10 Household Tips: 10 on the 10th

Hello, merry maid-ens!

Linking up with Jen at The Bolin Bunch  for this month’s 10 on the 10th post.

Today’s prompt is 10 Household Tips.  My initial thought was that these should be 10 housecleaning tips.  Wouldn’t you know, I wrote a post sharing those for 10 on the 10th in 03.2018.

Was going to just dust it off and share it again.  But on second thought, household tips can be anything, right?  Tips for running a successful household.  Let’s see if I can think of 10 tips I have for keeping things running smoothly here, around the castle.

10 Household Tips

Aside from the first tip, these are in no particular order.  And are not novel or new ideas.  Just a few things that I discovered here and there to make managing our household a little easier.

First Five

• Touch everything once. That would be my numero uno, the tip I try to live by, the golden rule around our house.  For example, don’t pick up dirty glasses from the den only to set them in the kitchen sink.  Later, having to touch them again when you put them in the dishwasher.  Touch them once.  Take them to the kitchen, rinse them and put the glasses into the dishwasher…all in one fell swoop.
• Get baskets.  Have baskets or bins or boxes (I used different color laundry baskets) one for each child in the family, and when the clutter gets crazy, have everyone take 5 and go around picking up their stuff and depositing it into their basket.  Will truly take only a few minutes and can restore sanity to you and your home.
• Empty those baskets. Each night before bed have the kids (and your Prince C.)  gather their baskets or bins and take them to their rooms.  Everyone takes 5 minutes to put things away before bed.
• Set a timer.  When you don’t have time to clean the entire house but need to get things under control, set a timer and spend 15 minutes in each room, 5 minutes in the bathroom.  Handle big areas first – vacuum, make the bed, dust the dining room table, wipe down the kitchen counters and empty the dishwasher.  Then, if there’s time, clean the mirror, wipe down the appliances.
• Buy wipes.  Not baby wipes.  But those antibacterial wipes, the dusting wipes, the multi-purpose wipes, glass cleaner wipes, leather cleaner wipes.  Use this to freshen up the house when you don’t have time to do full-blown cleaning.  Until you have time to dust the coffee table from top to bottom, use a furniture wipe on the top surface.  The kids can help, too.

Six Through Ten

• Mailbox.  On your way back to the house from checking the mail, stop at the trash can and sort the mail.  Throw away junk mail, open personal mail and discard what isn’t important.  Throw away unwanted catalogs, flyers.  Only take into the house the mail you will need to respond to, deal with.
• Mail box again.  Have a box or basket or bin for the mail that does come into the house.  Some place where all the mail goes.  Then once a week, or on a regular basis, address (pun intended) that mail…pay the bill, file the insurance premium, respond to the invitation.

• Alphabetize spices. And store them in a drawer, if you have one available.  This has made finding the garlic powder so much easier at our house.  I mean, how many times have you been in a hurry to find the garlic powder and grabbed the onion powder instead?  Near catastrophe is what that is.  To avoid that, alphabetize your spices.  Doing so also helps me keep track of which spices I am running low on or out of all together.

• Roll clothes.  It works to roll clothes when you are packing them in a suitcase.  They take up less room and are less likely to wrinkle.  Same thing in your drawers.  And bonus…arrange them in color order.

• Divide and conquer.  In your closet.  Divide your clothes by type and then arrange the items of each type in color order.  Next time you need a pink on top to wear with your camos, your options will be so much easier to find.  Start replacing your old hangers with space saver hangers, too.  Then you’ll have room for more clothes!!

Those are just a few things that have uncomplicated life at our house.  They worked for us and might work for you, too.

Your Turn

What would be your number one household tip?  The rule you live by.  The hill you’d die on.  It was hard for me to keep my house the way I wanted it, work full-time and some years beyond full-time, and be a mommy and some years, a wife.  Like that?  My girls never enjoyed a spring cleaning-free spring break.  Bless their hearts.  But they survived!

Now, I have sat on my behind much of this day.  Have to get something done.  The wind seems to have slowed a little so might be time to pull the pieces of our neighbor’s tree out of the pool.

It’s Fri-YAY, dolls.  Go out and make it a good one.

Hugs and kisses,