Speeding up routine tasks (or preventing them altogehter)
In this thread, I hope people will share some tips & tricks on how to do routine tasks faster, or find ways to avoid them altogether. Maybe a bit like lifehacker.com, but concentrating on tasks really necessary for survival. No "how to make a nice seasonal window decoration faster" - that's for people who have no other problems. For us procrastinators, that's the sort of thing we should never, ever even think about before, for example, having completed our tax declaration.
I'm not sure if I put this thread in the right forum section ("Special Projects and Master Lists") but didn't find anything more appropriate.
If this thread teaches me even just one trick that will save me, or someone else here, a few minutes per week, I'll be happy.
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income tax forms
Keep a separate folder for anything that will be needed for filling in your income tax return, and as something arrives put it in there, even if you don't do anything else with it. Then when you finally get round to filling in the return you don't spend hours hunting for key pieces of paper, and you don't spend hours procrastinating because you're dreading trying to find them, (that's the voice of expereince!)
H.
tax folder
Good idea! I'm already doing that, though - I got a folder for taxes.
avoiding ironing
this one I implemented as a student, and have recently restarted
Buy clothes that don't need ironing - easier for women as there is a fashion at the moment for crinkly materials that would actually be spoilt by ironing. Stretch materials also flatten themselves as soon as worn (but I have to be selective as I don't like displayin my middle age spread)
Underwear and socks do not really need ironing.
H.
+1 for no ironing
I try not to buy stuff that needs ironing. It does depend on whether you have to wear shirts for work though I guess.
I have know people who iron underwear, sheets, towels even (I have never met a towel that needs ironing)
It's a waste of a life.
ironing: don't!
Done that all my life! Ironing is for extremely rare occasions only.
(Okay, that's easy to say for women and for men who don't have to wear classic shirts. It also probably helps to dry clothes on a clothesline. But I have never had a dryer, I don't know how much more it crinkles, so I don't know if the time spent hanging up laundry and the time spent ironing cancel each other out.)
Also, if you have to wear ironed clothing on a regular basis, and have enough money, it's a delegable task. There are places and people who do it for money.
Storing away laundry
If you fold your t-shirts:
http://lifehacker.com/331405/fold-a-t+shirt-in-two-seconds-redux
It does work but falls apart more easily than the "classic" way. If you rearrange t-shirt stacks or transport folded t-shirts often (pack a suitcase, for example), that's a disadvantage.
If you have a) no dryer but hang your t-shirts on a clothesline to dry, AND b) have space to store your t-shirts on coat hangers instead of folded: Put them on clothes hangers to dry. Let all the clothes hanger hooks face in the same direction. When they're dry, you can sweep them all up with one grip, carry them by the hooks (or put the whole bunch on top of your laundry basket so you can re-grab all the hooks together easily) and then hang them in the wardrobe with that same grip. (I bet everyone already figured out that one by themselves - but just in case...) It's a lot faster than folding but takes up more space in the wardrobe.