With so much on our plates, life’s little annoyances — making the bed, sorting laundry — takes precious minutes out of our day. And if you are a parent, you likely find yourself nagging your family to put their bedrooms and bathrooms in order.
Here are five very simple changes that you can make today, so that you have a better, simpler tomorrow.
1. Pare down the bed.
You can find a great sense of accomplishment in making your bed, but without question, it takes a few minutes to do it properly — minutes that you might rather spend reading your emails or enjoying your morning coffee.
Simplify your bed making by doing away with flat sheets and blanket covers. Use only a fitted sheet, pillowcases and a duvet with a duvet cover on it. When it’s time to make your bed, all you have to do is pull up the duvet and fluff the pillows — we’re talking a fully made bed in five seconds flat!
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2. Draw the curtains.
When it’s time to replace your window treatments, skip using Roman shades in favor of curtains. You won’t have to crank them up and down, morning and night, and you won’t have to worry about the mechanism breaking or having the shade get out of alignment. Install simple curtains on a rod that you can quickly pull open or close.
3. Go for the single arm.
Replacing toilet paper on its holder is a pain. The tension rod often is hard to wrangle so people often just rest the new roll on top of it. It’s a flawed design. If you have the chance to update your bathroom, replace the toilet paper holder with a single arm, just-slip-the-tissue-roll-on-style.
4. Hang don't fold.
Tired of your kids leaving their wet towels on their beds, sloppily shoving them on their respective towel bars or leaving them in a puddle on the bathroom floor? Easy to solve! Install hooks instead.
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Hooks are MUCH easier for all, no towel folding is required and as long as you only hang one item (towel or robe) on each hook, hooking is more hygienic. It allows air to circulate around the towel so that it dries fully thereby preventing mildew build up.
5. One color for all!
When it comes to towels, buy the same color for every bathroom. It makes doing laundry easier—there is no need to keep “sets’ together. I equate this decision to buying all the same socks; if one wears out or mysteriously gets eaten by the washing machine, the remaining sock is not worthless. (The same strategy can be applied to bedding as well—buy the same bedding for all beds with the exception of the sizing)