3 Things I've Bought to Improve My Life Lately

Instead of doing a “favorites” post this quarter, I thought I’d highlight some of the things that I’ve bought recently that have ACTUALLY made a difference in my daily life. Hope you enjoy! 

Hello Fresh- I’ve been wanting to try a meal delivery service for some time now. I’ve known many other people who’ve tried them and I wanted to see if it would help me get back some more time in my week by not having to think of meals and buy all of the ingredients at the grocery store. They have some introductory pricing available for new customers, so our plan for 3 meals for 2 people came to just $24 for the first week and about $30 each week for the next month. Regular price is around $60, so it’s nice to get to try it out at a lower rate before deciding whether to keep my subscription. I will be sure to share my thoughts on Hello Fresh on my Instagram! 

New vacuum- This is how you know you are officially old- you spend your Friday night buying a new vacuum at the store and then coming home to put it together and vacuuming your entire house. Our old vacuum had completely lost its suction and we did our best to clean it up and clear it out ourselves, but in reality, the vacuum was 6 years old. As I was shopping around for new ones, it was very clear that they’ve made some big design and functionality improvements since 2013! I ended up with this Shark rocket stick vacuum because it works well for both carpet and hardwood floors, has a detachable hand vacuum and was ultra light with a self-cleaning brushroll. SO MUCH EASIER to vacuum! 

New books- I’m really excited to be starting The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin this week and I also grabbed the classic 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey in my order as well. Check out my 2019 Reading List or my post on Four (More) Books to Read in 2019 for some more book recommendations. 

Tell me about something that you’ve bought lately that has improved your life in the comments below. Have you tried a meal delivery service? What household item can you replace to make your cleaning more efficient? What books are you reading right now?

Have a great week, 

Meghan

Hey, I’m Meghan

I love coffee, yoga pants, planners and color coordinating markers. Sound familiar? Yes! Let’s be internet BFFs. I am here sharing content on all things organization, productivity, goal getting and personal growth. Welcome!

Routine Redo: My Cleaning Routine

One of my goals this year was to revamp all of my routines. After moving to a new house and getting a new job with a completely new schedule, the structure of my basic habits were just a hot mess at the start of the year. When it comes to keeping up with chores around the house, I wanted to find a system that was simple, easy and attainable. We’re all busy, and somehow on top of everything else we do in our lives, we’re supposed to be a functioning human that has clean clothes and clean dishes and clean toilets. (Hands in the air emoji). Here’s what’s been working for me:

IDENTIFY ONE NON-NEGOTIABLE: I decided to choose one area of the house that would be my priority for keeping clean every single day. For me, and probably for many of you, that area was the kitchen. Let’s face it, food and dirty dishes can get gross and somehow, if my kitchen feels clean, my house automatically feels cleaner. So, the kitchen gets my attention every night. Loading the dishwasher, wiping the counters, sweeping the floor, etc. There are definitely days where I come home late and tired so I wait till the next morning, but I am keeping up with the kitchen on a daily basis.

FIGURE OUT HOW OFTEN YOU REALLY NEED TO DO SOMETHING: I took out a piece of paper and just wrote down all the specific cleaning tasks I like to do in each room, like “dust living room”, “vacuum master bedroom”, and “clean master bath shower”. And then I made a choice on how often I wanted to do that task- Weekly? Bi-Weekly? Monthly? Quarterly?

I personally find that I don’t have one huge chunk of time on a given day to just clean my whole house in one shot. It’s much more common that I have little pockets of time available here and there. I used this handy free printable from Day Designer to plan out and schedule a day of the week for each cleaning task..

GO DIGITAL: Now, I’m a paper nerd, forever and always. I have a paper planner that I use every single day, but I do use Google calendar for a few things, including my cleaning tasks. What’s great about digital calendars is that you can set a task to repeat according to your schedule. So when I want to remind myself to clean our master bath every single week, I put it in on my calendar for Wednesday and set it to repeat every single Wednesday. It’s set and I never have to remember! You can set an item to repeat, daily, weekly, monthly or even every few months. What’s especially great is if you push an item off to another day, you can move the calendar appointment and then it automatically shifts every following appointment back to stay on with your schedule.

That’s the routine that’s been working for me lately! How do you guys clean your house? In small pieces like me? Or do you blast some tunes and have one major session a week?

Hey, I’m Meghan

I’m here sharing content all about pursuing your own version of more and loving how you feel doing it. If that sounds good to you, stick around and let’s be friends!