Tips to Simplify Everyday Life—By Joanna Zucker
Every day we spend minutes here and there, which adds up to hours before we know it, on small tasks to keep our homes, job and family all running smoothly. The tips and shortcuts below are little things you can do to reduce the amount of time spent on everyday tasks, allowing you to enjoy more quality time with your family and friends.

Entertaining and Gift-giving

• Entertain at home. Invite neighbors and friends over to your home for dinner or brunch. This will keep you at home with the kids instead of out at a restaurant, and it will help create many memories for you and your children to recall as time passes.
• Friday Night Pizza. After a long workweek everyone is exhausted, so we created the tradition of Friday night being “pizza night”. It has now expanded to our neighbors and includes a video for the kids and cards for the adults. Time spent with friends with little clean up; what could be better?
• Stock up on birthday and newborn gifts. By shopping a couple of times a year for gifts for the children in your life you will drastically reduce the trips to the local toy store. You’ll get more time to spend with your kids in a more peaceful environment.
• Save delivery boxes. Next time you get something delivered to your home, be sure to save the box. This allows you to box up a gift at home instead of at the post office, saving you time and money.
• Gift Bags vs. Wrapping. This is a simple but good tip to remember. Skip the wrapping and go for the bag. They come in a variety of sizes, styles and can be re-used by the recipient, all while saving lots of time.

General Tips and Timesavers

• Never walk up or downstairs empty-handed. It is amazing how much time you will save and how much more organized your house will be if you follow this tip. When you find something that needs to go upstairs, place it at the bottom of the stairs and vice versa. When you go up or down the stairs, remember to grab the pile and move it to its respective place. Make this idea even easier with personalized family storage baskets.

• Sunday night cooking. Each Sunday night as you prepare for dinner, try to cook at least one additional meal. This will reduce your burden during the workweek so you can spend more time before and after dinner with the family.

• Limit your child’s activities. I know we all feel the pressure to provide everything we can for our kids, but we can end up over-committing them and ourselves far too early in their life. Pick one or two things a year that they will do and spend the rest of your nights playing, dancing or singing as a family. You will be surprised how much you can teach them on your own.
• Take all-inclusive vacations. Vacations can take a lot of time to plan. I highly recommend trying an all-inclusive vacation (i.e. cruise or beach resort). The airfare, transportation, meals and entertainment are often all included; perfect for a young family and for saving planning time for you.
• Give up on being perfect. If you just follow this tip your life will be enhanced immensely. As women, we have a natural instinct to want to cross every ‘T’ and dot every ‘I’. Practice the 80/20 rule, meaning focusing on the 20% that really matters, which often isn’t perfection.