That means that some of my suggestions about products to use will probably be changing as I create new articles for this site. Considering some of the things I’ve learned lately, in the pursuit of trying to feel better, be more energetic, and create a good environment for my family, I can only think it’s a good thing! Some of the regular chemicals we use in our households are dangerous and scary, and I’m ready to find alternatives that work.

I’m also migrating to natural fabrics and materials in my home furnishings and household supplies. I am not a fanatical kind of person, so the truth is, I might not always choose the 100% natural alternative; however, each decision will be based on my analysis of all the facts I have on hand.

Is the product dangerous, or are the dangers unknown at this time, or has the product been proven safe over the many years it’s been in use?

Is the manufacture of the product sustainable over the long term?

These questions and others will feature prominently in my buying decisions.

I hope you’ll enjoy to new direction of future home management tips on this site. Let me know what you think. I’m leaving comments open.

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Going Natural with Home Management Tips

When you’re working in your kitchen, you need easy access to the things you use regularly. Easy access depends entirely on knowing where your items are, without having to stop and think about where they might be.

When you’re putting away groceries, you want to be able to put items in their place quickly and without having to think about it too much, but just as importantly, you want items to be easy to find later.

If putting groceries away isn’t quick and easy, disorganization will creep back in and overwhelm you just when you most need to find something.

Kitchen organizing doesn’t have to take long at all. If you do it over a period of a week or two, you’ll be amazed at how organized things will get after just 15 minutes here and there.

Doing it the simple way: organizing as you go

1. The next time you put away groceries, put canned foods on one shelf—or use two if absolutely necessary—and slide your vegetables to the left and your fruit to the right. Put boxed goods in a central location.

Group items together that you use together, such as baking goods. I also put my themed foods together, such as tex-mex, spaghetti & sauce, boxed side dishes (scalloped potatoes, instant potatoes, quick rice dishes, etc.). It makes everything easy to find and easy to put away.

As you take items out of your pantry and use them, you can take a few minutes here and there to put items into their new locations. With almost no extra effort, you’ve begun to organize your pantry space.

2. Don’t scatter your kitchen gadgets around your kitchen. Locate them in a centralized location, even if it’s a little out of your workflow.

If you spend thirty seconds walking across the kitchen to get your super-duper-potato-slicer or your handy-cheese-grater, that’s okay. At least you know where it’s at and you won’t spend 2 to 4 minutes looking for it or trying to remember where you put it last.

Next time you take your gadget out of the dishwasher, put it with the majority of your other gadgets. Soon, you’ll have them all in one location.

3. Hide everything that you can. Not only will you have clearer counters, you’ll have cleaner utensils, cookbooks, and gadgets. As long as you know where you put things and put them there every time, accessibility isn’t hindered. In fact, you could be helping yourself out if you have a habit of stacking things on your small appliances.

Anything stored near the stove requires extra wash time because of oil and grease deposits. Have you saved yourself any effort by keeping your toaster on your counter? Sure, you save about 1 minute getting it out and putting it away, but you’ll spend countless minutes over the course of a month cleaning it—same for your cookbooks.

Even if you use your cookbooks extensively, don’t keep your cookbooks in an open shelf in your kitchen. Grease and other deposits will stick to the books and you’ll end up cleaning them often, or wishing you had the time to do so! Keep them as far away from the cooking areas as you can. I keep mine on a dedicated shelf in my pantry.

The next time you wipe down your counters, grab up your small appliances and gadgets and tuck them away (a clutter free house looks cleaner). If you don’t have space to tuck them away, consider moving anything you use less than 4 times a year to a longer term storage area.

4. So you would love to do steps 1 through 3, but you don’t have any space? Next time you put away your dishes, clear out any older, unused dishware from your cabinets first. Donate to Goodwill, or give to a relative or friend who might want them.

I started out as a young married woman with many hand-me-downs, and I was always excited to have something “new.”

You can clear out plenty of old dishware in less than 5 minutes, if you grab a box and start packing.

5. Throw out old food and make room for what you really use.

The next time you go to put something into the freezer, grab at least two items that have been in there too long and then throw them out.

You cannot leave food in a freezer indefinitely and expect it to taste good later, or even be safe for eating. By throwing out older items (or just things you know you’ll never get around to preparing or reheating), you’ll create extra space for what you will use. It takes just seconds to pick up something and throw it into the trash.

Within a few weeks, you’ll have an up-to-date selection of frozen items and you won’t even notice the time you spent organizing it!

6. Get rid of duplicates.

I’ve already written an entire article about this topic, but it’s so powerful, I want to mention it again.

The next time you put away a gadget, utensil, or pot or pan, notice if you have more than one of the item. Really think for a second about whether or not you make use of the second item on a semi-regular basis.

If not, consider what your life might be like without the item. Will you suffer because you don’t have one of them? Will someone else appreciate having your extra?

In just a few minutes, you can clear out additional space for other items without sacrificing anything of note.

As I’ve said before, organizing is really about having the space to keep things in a particular spot so you know where you can find them, without having to think about it.

Practice a few of these tips each day and before you know it, you’ll have a more organized kitchen in almost no time at all!

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6 Quick Kitchen Organizing Tips

One of the quickest ways to cut down the time spent on housework and chores is to do away with duplicates. Often, extras only create more work and take more time to maintain.

Why duplicates don’t make life easier

Why would you want to do away with duplicates when on the surface they often seem so handy?

Quite simply, they’re likely creating extra household work for you and your family.

Do you have two sets of silverware in your kitchen drawers? How about extra dinnerware and table linens? Sheets and towels?

How often have you found yourself putting off doing the dishes or the laundry because you weren’t “out” of clean items yet?

Not only is it inefficient to think like this, in the long run, it only creates more work. If you can wash a single set of sheets and replace them on the bed immediately, you just saved yourself the step of folding and storing those same sheets—possibly as much as 15 minutes of valuable time that you can now spend doing something much more enjoyable than folding clean laundry.

As for the silver– and dinnerware, have you ever found yourself hand washing dishes because you have too many to fit into your dishwasher? Why not pack the extras away and see what happens? You might find it’s easier than ever to keep your kitchen cleaned up—you won’t be overwhelmed by a bulging sink full of dirty dishes!

Taking that final step

Wouldn’t it be great to have extra room on your shelves and extra space in your closets and drawers? By getting rid of duplicates, you also improve your household’s storage. Without extras, you’ll have more places to keep things and fewer problems with clutter that has no home.

Of course, duplicates aren’t the only problem most households have when it comes to storage and extra chores, but even cutting out ten minutes of work here and 15 minutes there will add up to a lot of time in the long run. Making small changes can have a big impact!

If you do decide to keep the duplicates on hand but take them out of circulation in your household, keep them packed away where you can get to them only with some effort. Don’t make it easy on yourself to slip back into bad habits.

Do yourself a favor. Do away with duplicates!

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Do away with duplicates

1. Run vinegar through your coffee machine to clean impurities and mineral buildup from the inside.

Follow any care instructions for cleaning your pot from the manufacturer, but don’t feel obligated to use any specific type of coffee pot cleaner, since vinegar will do just fine. Also, vinegar is not only less expensive, but a natural, non-toxic product.

Be sure to run several pots of clear water through the water reservoir to rinse it out. It won’t hurt you if you don’t get it all cleared out, but you probably won’t enjoy the taste of your coffee!

2. Clean coffee buildup from your glass carafe with baking soda. It effectively scrubs the inside of your pot with almost no effort.

All it takes is a palmful, about 1/4 cup of baking soda, sprinkled directly into your pot and damp rag. You’ll see the residue washing away as you lightly rub it off. Then all you need is a quick rinse and you’re ready to use your pot again, all shiny and clean.

3. Wash the filter basket in the dishwasher on a regular basis (if it’s the removable kind) to remove the residue that builds up over time.

With most black coffee pot baskets, it’s hard to see the layers of grime that build up. The dishwasher can get into all those crevices and give it an extra good cleaning.

Do this clean up on a regular basis, and you’ll never have to worry about a gunky coffee pot again.

If it’s too late for your coffee pot—that grime just will not come off—consider purchasing a new carafe or coffeemaker. Then, follow the above cleaning routine on your new machine once a month. You’ll never have to worry about residue build-up again.

I’ve always liked the Gevalia coffeemakers. Consider giving them a try; you get the coffee and the coffeemaker, plus a thermal carafe and travel mug for a steal.

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3 Tips: Coffee Pot Cleanliness and Care

Does this have a function that is useful to me?

Just because something is useful doesn’t mean it’s useful to you. Do not keep items you might use someday, unless they’re part of an emergency kit or stash of goods or tools. Otherwise, the items are just hogging space that could be better utilized.

When I look at this, does it make me feel good or bad?

Some things that we keep, even for sentimental reasons, don’t give us feelings of joy when we look at them. If that’s the case, consider giving the item away. If you just can’t do that, then pack the item away. There’s no justifiable reason why you need to keep things out in your home that you can’t look at and feel joy about seeing.

What’s the worst thing that could happen to me if I get rid of this?

If no reason comes to mind within five seconds, toss it. If the reasons that do come to mind could have come out of a science fiction movie, toss it. Finally, if the reasons are valid and dire, treat the item with the respect it deserves and put it in its place.

How to use the questions in a typical clean up

Let’s go through a few examples. Pick up an item from the counter. Quickly ask the following questions.

Say you picked up a hairbrush.

• Does this have a function that is useful to me? —Yes, but it has a broken bristle and I have another…
• When I look at this, does it make me feel good or bad? —Bad
• What’s the worst thing that could happen to me if I get rid of this? —Nothing

Result: Toss it!

Say you picked up your cell phone bill.

• Does this have a function that is useful to me? —Yes, I can pay my bill from this…
• When I look at this, does it make me feel good or bad? —Neutral
• What’s the worst thing that could happen to me if I get rid of this? —Late fees or my phone could be turned off…

Result: Keep it, and put it where it should be.

If you can learn to treat your home and your things respectfully, and put them away, clutter wouldn’t happen. Because what is clutter? An accumulation of items that aren’t in their place.

The world is full of junk, don’t feel bad about wanting to get something out of the house. Set aside items to donate only if you are positive you’ll get the donations to the appropriate drop off spot within a week.

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3 Questions to Cut Clutter

Do you find yourself behind in the washing—again?

It’s difficult to stay ahead of the dirty laundry when you have young children around. Even if you don’t have children, a busy lifestyle can create a situation where you can’t remember the last time you washed.

As most Moms and Dads know, the young ones can never decide what to wear or when to wear it, and something that’s been on for less than five minutes often ends up in the laundry bin. Several of those somethings, in fact.

The easiest way to keep on top of the dirty laundry is to set aside certain days for each kind of clothing or linen item. That way, even if you do get behind with the wash, you won’t stress worrying about when it’ll get done.

A sample laundry schedule

Monday

Sheets and towels

With the exception of kitchen towels, most towels don’t need more than the equivalent of a good rinse, so even though you will have more than one load of laundry on Mondays, if you separate the kitchen linens from the bathroom towels, you can save time by running the bath towels through a “quick” or “short” wash cycle.

As for the bed linens, strip the beds, wash the sheets and then put them right back onto the beds. This will save 15-25 minutes of folding time if you have a household of three or more.

Tuesday

Jeans and denim or uniforms, slacks and dress pants

Wednesday

Rugs, kitchen towels, and table linens

Wash all the bathroom rugs and throw in any kitchen towels that have made it back into the laundry bins.

Thursday

Whites and delicates

Friday

Colors

I don’t wash on the weekends if I can help it, but if you do, you can easily adjust the schedule to fit your needs.

Whatever you do, write your schedule down and look at it each day when you wash until your laundry schedule becomes a habit. Having a set order in which to do the laundry will keep you caught up.

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Staying Ahead of Dirty Laundry

1. Double duty doorknob

Use the doorknob as a bag hanger. Leftover bags from your latest shopping trip can catch your dirty cleaning wipes and the wastebasket trash. This tip came from an article in Better Homes and Gardens and I’ve used it for years. It really does help streamline to process of cleaning up as you go.

2. Toilet time

Spray the toilet bowl with your favorite toilet cleaner, then move on for the moment as it soaks the crud away. Better yet, keep a bleach tablet in the tank and you’ll never need anything more than a quick swish of your brush along the rim of the toilet.

3. Shine that bathroom

Use Windex or other glass cleaning wipes to shine your faucets, sink, mirror, shower door and other hardware. Everything in a bathroom looks better when it shines.

4. Wipe away the germs

Clorox disinfecting wipes will kill the lurking germs in your bathroom. Use them to wipe surfaces such as the back of the toilet, the seat, the toilet handle, both the inside and outside of your wastebasket. The wipes will kill germs and you won’t have to worry about spray cleaners splattering onto your clothes.

5. Fresh and tidy

Put out a fresh hand towel for your visitors. Put out fresh bath towels only if you have the time. Otherwise, straighten the bath towels so they look neat and tidy and leave them for later.

6. Floor finishes

To finish off, shake out your rug or bath mat, and wipe up the corners and over the edges where hair and dust collect. Collect your used wipes and throw them in your trash bag. Grab your plastic bag and you’re out of there, leaving behind a fresh and sparkling bathroom.

Using these tips will turn your bathroom from scummy to sparkling in minutes.

For the quickest clean up, remember to keep a bleach tablet in your toilet tank and disinfecting wipes under the counter or on a shelf. For more about storing your supplies where you need them, read “Where do YOU hide cleaning supplies?“.

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6 Quick Bathroom Clean Up Tips

Is cleaning a huge chore for you? Do you hate having to search around the house for supplies, or even just having to run into another room when you forget the glass cleaning wipes you meant to bring with you to the bathroom?

Have you ever wondered how to make cleaning automatic?

Hide your cleaning supplies

If any of the above has ever been true for you, then you need to make sure you always have cleaning supplies on-hand—in the locations where you use them.

Unfortunately, economies of time and money don’t always align perfectly.

Having duplicate supplies might cost a little more, but the time saved (and the ease that having those duplicates adds to your cleaning routine) more than make up for the extra expense. This is an essential concept of the home management principles outlined on this site. (Not all duplicates are the same–see “Do Away With Duplicates” for how getting rid of duplicates in your home can save you precious time and effort!

Why hide your cleaning supplies?

One of the most common reasons people don’t clean more often is because its inconvenient. Having quick access to the supplies you need can alleviate that inconvenience.

Wouldn’t it be easier to wipe the back rim of the toilet seat when you’re already in the room than to make a special trip to the bathroom to clean up? Even if you only do this once per day, then you’ve cleaned the dirtiest spot in most bathrooms more often than almost everyone else in your neighborhood.

Multiply this small task by ten or twenty other small jobs you can do around your home in only seconds and you’ve cut your cleaning time in half. You’ve also significantly decreased the chances of having to do a rush cleanup the next time you’re expecting visitors to drop in.

Where to conceal

Store disinfecting wipes and glass cleaning wipes under all your bathroom sinks and in your kitchen too. Store a set of dusting wipes in your entertainment center in a small box, covered basket or tin high on a shelf or behind a cabinet door.

Dusting wipes can be concealed in any room where dusting is often overlooked, such as bedrooms and home offices. In the laundry room, Clorox wipes are great for getting the dust off your washer and dryer.

Adopt these tips and you’ll soon find that cleaning isn’t nearly such a chore as you once thought. Just a few minutes of cleaning here and there can save hours later.

Storage Resources

My favorite type of storage, these small boxes are attractive, stack neatly, and store all kinds of useful items.

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Where do YOU hide cleaning supplies?

Dusting is a necessary part of home maintenance. Undusted furniture can make even the tidiest home look dirty and neglected.

Dustbunnies aren’t the only hazard of a home overrun with dust. Too much, and a person with allergies won’t stand a chance in your home. Maybe that’s you. Maybe it’s a visitor. Either way, you’ll feel much better about having unexpected company if you have furniture that looks well-cared for and clean.

Kitchens need dusting too

However, what about the rest of the dust? Furniture pieces aren’t the only dust-collecting surfaces in your home. Dust collects everywhere, on your furniture, in your carpets, on your floors—and on your walls and cabinet doors.

Often forgotten, most people have wood cabinets in their kitchens that need dusting as frequently as their coffee table. More often, in fact, because the grease floating around in a kitchen can turn minor dust into a major mess.

So, dust your kitchen cabinets as often as you dust the rest of your household furniture. Use a cloth that’s been dampened with Murphy’s Oil Soap and water, or use Pledge or Endust wipes. Whatever you choose to dust with, do it frequently and thoroughly. You don’t have to spend all day scrubbing your kitchen cabinets to make a huge difference in how they look. [Buy some Murphy Oil Soap spray now]

Stop dust before it makes it into the air

When you’re done with your kitchen, use a Swiffer duster on your furnace/heat-pump/air conditioner vents and registers. Dust will stick to the duster and you’ll cut down on the amount of allergens that make it back into your recirculated air. The air currents in a home are the single biggest carrier of dust. Stop the dust before it’s put back into the air. [Buy yourself a Swiffer duster now]

What you don’t see, someone else will

Finally, remember that carpets and rugs collect as much dust as that which ends up on your hard floors. It might not be as easy to notice, but what you don’t see, others will. Dust free floors make carpeted rooms look larger and cleaner. Vacuum regularly, daily if time permits, and wash your washable rugs at least once every three weeks.

Dusting is about more than wiping a cloth across a piece of furniture. Remember to look around your rooms as if you were a visitor. You’ll be surprised at the dust you notice when you aren’t you.

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Where do YOU dust?

Washing the laundry is about more than cleaning your clothes. Your wardrobe is a significant expense for most families, and if you want your clothes to look good for as long as possible, you’ll want to follow the tips outlined below.

1. Turn your clothing inside out

Turning your clothing inside out will protect it from pilling and prevent colors from transferring as easily onto other pieces. Every time you put clothes into the washing machine or dryer, your clothing beats against the drum of each. All that friction can be tough on delicate surfaces and will eventually wear your clothes out. By turning your pieces inside out, you give them longer life. Turn them all out, including jeans and slacks. They’ll last longer and look better.

2. Wash like colors together

Always wash like colors together. Dark colors may not leave an obvious transfer of color onto your lighter clothes, but over time, the lighter pieces will dull and you’ll wonder what happened to them. [Buy some Shout Color Catcher Dye-Trapping cloths now]

3. Don’t use fabric softener on your kitchen toweling

Dryer sheets are great for making fabrics soft and fluffy. If you want absorbent towels, though, you’ll need to leave the dryer sheets out of the dryer. The same goes for liquid fabric softener. The agents used to soften your fabrics interfere with the natural absorbency of cloth. [Buy some fabric softener sheets now]

4. Treat stains immediately

Don’t wait to treat stains on clothing. Set in stains are must harder for your detergent to remove. Treating a stain is as easy as rubbing some detergent on it or rinsing it with water and spraying with a stain treater like Spray-’N-Wash or Shout. [Buy some stain remover now]

5. Avoid bleach

Chlorine bleach is a great whitener and can take out some really hard to remove stains on white clothing. Sheets smell and feel fresher when bleached, as do white towels and wash cloths. However, using bleach with every white wash will lead to weak clothing fibers. Your fabrics will tend to rip and tear easier and will thin much sooner than with natural wear and tear. So, avoid using bleach when it’s not needed.

6. Wash cold and dry low

Finally, wash your clothes in cold water whenever possible. Always dry on the low setting. Both of these tips will help you save your colors and make it easier to get out any overlooked stains. [Buy some cold water laundry detergent now]

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6 Quick Laundry Tips