by Kate Johns

Created on: August 08, 2008   Last Updated: September 15, 2008

Stop wasting time every day! Whenever my family and I stay at my Mother in law's home for several days, I watch what she does. My mother in law's home is the cleanest, neatest, most organized home ever! She has it all over Martha Stewart and every cleaning company known to man. I have learned from my Mother in law, on what she does and how she does it and I have incorporated a few of her household organizational tactics into my life.

I'll share some of these techniques on how to save time with you:

While this may sound boring, my mother in law owns almost all white towels. Now, you can own whatever color you like, but by having all the same color towels, you can wash them all in the same load and not have to worry about the white towels becoming pink, or some other color. And she puts bleach in with the towels to save time. And she folds them right away after washing them, and puts them all away.

My mother in law does a load of laundry every day, even though there are only two people living in the house. This way you don't have to spend your day off doing laundry.

While my mother in law cooks, she cleans as she goes. I caught onto to this one right away. She wipes the counters down and scrubs the stove top off. She unloads, as I do now, the dishwasher while the food cooks, and starts loading whatever she can. And by the way, this is a huge timesaver, she does the dishes right after a meal. This way there isn't a huge pile to do later on in the day.

My father in law has been given this task. He sets the kitchen table every night for breakfast the next day. He even puts out the sugar bowl, cereal boxes, and sets out the pre-cleaned coffee maker.

This one I figured out on my own. I keep a laundry basket at the bottom of the stairs. I fill it every evening with my daugther's toys, books, dolls, everything she makes a mess with and take it up. Then, before she goes to bed, or even the next day, she has to take everything out of the basket and put it all away.

This is another one I figured out on my own. Save time everyday by washing your hair every other day. Or wash it in a sink the night before going to work. Get it permed so you don't have to curl it. Stop drying it also, because that way, you can save ten to 20 minutes every morning.

My mother in law wears the same clothes for several days in a row. And no, she doesn't smell either! You could wear the same pants for several days, because usually they get less dirty than shirts do. This saves on laundry to wash.

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