that you never waste a drop of water (which is reassuring in today’s eco-conscious times when conserving water is more important than ever).
In the kitchen
Whether you love cooking and view it as a therapeutic exercise which allows you to engage your creative side while also creating nutritious and delicious culinary creations for your whole family… or you view it as a necessary but time-consuming drudgery… there’s a good chance that you can save a lot of time and effort in the kitchen.
Here are just a few solutions which can save you a few minutes every day while also sparing you a goodly portion of the inevitable frustration of the kitchen…
- If it’s used regularly, keep it within arm’s reach- What’s the point in spending valuable minutes rifling through cluttered drawers. Keep the things you use every day within easy reach in a freestanding stainless steel jug or even a vase.
- Organise your freezer- Don’t you just hate having to trawl the arctic wastes of your freezer for that bag of frozen peas that you just know is somewhere right at the back? Instead of allowing your freezer to become a wild tundra, organize it by attaching binder clips to the shelves and using them to hang bags of food.
- Be perfectly clear- All those brushed steel food organizers might look fancy but there’s nothing more frustrating than opening a cylinder of what you’re sure is spaghetti and finding Rice Krispies instead! Make sure that your food storage solutions are clear or at least have a small window through which you can see their contents.
- Get the memo- Meal planning is hugely important in managing not only your family’s diet but helping you to manage your time and prevent food waste. A memo board is a great way of ensuring that you are consistent with your meal planning.
- Use your walls and vertical space- A lot of time is wasted looking through way-too-busy drawers and cupboards for utensils that seem desperate to elude us. Try using wall storage solutions like a magnetic strip for storing knives and utensils or magnetic spice jars. This makes for quick and easy access which will save you time and spare you frustration.
- Get smart with recipes- Use a tablet like an iPad and a kitchen tablet holder for quick and easy touchscreen access to a plethora of recipes instead of cluttering up your kitchen with cookery books.
Door to door
We never stop to consider the amount of time we waste scrambling to grab and twist doorknobs or fiddle with light switches.
If you’re carrying something heavy and/or delicate like a vase, a laptop (or even a baby) a busy Mum can find even getting from one room to the other an inconvenient faff.
Fortunately, there are a range of cost-effective ways in which she can make moving around the home easier and more convenient.
Replace your existing doorknobs with lever handles which can be used with an elbow or forearm if you have full hands.
By the same token, a rocker switch is a quick and easy way for Moms with full hands to switch on the lights without having to spend two or three minutes shuffling their burdens from arm to arm before accessing the switch.
Again, in the smart home age, it’s easy to completely control the lighting in your home from your smartphone, ensuring that your path is well lit before you walk it thanks to automated lighting.
You can even buy smart bulbs that change color and intensity depending on your mood.
Smart and secure
Smart technology can not only make your home easier to navigate, it can also make your home more secure while also preventing little disasters which can ruin your day.
For example, how many times have you left your house keys at work and had to drive all the way back for them?
How many times have you got half way to work in the morning only to be struck by an unceasing paranoia that you’ve left the front door unlocked, doubled back and found that… Yup! It was locked after all.
Smart locks can be used to make your home more secure while also preventing any mishaps which could be caused by key loss.
Not only are they safe and robust they can be unlocked remotely if you need to let someone in.
You can check their status through your phone so that you’ll never be struck by that same paranoia again.
They even lock and unlock for you automatically when sensing your presence. No more fumbling around your handbag for your keys in the dark!
Whether you’re looking to invest in cool new technologies or simply reorganize things with some cheap storage solutions, there are a plethora of ways in which you can make your home more convenient and give yourself back some much needed you time.