We’ve all seen on TV those characters who seem to have everything under control. The Monica Gellers and Bree Vanderkamps of the world, who you could drop in on any moment and find them ready. Not a speck of dust to be seen, not a hair out of place. How do they do it? And, as it turns out, the answer tends to be that they’re hiding colossal neuroses not very far beneath the surface.
So would you swap places with them? Take the strain of being that tightly wound as long as your kitchen floor was gleaming? Of course you wouldn’t! We all want to live in a home we can feel proud of – but you can’t feel proud for long if you’re always wondering whether the tablecloth is on straight. So instead, you need to figure something out. You need the Lazy Woman’s Guide To Short-Cut Housework!
Storage Is Your Friend
In Edgar Allen Poe‘s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator relates the story of a murder he committed. He hides the body beneath the floorboards of his house. In the end, he admits his guilt because he has been driven to distraction by the (imagined) sound of his victim’s heartbeat.
For the narrator, out of sight is not out of mind. This is the mindset you need to avoid. The aforementioned domestic goddesses couldn’t bear to sweep things under the rug. You can, in a manner of speaking. The fewer items you have around, the less you have to worry about keeping them tidy.
Automation, Automation, Automation
Doing the vacuuming is one of those chores that makes us all either very Zen or very annoyed. It’s repetitive action, and you can zone out for a while. But if you do, you’ll probably miss a spot. And you find yourself doing it again and again. What’s the point? Can’t someone else do it?
Well, yes. Robot vacuum cleaners are here to save you from this most boring of household tasks. Pick the right one for you – Vacuum Fox has a good rundown of what’s on offer – and you can concentrate on something more fun.
Something You Can Throw Together
Now, your couch is something you truly cherish. You’ve spent enough on it, after all. And having spent money on it, you want to spend time on it. And, if you occasionally sit there with a TV dinner or a glass of wine, who would judge you? Not I.
But what if you spill? No matter how good fabric cleaners claim to be, the ones that get stains out can damage sofas. And the ones that leave fabric intact also leave stains intact.
So what you need is a few throws for your couch. At least one for when you have company, and one for those days when you want to slouch with comfort food. On that one, you can spill to your heart’s content. When the other, good throws are on? Nothing spillable can come into the family room. At all.
Look, you can’t just never do housework, as much as we’d like to reach that point. But if you want to do other things too, you need time savers. And sometimes, that means getting creative!
