Time-Saving Hacks & Tools Archives - Page 2 of 4

How to Organize Your Passwords: My LastPass Review

This post is part 5 in the series How to Organize It.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.

How many passwords do you have?

Until relatively recently, I didn’t realize just how many login credentials I own — more than 100!

Think about it: You have logins for your E-mail accounts, bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, your streaming video accounts, online retailers, travel sites, social media sites, utility providers . . . the list goes on!

And you might think you’ve got it under control by using variations of a few passwords across all these sites . . . uuuuuntil the day that there’s a security breach.

Yeah, that happened to me.

One day, one site was compromised. So my logins at a bunch of sites were suddenly potentially vulnerable. I knew I needed to beef up my passwords and have different passwords for every site I visited. But how on earth would I keep track of them???

The answer is a password manager.

I latched on to one out of necessity, but I will seriously never go back. Here’s why I’m obsessed with LastPass, an awesome password manager. [Read more…]

Meal Planning for Beginners: How to Save Money on Your Family’s Food

For average Americans, roughly 15% of their income is spent exclusively on food. And, with the average household income sitting around $60,000, the typical family spends $9000 to keep everyone fed.

That’s no small chunk of change.

But what if you could slash your food expenses? What a massive difference that would make with your money!

After all, what could you do with the extra cash if you could whittle your food costs down to 12% every single month? To 10% month after month???

That’s precisely where meal planning comes in — a simple exercise that takes just minutes a week. And doing nothing more than sticking with a meal plan can keep your food budget small while freeing up your cash for other financial goals!

And it’s great for everyone — supermoms, busy retirees, cash-strapped students, kitchen-loving dads, and anyone looking to save money and save time.

If you’re new to the scene, you may not even know how to meal plan. No worries! This guide will take you from beginner to meal planning expert in no time. [Read more…]

Lose the Clutter & Get Organized: My 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Experience

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.

It was time for a major clutter purge. That was the thinking of my husband and me in mid-2018.

We’d moved into our home a few years earlier, still toting plenty of possessions from before we were married. Up until then, we’d done a decent job of donating the smaller stuff we didn’t want to organizations that would take it. We had dropped boxes at Goodwill, given unused diapers to a local women’s shelter, and scheduled driveway pick-up for donations to the Salvation Army and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

But the big stuff we no longer needed (or wanted) as a married couple remained. The dining room set and recliner from his late, great-uncle. The second-hand love seat that had graced my first apartment out of graduate school. A skeeball table my husband had given me for Christmas the year we started dating! The list went on.

Some of it was moveable — like my husband’s old fish aquarium and a massive painting he had purchased at a discount back in the day. But no charitable organization wanted to take them off our hands.

And other stuff was stuck. Maybe the two of us could have gotten that love seat and recliner out of the basement, but it would have been a major pain.

Finally, some of our junk was simply that. But much of what we wanted to clear out was not only usable but easily would have value to other people.

So we wanted a service that would . . .

Take all of the clutter we wanted removed . . . instead of cherry-picking from our stash,
Actually carry it out of our house . . . instead of forcing us to haul it out to the curb,
Donate, resell, or recycle our stuff, as appropriate . . . instead of sending it directly to the dump,
And do it all professionally and at a fair price!

After plenty of research, we turned to 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, a nationwide, residential junk removal service. And we were thrilled with the result!

If you too are ready to clear out your clutter and get organized, a junk removal service may be something you’re considering! And you’re looking for a thorough 1-800-GOT-JUNK? review.

So here’s what you need to know about the process — how 1-800-GOT-JUNK? works, what you’ll pay, and what I love (and don’t love) about it. [Read more…]

Steal This Trick from Insanely Productive People

We all want to be more productive.

Maybe your to-do list is so long that you can’t finish everything. So you want to get it all done in the time you actually have available.

Or you simply want to blast through the stuff you have to do so you can have more time for the things you want to do.

Either way, you could definitely use some time management tips that will cut wasted time and effort and maximize your efficiency.

And there’s one productivity hack that truly productive people turn to religiously — task batching.

So we’re looking today at what task batching is, why it works, how you can get started, and how you can take your task batching powers to the next level. [Read more…]

7 Laundry Hacks to Save You Time & Money

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.

I’ve heard that there are people who enjoy doing the laundry . . . but I’ve never met a single one.

Odds are, you wish that you had a magical helper — a laundry fairy who would pick up, sort, wash, dry, iron, fold, and stow your family’s clothing without your needing to lift a finger.

But, failing that, it’s up to you to face the never-ending chore of doing the laundry.

But what if you could make doing the laundry faster and easier? [Read more…]

How to Get Your Kids to Do Chores: Secrets of Organizing Pros & Rockstar Parents

Raise your hand if you’ve ever wanted to move to a new home just to get away from the mess at the one you’ve got!

It’s hard enough when you’re single to keep your home organized and tidy. But when you mix in a spouse, kids, and maybe some pets, it can feel as though you’re fighting a losing battle.

So how do you do it??? How do you get your busy family unified and working together? How can you get everyone to conquer that never-ending chore list so that it’s actually done — without tears or screaming? And how can you get organized quickly and easily?

To find the answer, I collaborated with Citi to find the real experts — organization gurus and parents who have successfully rallied their families to maintain ship-shape homes!

I rounded up their secret strategies and recommended tools. And I’m sharing those with you today.

There’s no better time than now to get your family organized. So get ready to conquer your crew’s collective goals and manage your household responsibilities with this easy action plan.

[Read more…]

Why You Need a Food Processor: 10 Ways You’ll Save Time & Money

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.

Sometimes it feels as though you have to pick your poison when it comes to meal prep: save time with prepared ingredients or save money by handling the food prep yourself.

But you can save time and money on food prep with a surprisingly versatile kitchen tool — your food processor.

If yours is getting dusty on the back of a shelf — or if you haven’t made the investment to buy one — here are 10 compelling reasons to fire up a food processor to get great food ready quickly and inexpensively. [Read more…]

Want To Be Surprisingly Productive? Don’t Finish That Project. Here’s Why.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.

All right, so I’m totally guilty of this one.

Years ago, I read a great crime novel. Suspense, drama, intrigue — you name it. So I figured that the author’s other books must be pretty awesome too.

As a result, over the years, I’ve visited my local library and borrowed one after another of her books. And some of them weren’t bad. The rest? Awful.

I was happy enough reading the good ones. But guess what I did with the snooze-worthy ones?

Yeah, I read those too. Cover to cover.

Those novels weren’t the least bit compelling in the first few chapters. They weren’t remotely thrilling at the halfway point. They were — at best — meh all the way through.

But I finished those suckers anyway.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Total waste of time. To make matters worse, I wasted more time in complaining to my poor husband about how crummy my latest read was.

Of course, you can clearly see how utterly silly it was to keep throwing away precious hours like this!

But think for a second. I bet that you’ve got at least one time-wasting story just like mine.

And that’s where “the art of non-finishing” comes in . . . [Read more…]

How to Trick Yourself Into Being Unbelievably Productive

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.

If you haven’t read one of David Allen’s books, it’s time to hit up your local library.

For decades, he’s been one of the foremost experts on business and personal productivity. And his GTD system — short for “Getting Things Done” — has a near-cult-like following of productivity lovers. And the book that started it all, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, has one of the best tips for tricking yourself into being productive.

Here it is . . . [Read more…]

How Micro-Actions Can Help You Conquer Your Goals

If you’re like most people, you’re probably a bit disappointed and frustrated right about now.

It’s a few months into the new year, and you’re already losing traction on at least one of your new year’s resolutions. You’re not where you hoped you’d be, or you’ve thrown in the towel already.

The problem for many of us is that we set ambitious goals that are nearly impossible to achieve. Think about it:

Are you a fast food junkie who’s now trying to eat 100% healthy foods?
Are you a compulsive spender who’s now trying to stick to a barebones budget?
Are you a clutter magnet who’s now trying to maintain a Martha Stewart home?

And once you mess up just one time, it’s tempting to get sucked into self-doubt that leads to even more mistakes.

But you can break this ugly new year’s resolutions pattern.

You can make big changes in your life. In fact, you can do it without any of the stress and self-flagellation. The trick is to realize that it’s rare that people successfully make those big changes overnight.

That’s where the magic of micro-actions comes in. [Read more…]