Happy Tuesday! I am linking up Jen, Joanne, Sarah, Dara, and Adrienne  for their monthly Share Our Lives topic. I am excited that they are going to continue the linkup in 2025.

This month we are sharing any tips for saving time on chores. I am always looking for ways to save some time and get all the chores done, so I enjoyed reading everyone else’s tips yesterday. Before I begin, I should say that we have a group of people that come in to clean our house every other week and I don’t do too much actual cleaning in between their visits.

My best time saver is pawning them off to someone else. Ha!

I gave the dishwasher unloading to the boys. When Luke was in 6th grade and Jack was in 8th grade, they left for school about 45 minutes after me. They both had to be up and ready for school, so I decided that they would empty the dishwasher. They alternated all year and it was so nice to come home to an empty dishwasher. Unfortunately, that only held for one year.

It is very important to me that the bed is made. Years ago, I decided that the last person in bed has to make the bed. Some mornings it means Jeff pops up right before I get up to avoid making it, but most mornings he makes the bed while I am in the shower. That chore takes me way less time now. 😉

In all honesty, I find that I get more done if I don’t stop. I come in the door after school and get started on the things that need to be done. I empty and reload the dishwasher (the right way), start dinner, start the next day’s lunches, and go through the mail.

I love the Lazy Genius Kendra’s tips about batching things. It can save a lot of time. I also do things together that make sense, like I pack my lunch of leftovers while I am cleaning up dinner. I clean while I cook so there isn’t a big mess at the end. I get the mail on my way in from a walk. I hold on to returns and small errands to take care of in one afternoon.

I have exactly zero tips about laundry, except for the letting someone else do it. Jeff washes all our laundry. He folds the clothes, I fold and put away the sheets and towels, and everyone puts their own clothes away. My goal is to get my clothes put away before Jeff does laundry the next weekend and I usually make it.

I heard an episode of The Lazy Genius and she was talking about Sam Kelly’s notice and do ideas. I think Kendra took an audio course from Sam Kelly, but I started following her on instagram (samkelly_world) and have put some of her ideas into action. The main thing I have done is rephrase “help me” to “helping the family” or “participating in the house”. It takes the implication that I should be doing everything and turns it into we are all members of this family and need to work together. I would like to learn more about this and I’ll let you know what works for us.

That’s about it. Not too many real tips, but this is how I do it. I put my head down and get the chores done so I can enjoy the evenings with my family or focus on helping with the kids’ schoolwork. There are days I feel like my kids should be doing more around the house, but between school and swim they aren’t usually home until 6 pm and I want them to focus on homework then. Do you have any great ideas for saving time or sharing the chores with teenagers? I’d love to hear them! Have a great day full of sunshine and books!