Adulthood is hard! Here are some adult tips we use to simplify, automate, and delegate to make life easier. This post is sponsored by blue apron. Get 60% off and free shipping on your first box. Terms apply!
Adulting is difficult
And this time of year is especially busy! Not only are there Christmas activities to do and gifts to wrap, but everyday life continues to go on in the background. What can you delegate this year to shorten your to-do list a little?
Whether you have a household of one or five, there are tasks we all need to do each week to make life happen. From doing laundry to paying bills, meal planning and cooking, we all have responsibilities to accomplish each week.
I’ve been thinking about ways to make life easier and realized that there are three main ways to get on with tasks: simplify, automate, delegate.
Simplify, automate, delegate
Everyone can simplify, but only to a certain point. You will eventually have to wash your clothes! Automation works well for some things (like paying bills) but not for others (washing dishes). I wish I had a way to automate or delegate washing dishes! Having a dishwasher definitely helps and using our “cook once, eat twice” meal cadence means you’re only doing a deep clean every other day. But when you can delegate tasks and outsource them to someone else, you will save the most time.
blue apron, the sponsor of this blog post, gets a gold star for being able to do all three. Read on to learn why it’s my favorite way to put food on the table.
Tips for adults
Meal planning
Meal planning comes first because hunger is the hardest thing to put off! You can let the laundry pile grow, but you should eat at least a few times a day. Most of us would love to have a few more hours a day to look up recipes, go to the market, choose the day’s ingredients and cook food. But if you’re not someone with a lot of free time (99% of us!), you’re probably looking for ways to make planning, shopping, and meal prepping a little easier.
we loved it blue apron for years because it makes putting delicious meals on the table as automated as possible – recipes and ingredients are planned for you (automate). They are delivered to your door, so there is no more trip to the supermarket (delegate). They only give you the amount of ingredients you need for each recipe, so no food is wasted (simplified). And if you get 3 recipes a week and enough servings for leftovers, you’ll only need to cook three times (keep it simple!)
We love that someone else is doing most of the work, but we can still prepare and customize recipes so they are hot and fresh. I enjoy cooking! I don’t enjoy the endless task of meal planning and grocery shopping. Blue Apron has been a lifesaver, saving us countless hours while keeping our meals unique and interesting.
If this is your cue to take something off your plate (pun intended!), get 60% off and free shipping on your first box now! Terms apply.
Kimchi and Vegetable Rice Bowls with Fried Eggs and Spicy Mayonnaise
Laundry
While I know some people who outsource their laundry, we’ve done our best to automate and simplify by keeping our family members’ laundry separate. This drastically reduces the time in the sorting and storage step. Plus, if you’re like me, you can choose. do not fold most of your casual clothes And put away your clothes in a matter of minutes! We wash each child’s clothes once a week and each adult’s clothes twice (mainly due to the accumulation of sweaty sports clothing).
Bed linen is changed once a week (including towels) and our cleaning ladies do it for us every two weeks (yay!).
Cleaning
Speaking of cleaning, delegating my floors to our robot vacuum was the best decision I’ve ever made! The amount of time I used to spend vacuuming has gone from several times a day to maybe twice a week when we have a poor quality kitchen. The robot is the hardest working member of the family and keeps up with all of Gus’ fur!
Handsome guy!
Additionally, automating our cleaning schedule and delegating to our two amazing cleaning ladies has been one of the best decisions we have made. Before I had a cleaning crew, I always thought “I should clean that” or “that’s dirty, when will I have time?” Now that I know the cleaners usually come every two weeks, our house is thoroughly cleaned and when I see something dirty, I know it will be fixed. I know it’s a privilege to be able to invite cleaners, but 1) they do a LOT better job than me and 2) I often joke that I’d give up almost all discretionary spending before canceling our cleaners.
Paying bills
Simplify and automate your request here. I can’t think of a single bill that I don’t have on autopay, including our credit cards. When you can’t use an automatic payment, you can set up a recurring bill payment in your checking account. I’m a very careful budgeter (read this post to learn more), so I know that most pieces of our financial pie are accounted for when I make discretionary spending. The rest is all reserved and automated. I have my budget so fine-tuned that I even save monthly for annual expenses, like the car insurance we pay once a year and Christmas!
Paper + digital clutter
On the topic of digital clutter, I have a system for that too. Having good email habits is a very adult thing to do. Within my course I teach how to simplify, organize and save within a system that teaches you to prioritize what is important and automate the rest. From the paper that arrives in your inbox at home to having an organized cloud-based filing system, we all have digital clutter that needs to know how and where to be stored.
As for the most adult thing you can do, paying taxes, I think it’s worth delegating that task to an accountant. My dad used to make me do my taxes by hand!
Annual appointments
To remember long-term appointments, like paying estimated taxes or my state car inspection every October, I use my Google Calendar to set a recurring reminder. When the date appears, I get an alert and write it on my daily to-do list. You can use this reminder technique for home and car maintenance, birthdays, scheduling annual check-ups, taxes, passport and license renewals, and anything else you want to “set it and forget it” until it’s time to remember it. again.
brain download
Sometimes there are too many things to remember! Little things. Big things. And everything else. I’m a big fan of my Notes and Reminders apps for iPhone (I’m sure Android has its own versions). Anything I want to download from my brain today to remember in the future goes into my Reminders app. Thomas and I also share packing lists and grocery staples on the app. Any brainstorms or lists I need to reference quickly go into the Notes app. I know exactly where everything is, from coupons to concert tickets to upcoming trip details.
What other tips do you have to help your life run like a well-oiled machine?
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