Hi there friends! I’m excited about my new series…Five Tips Friday.  I am always on the look-out for easier or more efficient ways to do everyday tasks and tools that help make life easier.  When presented with a ‘need’ or ‘want’, I love noodling better ways to accomplish that task or meet that need…also known as ‘a lifehack.’

Lifehack: a strategy or technique adopted in order to manage one’s time and daily activities in a more efficient way.  

I hope to bring you Five Ideas (or lifehack) on the First Friday of Each Month…undoubtedly you might already employ some of these ideas, but hopefully every now and again I can bring you a nugget you hadn’t considered before.

AND…MOST IMPORTANTLY…I am ALWAYS in the market for a new lifehack or idea, so if you have noodled a way to do something easier or cheaper…please consider passing it on. I’d love to incorporate tips from our readers into the Five Tips Friday list.  Email  your tips to [email protected]

So, if it…solves a problem, makes life easier, is a less expensive way to do something, saves you money…bring it!

lifehack 1

I don’t know about you, but I like to have a place for everything and everything in its place and my car is no exception. It seems I always had pens or pencils rattling around in the console getting in the way or I just couldn’t find one when I needed it. So…I tucked a toilet paper roll into the little rectangular slot that most cars seem to have and use it to hold my pens/pencils/emery boards.  

When I realized that this very simple trick really worked, I ‘jazzed’ my toilet paper roll up with a scrap of fabric and coated it with modge podge to keep it sturdier and easier to wipe down when needed. My current ‘pen holder’ is still the first one I made and traveled with me when I got my new car 4 years ago.

lifehack 2

I take medications and supplements daily, as does the rest of my family.  Since these are usually taken with our breakfast, I keep the lot in a basket in a drawer in my kitchen. By writing the name of the supplement or whose medication it is on the lid, I am easily able to pull out just what I need.

lifehack 3

Related to Tip 2…I have an idea to help you manage your daily vitamins and/or medication. I wrote everyone’s initial with a Sharpie in the bottom of the dish and so it’s just flat out easy to keep whose is whose straight. I got these little 2″ by 2″ by 1″ dishes years ago at World Market, though I can’t find them on their website anymore. Amazon has several different varieties; here are a couple similar in size to the ones I have...in melamine, ceramic and metal.

I know there are also those plastic pill organizers, but often just the kid’s multivitamin filled the whole compartment, so I was looking for something just a little bigger, but not too big.

I also use them for when we have a medication that you need to take multiple times a day. I just dole out the doses in the morning and not only does it remind us when to take our next dose, but keeps us straight if we can’t remember…”did I take the one after lunch…?”

I use both wine glass markers and Sharpies to write on the bowls. 

N&N Tip: While Sharpies are considered ‘permanent’, the ink can easily be removed with rubbing alcohol!

lifehack 4

Truth time…does this remind you of anyone? 

I can’t tell you how many times I’d construct a huge list, get to the store only to discover I left the list at home and then call home so that someone could read my list back to me while I wrote it down on the back of whatever receipts I had floating in my purse.

That is until I started making my list on my phone. I use a free app called Grocery IQ.

Just a fair warning, the main reason it can be free is that if you put in…say…’Ice Cream’ you might see a little pop-up add for Breyer’s Ice Cream. But those little ads have really never bothered me or reduced the functionality of the app to me.

One of the things I like about it stores everything in your history, so if you buy pretty much the same things week to week, it’s as simple as going to your history and adding those items to your store list.  You can have multiple store lists and when you check something off of your list, it puts it in your ‘cart’ and tabulates your bill.  If you do want the function of tabulating your bill, you will need to take some time to put in the cost of your items. I slowly built that database of prices up…I’d keep the receipts in my purse and while I was waiting in the carpool line or at the doctor’s office, I’d just put the prices in.  

I’ve been using it for years and have never had any glitches with it. Grocery IQ app is available for both iOS and Android phones.

lifehack 5

I like to get many of our shirts, pants and dresses out of the dryer while still damp and hang them to avoid wrinkles and to extend the life of the items. However, I am forever putting clothes in dryer with the intention of just letting them spin for 5 minutes and then getting sidetracked and coming back an hour later to dry and wrinkled clothes. 

I found this little timer with a magnet on the back (probably at Walmart) which sticks to my dryer.  I can set it for 5 or 10 minutes and then be reminded to pop back in and get the clothes I want out of the dryer before they become too dry.

So, I hope at least one of these little life hacks might make a task or chore of yours just a tad easier. And please, do share any life hacks that have solved a problem for you or just made your chore a trifle easier.

Thanks again for spending a few minutes of your busy day with me today. Know that you are appreciated and that I welcome each and every comment that comes my way.

Thanks for making my day by SHARING!!