Eight time-saving hacks for the busy stay-at-home parent

As a stay-at-home parent, you can find that the burden of the daily chores; the admin, the cooking and cleaning, falls to you. Not ironing and making beds, those are for suckers.

Even if you’re a very equal household and share the load as much as possible, if one person is out of the house all day then practically it’s quite hard for them to take on an equal share when they’re not actually physically there to do it.

But there is so much to do – just how do you manage to fit it all in?

Here are eight handy time-saving hacks for every stay-at-home parent.

Even when your standards are fairly low there are still some corners you can cut, I promise!

1) Firstly, ask yourself ‘Is someone coming over?’

No? Then perhaps don’t bother. If someone shouts but there’s no one to hear it, did they really make a sound? If your house is an utter hole but no one is there to see it, does the mess even exist?

If you do have people coming over, Stephanie suggests:

“Stick up one of those signs that says your children are ‘making memories’ cause then people think you’re an amazing parent instead of just avoiding the housework…”

Or, perhaps take a tip from Amanda:

“Keep “Get Well Soon” cards on display. Guests assume you’ve been ill and that’s why the house is a bomb site.”

Time saved: Could be hours.

2) Get the kids involved

“Tell the children how much better they are at cleaning than you and get them to do all the hoovering.” – Cassie

I’m a big fan of this one; for Christmas I bought my children some mop-socks and they now get to clean the floors as a treat.

Time saved: At the start, not a great deal as they do tend to drown the floors rather than clean them. Am hoping this will however pay off in future.

3) And the family pet

For all my dog’s annoying faults, he does make an excellent floor-cleaner.

“Get a dog with a good appetite. No need to ever sweep food scraps up again, particularly handy with toddlers.” – Chloe

“I use cruelty free organic cleaners on dirty dishes to remove food remnants before washing the dishes. (The cats eat the leftovers to save scraping dishes. Nobody can say my cats don’t have a varied diet.)” – Ess

Time saved: A few minutes here and there. My dog doesn’t care for crumbs, sadly.

4) Follow this flawless paperwork system

Follow these easy steps:

Open interesting post (i.e. letters with hand written envelopes, parcels). For anything else; bank statements, eviction notices, place by front door for 1-2 weeks before opening, and then “file” inside a drawer.

Time saved: Loads unless you need something. Possible risk of eviction but quite frankly if it can’t be done by email then does it even matter?

5) Master the art of hiding

“Instead of cleaning my hob I put chopping boards etc on top when people come over” – Charlotte

“Hide all your crap in bags for life and shove them in the car” – Emily

If you don’t miss it then just chuck it out!

Time saved: Lots

6) Ease off on the laundry

Honestly, you don’t have to clean everything every time it’s been worn. This genuinely drives me crazy. Unless it’s stained or smelly there is absolutely no reason you need to wash a pair of jeans after every wear (she said, with an increasing tone of exasperation in her voice). It’s also bad for the environment, which is always a good solid reason to embrace slovenliness.

Remember also that the more you wash, the more you have to dry and then put away, and that is the pits.

However you can save yourself time on the arduous task of pairing socks;

“Bulk buy plain socks off amazon so you never have to worry about odd socks again.” – Sam

Time saved: It’ll feel like ages.

7) Think do I need to use that?

For instance, “drink wine straight from the bottle and save on washing up.” – Katie

Clever.

Time saved: Literally moments.

8) Put the gro-clocks on early

You can get yourself a whole hour of your life back by simply lying to your children about the time.

“Put the clocks forward and hour and tell the kids it’s bedtime.” – Louise

For added deviousness;

“Watch kids TV on plus 1, then when needed you can watch the earlier one to get them to bed earlier” – Katie

Time saved: Well, none. But you can gain time so that’s kind of the same.

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Thanks to all the ladies in Dafuq is Dis for their contributions! This is a collaborative post.