Smoothies and milkshakes are the best in the summer…cool, refreshing, and depending on how you make them, they can even be healthy. They’re way cheaper made at home than purchased at a restaurant, and they’re fun to make. But blenders…blenders are not fun to clean.
Taking all the little pieces apart and trying not to impale yourself as you wash them is a pain and takes a long time, so I wanted to share with you how we clean our blender at home. It’s so easy!
Once you’ve made your delicious cold beverage of choice, empty the blender of its contents right away into glasses. Now, before you enjoy said drink, fill the blender with warm water and add a bit of dish soap (fill it to the same height as the previous contents). Now, put the pitcher back on the stand, put the top on, and blend away. The soapy water will get into all the same nooks and crannies as the drink you just made. It’s important to do this right away so nothing gets dry and sticky.
Now just rinse and set on a towel or in the dish rack to dry! Easy! :)
Do you have any cleanup tips for the kitchen?
So there’s a daunting list of tasks on your list and you have no idea where to begin. Sometimes you just pick a task at random and go. Sometimes you don’t start on your to-do list at all just because it looks so scary. Well, the first thing on your to-do list should be “organize my to-do list.”
If you want to get through that list, you need to put things in order. It’s possible to waste lots of time figuring out what to do next, and it’s also possible to over think it so much that you just give up. You can avoid both of those problems by sorting your list before you begin. I organize my to-do list using the following 4 categories:
1) Quick. Any task that will take me less than 5 minutes comes up to the top of the list. At home, that can be something as simple as “feed the cats” or “add orange juice to the shopping list.” At work, usually it’s sending a follow up email, or searching for a blue pen in the filing cabinet. It’s important to do the tasks that take the least time first for two reasons. Firstly, it boosts your energy. If you can cross off multiple things in the span of 10 minutes, you’ll feel totally productive and energized to do more. Secondly, if someone is waiting on you for a quick answer, you will boost their productivity by getting the answer to them as quickly as possible.
2) Urgent. Anything that must be done by a certain time or by the end of the day should be next on your list. At home, this might include paying the electric bill or making an important phone call. At work, it could be finalizing a presentation or finishing a spreadsheet. Either way, get those things that are very urgent out of the way next. You’ll feel a lot of relief when those tasks are over!
3) Important. Next, tackle the things that are important but might not have a strict deadline. This could be clipping coupons for shopping on the weekend, or setting up a meeting that isn’t until next week. These are things that need to be done but aren’t as time-sensitive as the tasks mentioned above.
4) Can wait. These are the tasks that are just kind of floating—we know we need to do them at some point but they really can wait. At home this could be hemming a pair of pants you don’t wear very often. At work it could be reorganizing your filing cabinet.
To-do lists come in all shapes and sizes. There’s really no one way to make a to-do list—just find what works best for you, whether that’s on a piece of notebook paper, on your iPhone, in a planner, or on a bunch of post-its. I keep my work to-do list in an old-school paper planner. I keep my “at home” to-do list on TeuxDeux.com.
Depending on what you use to record your to-do list, you’ll have to figure out how to organize it. For instance, when prioritizing my work to-do list, since it’s on paper, I use highlighters. (Pink for “quick,” orange for “urgent,” yellow for “important,” and green for “can wait.”) On TeuxDeux.com, I just drag and drop the tasks into the appropriate order based on the 4 categories above. Do whatever you find increases your productivity the most.
How do you organize your to-do list?
images via Flickr (To-do list book. by koalazymonkey) (So much to do in the back by boboroshi)
We all have those chores that we loathe, that we put off until the last minute because we just hate to do them. For many people, laundry is one of those chores. Fortunately, I don’t mind it so much (don’t worry—I make up for it by hating to wash dishes). Here are a few tips from my own experiences that might help ease your laundering pain.
1) Wash all different colors together. I sort by type (towels with towels, jeans with jeans, bedding with bedding, etc.) rather than by color. Do keep in mind that this won’t work if you’re washing a brand new pair of jeans (they should probably be washed separately a few times) or anything else that might dye other clothing. But in all my years of doing laundry, I’ve always washed everything together (at least since the days of college and having to be very thrifty with my quarters) and have never ever had a color bleeding debacle.
2) Use cold water for everything. I know your mom told you that warm or hot water gets your clothes cleaner, but she was mistaken. Unless you have some serious stains to tackle, just use the cold/cold setting. You’ll save money by not using the extra electricity to heat the water, and you won’t have to worry about running the shower or the dishwasher while the laundry is on.
3) If you use liquid detergent, measure it out into your handy measuring cap and then throw the cap into the washing machine. This way you’re sure to get all the measured detergent into the wash, and you won’t have a sticky cap to deal with afterward. And even if you accidentally throw the cap into the dryer when you transfer the clothes, it should come out unscathed.
4) Don’t use fabric softener or dryer sheets on towels. I know we all hate the static, but we also hate those towels that are all smooth and don’t absorb liquid! Especially when you buy a new set of towels and they don’t seem to dry well, wash them the first few times without any fabric softener…the same substance that takes away the static also coats the towels in a film that makes it difficult for them to absorb.
5) Easily de-wrinkle a load of dry clothes with a damp washcloth. If you’re like me, every once in a while you’ll forget you have dry clothes in the dryer and you’ll leave them there overnight. The result is a load of extremely wrinkled clothes when you finally remember them. Well, who has time to iron an entire load of clothing? (Not me!) Dampen a clean washcloth, throw it into the dryer with your clean clothes, and set it on a short cycle (10-20 minutes). The washcloth kind of steams your clothing and they come out de-wrinkled!
I hope these tips help you in your future laundry endeavors. Do you have any laundry tips to share?
Organizing is all about saving you something…saving time, saving space, saving money, and even saving your sanity. One easy way I’ve found to save myself all of these things is to menu plan.
The gist of it is that you make a list of meals you’re going to eat for a week (or until the next time you know you’re going to the store). I always go grocery shopping on Saturday, so I usually make my meal list on Friday or Saturday for the rest of the week. Then I generate my shopping list from my menu. Here’s an example from this past week’s menu:
Here are the reasons you, too, should start a weekly menu plan:
You will save time. While you’re in the store, you will have a grocery list made out specifically for the things you’re going to cook in the coming week. You’ll know exactly what you’re shopping for and you won’t have to waste time in every aisle trying to decide what you want. You’ll also save time every night at home. When you come home in the evening, you know exactly what’s for dinner. You won’t have to spend time thinking about what you’d like to cook. It’s already been determined.
You will save space. Since you have a shopping list based on a specific menu, you won’t be tempted to buy a bunch of food you don’t really need. You’ll only bring home ingredients you need for that week, thusly saving space in your fridge and cupboards.
You will save money. While you’re at the store, you’ll be less inclined to impulse-buy. If you really stick to your list, you’ll only put things in your cart that you really need. You’ll also save money at home. When you’re making out your weekly menu, take a look at what you already have on-hand. If you have 3 boxes of pasta, choose a pasta dish to make one night that week; that’s one fewer thing you have to buy to make a good meal.
You will save your sanity. I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to come home and use my brain power on after work is, “What in the world am I going to make for dinner?” Already knowing is a huge burden off my shoulders. With a menu plan, you can also avoid those times when you were intending to cook hamburgers tonight, but you forgot to take the meat out of the freezer the day before. Since you have all your meals written out (preferably in a visible spot—we keep ours on the refrigerator door), you can check the night before if anything needs to be prepped for dinner the next day.
I got my magnetic meal planning notepad from a free giveaway from Betty Crocker—I’m not sure what I’ll do when it runs out! You could always make your own menu plan template to fit your needs, but here are a few printable options that might be of use to you:
1) Here’s a creative meal planner from futuregirl, complete with fun illustrations and including a column where you put reminders for the next day’s meal (“take the steaks of out the freezer”).
2) Here’s a clean, easy-to-use menu planning template from one of my favorite blogs, I’m An Organizing Junkie. It even includes a spot for “recipe source” (which is always good for me to note so my husband doesn’t have trouble figuring out which cookbook the recipe is in when he’s trying to be sweet and start dinner without me).
3) There are some great meal and menu planners available at Vertex42—they have different formats to choose from (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.).
4) There’s a detailed menu plan template over at Unclutterer that has space to write in not only dinner but breakfast, lunch, and snacks as well.
I hope this helps you in your future cooking and shopping endeavors!
What do you do to save time, space, money, or even sanity when it comes to your meals?
Welcome to Saturday SOS (simple organizing solutions). I love organization; let’s just establish this now. I organize everything—my CDs, my craft supplies, my recipes, my to-dos—you name it, I organize it. I love organization for two reasons:
- Organization is easy for me
- Organization makes my life easier
I realize that not everyone has the blessing of that first bullet. I count myself very lucky to have the organizing gene. But I think everyone will agree with the second bullet—organization streamlines your day. It simplifies the mundane to leave you more time for the exciting parts of life. Instead of searching around for 15 minutes trying to find that recipe I wanted to try tonight, I know exactly where it is—I can find it and start cooking without wasting time!
Admittedly, just because I love organization and it comes naturally to me doesn’t mean every area of my life is organized. Organizing takes a lot of time, something I’m working on managing better and better each day. So to kick off my SOS posts, I decided to find 5 areas in my apartment that I wish were more organized:
- My bedroom closet and dresser
- Wedding leftovers
- Spice cabinet
- My desk
- Holiday decorations
After I had identified the areas that needed a little SOS, I listed some ways I could organize each one.
- My bedroom closet and dresser – get rid of shoes I never wear, get rid of the box of books I need to sell, get rid of clothing I never wear, re-organize the clothing to better utilize space; remove things from bedroom closet that belong somewhere else in the apartment
- Wedding leftovers – reorganize the tote of keepsakes from the wedding, sell or donate the pile of supplies I’ll not need again (this will mean taking inventory of everything I have, researching how much money I can make for everything, taking pictures and posting on Craigslist)
- Spice cabinet – take everything out and throw away expired stuff, organize into categories, find containers, label containers and put everything in its designated space, somehow make measuring cups more easily accessible (I haven’t figured out the solution to this yet)
- My desk – de-clutter the corkboard, remove all paper clutter from desk surface, find a way to make the space more inviting, organize desk drawer
- Holiday decorations – separate decorations into different holidays, get rid of any decorations that we don’t like, buy appropriate containers and store each holiday’s decorations in a separate container (right now they are all jammed into one huge box)
The next step will be to commit to a day to tackle each area, but you get the picture. The hardest part is deciding you need to organize something and then making the plan to do it.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress!
Are there any areas in your life that need organization (think outside the home, too)?
