Time savy tips for busy parents

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Time savy tips for busy parents: Here they are! Thanks to all those who participated




Work in the house is never ending. If you do not employed (for pay) the chances are you are quite fed up of the routine and drudgery of housework. If you are juggling employment/studies and housework, chances are things are slipping and that you are often at your wits end on how to manage. Here are some tips that some busy moms have put together (like a collage.. the different font style and colour indicates the various contributors). Hope you find the tips useful.

Time-Savvy Tips for Moms and Dads​

1. Cooking
· Think of the menu for the day the day before and plan accordingly.
· If you use a lot of onions in your cooking you can chop and fry a batch on the weekend, refrigerate it and add to the cooking for the week.
· If you take a salad/sandwich to work you could prep it the night before.
· Kid's dry snacks for school can be packed the night before.
· Try to think of multiple uses of the same food/ingredients. Leftover veg/meat could go into wraps or sandwiches the next day or added to pasta.
· Economize on cooking time; try to cook a couple of things at the same time so that you can supervise all at the same time.
· Invest in cooking aids like slow cookers, pressure cookers, sandwich toasters, mixers, etc
· Experiment with quick cooking vegetables (bokchoy, broccoli, mushrooms etc).
· Try to cook 3-4 vegetables together and freeze them in portions enough for 1 meal for family so you can defrost easily. Like cook aloo gobhi (cauliflower potato vegetable), dal makhni, matar paneer (green peas and cottage cheese veg) and lobya(soyabeen) at one go, it takes 1-2 hours and you're done for a week. In between cook kadi chawal, dal chawal, rajma, pasta which are quick as needed.
· You can get Costco/any store whole grain/whole wheat sandwich buns, freeze them and toast them instead of roti (chapatti) with sabzi (vegetable), so no making roti when you're in hurry.
· If the Kitchen/chakla is dirty and you want to make quick rotis, get a steel plate inverted and use it as a chakla (on which you roll your roti), toss it in dirty dishes after that.
· Think of the menu for the week & buy vegs.
· Carrots, onions, gobi (cabbage), phool gobi (cauliflower), etc can be cut & stored in separate boxes-salad items also can be done the same way.
· The peels & stems of all these vegs can be made into veg stock to prepare gravy & soup (so all nutrients are used up). Aalu (potato), Rajma (red beans), Channa (chick peas/other beans) & other lentils can be boiled & kept inside the fridge.
· Marinate meats before freezing them. This way, it marinates while it thaws.
· Get a timer (the kind that is used to turn Xmas lights on/off) -- plug it into appliances such as rice cooker, slow cooker, to control the on-off times without you being there. For e.g., the slow cooker can turn on/off "by itself" while you are at work/out.
· Since potatoes are versatile in how they can be used, boil potatoes in bulk during the weekend which can be used to whip up quick snacks like potato patties, can be used as filling in sandwiches and also in parathas.
· Pasta/noodles can be prepared real easy and can be made nutritious by adding some veggies. This is also a welcome change from the normal menu and kids like to break down the noodles just the right size.
· Veggies like broccoli, peppers, celery can be chopped/diced beforehand and then used to prepare stir fries, noodles or veggies during the week.
· Ground soya (which can be found readily in different flavours) can be mixed with boiled veggies to make veggie burgers/meatballs/patties for a delicious snack or filling for a taco/sandwich.

2. Laundry
· Restrict doing the laundry to between once or twice a week if possible
· If you have older children (9 years +) get their help to unload and load clothes
· Request help from spouse or children to pick up their own laundered clothes or to fold clothes
· Get a big plastic bin ~100-120 litre capacity from Zellers/Walmart, don't have time to fold laundry, toss the clothes in that bin, at least its not messy

3. Grocery Shopping
· Make an excel chart of all grocery items that you generally need in the month. . Make copies of the chart and tick mark what is needed for each shopping trip. This way you can also enlist your spouse to shop for you.
· Stick to one or two stores that you know house most of these items to save time because of familiarity with the aisles
· Try to stick to one or two days max of grocery shopping a week.
· Try to club grocery shopping with other activities (eg. between dropping and picking up a child from an activity).
· Hang a white board in kitchen somewhere with marker, if something needs to be bought add it immediately on that

4. Dishes
· If you have a dishwasher request help from others in the house to load and unload the dishes.
· If you do not have a dishwasher enlist help from others to wash/dry the dishes. Children can help to dry and put away smaller items.
· Something I am not able to do myself, keep away extra dishes and cookware, use very less so that you wash them when needed and not pile them up, if using dishwasher have only that much dishes that fit in that in one go.
· Keep the sink filled with mild soap water. As soon as you are done with something let it soak-till your ready to get to it. This helps both the time and cleaning factor.

5. Cleaning/Tidying Up
· Make everyone in the house (except very small children) responsible for picking up after themselves- their own foodstuff/clothes/shoes/jackets/bags
· Put up hooks at lower heights in the coat cupboard so that the children can hang up their own bags and jackets
· Make everyone in the house responsible for making their own beds.. yes kids can learn how with help from an early age.
· If living in a house, never go empty handed up or down the stairs. While going upstairs take things that belong there and vice versa.
· If your kids have a lot of toys put some away in boxes and rotate those with the one's that are out from time to time so that only a limited number of toys are available to play with (and to mess the house with) at any given time.
· Make it a rule in the house that only if the first set of toys/games are put away can they take another set.
· Keep cleaning products ready at hand. For example keep the cleaners/ brushes/ sponges etc under the cabinet in each bathroom so you can clean up immediately instead postponing the cleaning because the stuff is in some other bathroom/place.

5. School related stuff
· Make a folder/file to put in all the school related material that comes through (forms, notices, etc) so that you don't have to search for these when the time comes
· Make it a rule that children get to do fun stuff (TV, games, etc) only after their homework is complete.
· Make completion of homework on time and submission of homework the child's responsibility.

6. Other
· Buy as much fuel as possible for the car in one go. Avoid repeated trips to the fuel station
· Keep all the mail (a week's) in one place & sort them out during the weekend. You will now remember the payments & other details which otherwise can be noted down on a calendar.
· The calendar can be kept under your computer, opened for that month & thus you will get to see the important do's everyday(late payments can be avoided this way)
· Keep one calendar for yourself, i.e., work and personal calendar. That way you know what's on that week work-wise and home-wise at a glance.
· Share your calendars with your spouse using calendaring tools, like Google Calendar. It allows to view each other's calendar, and write into each other's calendar too, if you set it up that way. This way, when you book dental appointments, birthday parties, family commitment etc, you will both know about it and won't forget to tell each other. Also prevents double booking.


GITA
I work on a weekly time-table for every chore. My husband and I made some house rules and established them with the kids as well. We encourage and reward one another when it is duly followed.
1. Put the things where you picked up from or where it actually belongs. You cannot pick up the newspaper, read it and once you are finished leave it on the table or couch. Same rule applies for kids. Return crayons and pencils to the colouring or pencil case respectively once you are finished.
3. Play with Lego ... once finished.. they go back in the box.
4. Toys out time 10 am. Toys clean up time 5 pm.
5. I vacuum the house at 5- 5:30 pm everyday (at least the living room & kitchen) . Any toys, so called art/craft work (actually bits of scrap paper used by my kids), anything per say left on the floor will be vacuumed. I actually don't do it but threaten my kids so. Believe me, it works.
6. Fridays are no cook days. I dedicate Fridays to clean around the house like dusting, cleaning out most of the clutter and mopping my kitchen floor. For lunch, I use leftovers and dinner use instant noodles or frozen pastas for kids or just some take out. No cooking saves me energy and gets the job done.
7. Saturdays, my husband takes care of Recycling and Washroom cleaning. I take care of the Kitchen counter and stove top.
8. Kids are encouraged to pick up after themselves. My son returns his shoes back to the rack after he walks in. (sometimes, my husband forgets and my kids point it out and say, daddy did not follow the rule). My daughter is 6 so when she helps out she gets just one (1) smarties and and my son who is 2 gets raisins even if he does not help out. So works out fair enough.
9. Mondays are usually laundry days, if missed then Tuesdays.
10. Hubby gets rewarded by getting to have his favorite dish made on the weekend.
11. One thing I find really helps is do it then it is 5-10minutes. Procrastinate then it is an hour's work. Postponing hurts, eventually.
12. One more we try to follow is waking up early on weekends. By 7 we are out of the bed and by 8:30 we are out of the house. We either go for a drive (winter) or for a walk (summer). A fresh start to a fresh day. You get a long day and get to spend more time.

A friend of mine who recently delivered a baby hired some professional help to clean her house. They charged $15.00/hr and were done by 3 hours. So for $45.00, apparently, they had done a good job and now once cleaned she finds it easier to maintain. So for occasional spark and shine just like carpet shampooing, it might not be a bad idea to get some help.

Contributors: Wan-Yee, Neeta Garg, Kala, Gita, Binu , Swati, Ferzana