Doing it all - Work/Life Balance

Skill Magill

Place your shirts sort of lenghwise in the washing machine. When done, leave them on the line for the day : Presto, no more ironing

Mint Aero

When I get home on a Friday evening, I put on my weeks washing then and iron the lot before bed that night. I don't go out Friday evenings ever plus side is I have all of Saturday & Sunday without any chores to do :cool: I clean whatever needs to be cleaned while the washing is on, and I generally clean as I go so there isn't a whole pile to do.

syklops

Mint Aero wrote: »

When I get home on a Friday evening, I put on my weeks washing then and iron the lot before bed that night. I don't go out Friday evenings ever plus side is I have all of Saturday & Sunday without any chores to do :cool: I clean whatever needs to be cleaned while the washing is on, and I generally clean as I go so there isn't a whole pile to do.

When I get home on a Friday evening I am f^%king knackered.

Alf Veedersane

syklops wrote: »

When I get home on a Friday evening I am f^%king knackered.

Same as that. I've spent all week working and I certainly don't want to be doing it on Friday.

So I do all that craic on Sunday, when the realisation that you've to work the next day sets in.

Mint Aero

syklops wrote: »

When I get home on a Friday evening I am f^%king knackered.

Me too that's why I don't go out :P

Mint Aero

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Same as that. I've spent all week working and I certainly don't want to be doing it on Friday.

So I do all that craic on Sunday, when the realisation that you've to work the next day sets in.

Yer missing out.

Alf Veedersane

Mint Aero wrote: »

Yer missing out.

The value of the doing nothing on Friday is higher than the same time doing nothing on Sunday morning/evening.

Mint Aero

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

The value of the doing nothing on Friday is higher than the same time doing nothing on Sunday morning/evening.

All my hours have the same value and since I've more hours on a Sunday for doing nothing I equate that as being more valuable than the measly tired hours of a Friday evening.

joollyparo

Own little things, just what matters.

DivineMsM

Wipes. I use wipes for most of my cleaning, so I can do it on the go.
Wipes to clean the sink while I am brushing my teeth.
Ditto give the toilet a quick wipe down every day.
Furniture polish wipes while I am watching TV.
Wipe down the kitchen/cooker/fridge while I am cooking.
Floor wipes to clean sections of the floor (saves time on getting mop, hot water, doing whole floor).
Baby wipes are also great for pretty much anything.

I also keep a scrubby sponge and spray bottle in the shower and give it a quick clean while the conditioner sits on my hair.

I have a handheld hoover to do the stairs- again saves the couple of minutes getting the big hoover out & wrestling with cables. I will also use it after I sweep my wooden floor to pick up the dirt (maybe that's just lazy)

If you start with a big clean and then do all the above every day/second day, you can keep your house pretty well maintained for ages.

Completely agree also with online shopping. And if you can afford it, stock up on dry goods, tins, toilet roll etc as you will save time shopping.

And I am a big believer in batch cooking. I bought a small freezer to give me extra storage space, so I will cook 6-8 portions of meals at a time and freeze them. I do all my batch cooking probably once a month- as a lot of my meals have the same ingredients- chopped onions/garlic/carrots/peppers, and again it saves time to chop all at once then split into the individual pots. I recently learnt that you can freeze pasta and rice- so I cook bolognaise sauce and pasta and freeze in portions, same with curry & rice. Means I save time on the 10 minutes it takes to cook pasta/rice when I am in a hurry and hungry.

As regards ironing- as above with the floor wipes & hoover, I think the issue with ironing is that it feels like it takes forever to get the board out & set up. So either I wait till I have no clothes and then catch up on TV while doing all my ironing at one time, or I also have a table top ironing board from Ikea that I set up on the kitchen counter to do a few quick items. If I need one thing for the morning I will iron three.

And learn acceptance. Its never going to be perfect. Once its not filthy, then its OK. I would rather a house that's a bit messy than no social life or laughs.

Mystery Egg

This one might sound obvious, but clean as you go. This really only works if your place has a baseline level of cleanliness to begin with. So it might be worth doing a deep clean, and then implementing practices of clean as you go.

For example: we wash the dishes as we cook the dinner. We don't leave things sitting there til after the meal. Then when dinner is finished we load the dishwasher and wash any remaining pots or dishes immediately. I cut down on washing by lining baking trays with tinfoil or baking parchment - a soapy rinse and hey presto you're done, rather than hours of soaking and scrubbing.

As said above, wipe down the bathroom every day. Hose it down after your own shower while you are still in your towel. Pop a bit of bleach in the loo/sink and give it a wipe once a day. It takes a moment but the effects are long-lasting and a deep clean is only required every so often.

When a job needs to be done that you are dreading (example, cleaning the living room), set yourself a time limit on it. Here's what I do. Set a timer for 10 minutes, and another for 20. Put on some music and do a rapid tidy. You can do a lot in ten minutes. When the alarm goes, take out the vacuum cleaner and hoover for 10 minutes. By the time the second alarm goes, your room will be in much better condition and you can relax.

No need to be perfect about things. Just a little and often!

Mystery Egg

Regarding meals, learn to cook fast, tasty meals.

I bought Nigella Express and have a few staples from it regularly, especially coq au riesling - a feast in a few minutes. There are a lot of meals you can cook within 20 minutes, rather than a marathon cooking session.

Very simple dinners:

Couscous/bulgur wheat, salad leaves, veggies, dressing, coleslaw, bread, a couple of boiled eggs or a few slices of cold meats.

Things on toast. Creamy mushrooms. Guacamole. Tomato salad. Baked beans.

Omelette. Nutritious and only takes a few minutes. Eggs of any description in fact.

Soup. Prepare one batch (it will take about 30 mins) and have a couple of dinners out of it in the week.

Pasta, good pesto, salad.

Carbonara - takes as long as it takes to boil pasta.

Asian noodle soup - thinly sliced chicken breast, chicken stock, chilli, ginger, soy, noodles all cooked up together, topped with sliced spring onions and little pickles.

Beige dinner - a chicken kiev or fish fingers, a few oven chips and some frozen peas or corn on the cob. Not every meal needs to be a masterpiece.

Mystery Egg

Only just realised this is a zombie thread... despite being on the front page.

syklops

Mystery Egg wrote: »

Only just realised this is a zombie thread... despite being on the front page.

I think the mods would agree, creating a new fresh thread for this topic would result in people posting the same tips all over again. Hardly a life hack.

danmanw8

Suaimhneach wrote: »

I've thought about this for AGES. Hopefully this is a good place to post it.

When you have a full time job that is demanding (hopefully in a good way), a social life that is busy (in a good way) a home (and all that goes with a home; cleaning, ironing) and you want to be healthy (buying & cooking good food, making time to exercise) and (maybe) you don't even have kids yet, and yet it's nigh on impossible to keep on top of everything while also having any semblance of "off-time", which is vitally important if you are to every enjoy the fruits of your labour, how are you supposed to keep on top of it all?

Surely there are some life-hacking approaches to this?

Firstly, I can think of out-sourcing. Cleaning and ironing services? I'm reluctant to do this, which might be silly but I just have it built into me thats something really rich people do. But it's also not something I want to spend one day of my two days off every weekend doing.

What do you guys think, in general (not of my reluctance to have a cleaner!)?

Good question, it's amazing how people manage to have time to themselves with kids

iamstop

I don't have kids but what I generally try to do it plan out my evenings for the coming week and try to not to bite off more than I can chew. By this I mean I estimate how long something will take and, mentally or written, plot that into my day. If it won't fit into today then it gets bumped to the next available day. Cramming too much into one day is futile IMHO.

I try to make sure I've an hour or so before bed to unwind, get whatever I need ready for the next day, and to prep for bed.

I always wake up to a drink of water. Sipping as I get dressed and try to have a glass drank before I go downstairs for breakfast.

MickyBest

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119543519#Comment_119543519

I'm not good at accomplishing everything planned for 1 day. So I plan for a week. What day I can get it done is the day I get it done.