Family shortcuts that’ll make life easier

This is a collaborative post

Taking shortcuts in life doesn’t have to carry negative connotations. Rather than cutting corners, view this as a way of making your family’s life that little bit more simple every day of the week. When you do take shortcuts, the aim should always be to lift some of the burden off your shoulders and generally make life a little bit easier for yourself and the rest of your family unit. When all’s said and done, few things are more important than that.

Some of the shortcuts below are very small, simple and obvious, but that doesn’t stop people from missing them and never really making use of them. Could they help to make your everyday life less busy and more efficient? Read on and find out for yourself whether any of these ideas could work for you.

 

Streamline breakfast and lunch

The breakfast you eat with your family is considered to be the most important meal you’ll all eat that day. So that’s why you should try to do what you can to make sure you all get those early morning nutrients you need while keeping it streamline. Cooking a big omelette that you can divide up between everyone, and accompanying it with some buttered bread is one way of doing that. The same principles of streamlining should apply to lunch. Focus on the healthy basics rather than making it more complex than it needs to be. A big portion of one meal for all is easier than several small varieties.

 

Keep things by the door

There are certain things that you should keep by the door because it makes sense to do so. After all, you’ll be picking things up and heading right out. And if all that important stuff is by the door, you’ll be far less likely to forget things as you leave. Prams, bags, water bottles, bookbags and jackets are always needed, and therefore having them ready to grab on the way out is hugely beneficial. As long as things are kept neat and tidy, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t work for you and your family.

 

Use Sundays for prep

Sunday’s are the perfect time for you to make preparations for the days ahead. You could pick out which clothes you’re going to wear the next day so you don’t have to waste time deliberating in the morning. If you have young children, you can also do the same for them. Plan their week’s outfits or get each day’s school uniform ready to grab. They say Sunday is the day of rest, but maybe it should be the day of prep instead. It’ll help you all get your new week off to a much smoother start than would otherwise be possible.

 

Get your prescriptions online

Getting your prescriptions placed and ordered without even getting up off your sofa is now possible. This is really useful for anyone who has repeat prescriptions, so it’s something for you to look into as a parent. Why make life more difficult or time-consuming than it needs to be? With repeat NHS prescriptions online, you take the hassle out of dealing with something that’s a necessity for so many families. Even if it only saves you a little bit of time, it’s more than worth it for your family. It’s also something that you don’t need to keep remembering in your head! 

 

 

Buy or receive things online

As well as dealing with your prescriptions online, you should also try to buy your other necessities online too. Throwing items into your virtual basket is so much less time consuming than doing it for real in a store. We have been doing our online shop for about three years now and it has saved hours of wandering round the supermarket. It’s saved a lot of tears too with two young children! Let’s face it; pretty much anything you could ever want to buy is available somewhere online. You can definitely save time and energy by doing more online shopping.

 

Use incentives to get your kids doing what you ask them to

There’s nothing at all wrong with using incentives when your kids aren’t listening to you for whatever reason. If they get a reward for compromising, they’ll have that positive behaviour reinforced. So when you want them to tidy up or do something important like that, you could reward them with a bit of TV or a play of a video game for a set amount of time after they’ve completed what they were asked to. This is something I am definitely going to start doing more of with Zach because he loves helping other people tidy up but not me. And he likes to ignore me when I ask him to! 

 

Use software that allows you to remember passwords

Software can be used in so many different ways these days. And one of the best ways is how it enables you to remember all the dozens of passwords that you have for various websites and accounts. The best apps and software for this are secure and store this data for you, meaning there is no chance of getting hacked or it getting compromised. It means you won’t have to spend 10 minutes guessing passwords before you get the right one and log in.

 

Sync your calendar and your email account

Most smartphones will now allow you to link up your email account with the calendar app on your phone. The beauty of this is that when you have an email that confirms you’re doing certain things on certain days, it will be added to your calendar, meaning you won’t forget which engagements you’re planning on attending. It also means that you won’t have to waste time trawling through emails and manually adding things to your calendar yourself.

 

 

Set your own daily objectives and deadlines

There are different things you will need to get done throughout the day, so it makes a lot of sense to set some specific targets for yourself to complete during the day ahead. First of all, you should make sure that you have daily objectives that are both worthwhile and realistic, and then set some deadlines for yourself too. It’ll help you to become more efficient at home or in the workplace. And it’s a mentality you can pass onto the rest of your family too.

 

Stop letting the home clutter get in your way

You will almost certainly get slowed down as you go about your daily life if your home is filled with clutter that you really don’t want or need. It can act like a weight around your neck, stopping you from doing and achieving all the things you want to. If the home is really cluttered, it can impact all the members of your family in exactly the same way. So quietly go through those toys your kids never ever play with and you’ll have a clearer mind in no time! 

 

Help everyone get more sleep

When you get more sleep, you’re more alert and ready to take on challenges the next day. That’s why you should be aiming to make sure that you and everyone else in your family gets to bed at a reasonable time and sleeps solidly throughout the night. It’ll make the following day so much more manageable and you will probably end up being a lot more productive than normal as well. So for a healthier and happier family, focus on helping everyone sleep more and sleep better. Oscar, are you listening?! 

 

There are so many little things that you can do to make life easier for yourself and the rest of your family. No one has time to throw away, and no one wants to be spending more time on things than is really necessary. So make the most of all these tips and try to benefit from them in your own way.

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