Mother in Law: Life hacks

I thought it was about time this working mum blogger gave you some good old life hacks. The problem is that I don’t have many. It is all a bit impossible, isn’t it?

I read about the 'one-touch rule' and, in the hope of it changing my life and giving me something to write about, gave that a go.

The idea is that, while you are holding something that needs to go away, you actually put it away. For example, once you have dried yourself you hang your towel up, or when you take your shoes off you put them straight in the shoe cupboard, not next to it. Once you read an email, record your time, save it and reply to it. The premise is that, if you have to go back to the shoes later, overall you are doubling your time dealing with them. I am a terror for leaving things on the worktop near the dishwasher.

But it turns out there is a reason I kick off my shoes - my hands are holding 25 other things when I get in and I would have to put them down to put my shoes away. I only put my cup on top of the dishwasher when I have a load of washing or something in the other hand. If I didn’t gather things in a pile at the bottom of the stairs, I would be up and down all day. With my emails, I need to let my thoughts formulate.

So what else? In no particular order and with help from Twitter, here are some tips. They might help, a bit.

1. Generally, the consensus seems to be 'delegate as much as you can afford to delegate'. My friend told me the best money she spends each week is on the tutor who does her young child’s homework with them on a Saturday morning. My less helpful friend (and a Tweeter) both suggested getting a wife.
2. Another Tweeter suggested doing things at the same time each week - like doing school-related admin on a Monday evening. I like this idea. Sometimes you think things can’t wait til a designated time to be done but quite often they can, and then they don’t flood your thoughts in the interim.
3. Similarly, I am thinking of doing what my mum used to do and have the same thing for dinner each weeknight - to remove the panicked scouring of the fridge each night.
4. If like us you have a gazillion devices, buy different coloured chargers so you have one colour each and can tell if a child has stolen yours.
5. Crocs. Sorry, but that is the tip. Not for yourself, obviously.
6. Not enough people seem to know that you can use the Government Childcare Account for holiday clubs.
7. The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep works.
8. Hang a whiteboard on the inside of the front door for reminders. See my blog on Atomic Habits for stacking the odds in your favour by making things obvious. You can’t get much more obvious than a sign on your front door reminding you of what you are supposed to be doing.
9. Sunlight really does remove spaghetti stains.
10. Use a partitioned hanging basket thing to get all uniform ready for the week - particularly now most kids are going in to school in the PE kit twice a week, which will probably be a different two days to their sibling, and if I had three or more children and three or more lots of PE days to remember I think my brain would explode. And that is without the shin pads/tutu/violin/homework on top.

Well, I got to 10. I welcome any more in the comments below. I read a book about being a working mum before I came back from maternity leave and one of the suggestions was to clean the shower while you are showering. Whilst I am *sure* there is an equivalent book with the same tip for working dads, for the avoidance of doubt, this is utter madness and any suggestions that could lead to me accidentally applying Cillit Bang to my skin while my mental health falls down the toilet will not be entertained.

*Some facts and identities have been altered in the above article