Short List of Chores

Every organized home has a minimum number of chores that need doing on a consistent basis in order to stay looking clean. What each of us needs to do is decide what that minimum list is for our house… and stick to it. With these tips from OrganizedHome.com you can find out what your magic minimum is.

What’s on the list? Every family has slightly different needs, but most Magic Minimum checklists provide for these functions:

basic accounting chores: bank deposits and bill-paying
meals and menus: clean dishes, grocery shopping
laundry: necessary clean clothing
home management: once-a-day pick-up, weekly cleaning of bathrooms and kitchen

Put a Price on Clutter Storage

Sure you thought that clutter wasn’t costing you anything. After all it’s tucked away where no one can see it, so who does it really impact? What if someone told you that your wasted space was not only robbing you of shelving but also wasting your mortgage? A study done by Ikea shows that wasted space is equal to wasted money. After all, you could be using it for something productive.

“It’s only when you do the numbers that you realise quite what a waste of money hoarding junk can be,” says Jason Mohr, founder of Any Junk?.

Tips for Dealing with Clutter

It’s everywhere. It’s on my desk, on the floor, in the bathroom and the garage. Clutter just never seems to leave me alone. I’ve been starting to get a handle on it though, using several different tips I’ve found on the web. My latest find? Productivity 501 had this little tip to share:

Organize electronics and gadgets by type or purpose. Most people accumulate a collection of tools, memory cards, special purpose cables, and electronics. Try to keep these organized by their purpose. For example, you might keep everything related to your cell phone (special cables, extra batteries, etc) in one area, while keeping all your computer related items in another. Clear storage containers are great for this. If you can see through the clear sides, it makes it easy to find what you are looking for. If the items are organized by type, you can find the right container easily even if the item you are looking for isn’t in clear view, you just have to look for other items associated with it.

I have to admit, I’vebecome a fan of those clear plastic bins. We even use them for the kids toys - Hotwheels, Trains, Musical Instruments - it makes them so easy to find.

Maximize your Online Calendar Use

We can manage the battle of too-many-things-to-do, by becoming more efficient at using our calendars. Many of us have moved beyond the paper calendars and now have our alerts, birthdays and more scheduled in an online calendar. LifeHacker has put together a list of 10 Tricks so we can optimize our online calendars with several helpfull ad-ons. The best part: most of these are free!

The Web 2.0 social-site explosion has created a wealth of scheduling services, but we’ve always liked the simplicity of tools like Doodle, where you just ask folks via email what times work for them, and the site returns the most compatible matches. Need more than just a time slot? fasterPlan creates web-based, customizable billboards, so you can ask which park works best for a reunion, who’s a vegetarian, and so on. If nothing else, your over-burdened inbox will thank you.