Life Hacks for the Busy Woman

Any busy women out there? I'm raising my hand! Working full-time, especially with a commute can take most of the minutes of the day. Then there's cooking, cleaning, laundry, and the house in general to keep up (at least for the women who like me, still want to fulfill traditional housewife roles). Daily tasks on top of work outside the home can be a lot, so I look for every corner I can cut to save time and still get things done. I have searched for hacks and tips for the busy woman, but have not found many good ones. So I have culled and created my own list. Without further ado, here are a few life hacks I practice to help reduce clutter, free up brain space, and make the most use of precious time.

Kitchen organization:

-Store food in mason jars. Simply pop the jar in the microwave to reheat the food and then send it through the dishwasher. No need to worry about melting plastic, or food absorbing the chemicals from the plastic.

-Recycle plastic condiment lids to cover those mason jars. (I have found that coconut oil and mayonnaise lids are the best so far.) Just one thing, and they go on and off easier than the traditional metal gasket and ring.

-Use old peanut butter jars, or other large plastic jars to store lids. A cascade of lids is no fun and takes a ton of time to clean up. Never fear! An old jar is near to corral all those lids and make for easy access.

-Label an old egg carton and store your hard-boiled eggs there. No use having large bowls to hold eggs, or chasing eggs all over the refrigerator. Simply pop an egg out of the carton, crack on the counter, peel, and go.

(Photo caption: how not to be efficient: explode milk all over the kitchen)

Time Savers:

-Keep a mesh bag on the laundry machine for mask collection. This provides a place for depositing the dirty masks and ensures that they get washed in the next load. Better than chasing masks around the house, or running out (if you're an eco-freak like me and don't purchase disposable masks)!

-Always have a load of laundry started. It may not be best practice, but once I take out one load, I put in detergent for the next one. That allows me to throw clothes in as I go, making it easy to just press a button when the machine is full and ready to run.

-Sort the silverware when you put it in the dishwasher. A hack from America's Test Kitchen, this saves time when unloading the dishwasher. Just empty each compartment into the silverware organizer and voila, done!

-Keep the dishwasher loaded with a detergent pod. One less thing to do when the dishwasher is ready to go. (This ONLY works if you have pre-sealed pods and only if there is a cap for the soap.)

-Batch cook protein. Something I already did, but that got reinforced by a podcast, this provides easy meals when pared with some vegetables and/or grains. It also saves money by reducing need for take-out or pricey prepared foods.

-For that matter, batch whatever you can. Kath Eats has a good post about this. My best friend says not to touch anything more than once, unless you have to. So if I have the mail in hand, I try to open it and deal with it. I chop the carrots for today's lunch and dinner while I have the cutting board out. I wait to fold all the loads of laundry for the day at one time, if I can. Yes, tasks take longer attention in one setting, but then they are done!

-Grocery shop using an app. Forgo the lists and just log things in the app. This has a bonus of helping with budgeting, too!

-Clean by zones. I dust on the days I use all of my hand weights and therefore have a clear surface. I clean the kitchen on cooking day. Why dirty a clean kitchen by cooking, or clean the kitchen only to cook a day later. I literally use one counter for all it's worth, clean it, and then move on. When cooking is done, cleaning is done.

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I'm sure there are more hacks I could list, but you know, I'm busy. Please share any time-, or life-saving hacks you practice in the comments so that we all be more efficient.