4 Working-mom house hacks

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:01]:

Welcome to Scared Confident. I'm your host, Tiffany Sauder. I am always looking for ways to make everything easier, simpler, more streamlined. Just require less brain power from me to get stuff done. I'm, like, ruled by those things. I'm also an Enneagram three, and I think efficiency is a big part of an Enneagram three. If I have that wrong, you can let me know. But I think that's true.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:27]:

I think it's, like, very much a thing. So today I want to talk about. I'm calling this episode for working mom like, house hacks. I don't know if that's the right title, but it's four things that I do in our house that make some play, things that can sometimes just have, like, I don't know, space clutter create some, like, tension around, like, where do things go? How do we use our space? How do we all operate together in a way that, like, we've got four kids in four different stages, and JR and I still need some peaceful space in our house. So I'm going to talk about four ways that we kind of use our space and things that I've done, so. Okay, here we go. Get to it. Tiffany.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:08]:

You may have heard me say this, but it's one of my favorite things. One empty drawer, one empty shelf, one empty container. So if you have a dresser, there should be one drawer that is empty. If you have a closet, there should be one shelf that is empty. In our garage, I want there to be one shelf that is empty. If there's six containers, one of them should be empty. And the reason is kind of this forcing function of if we are not careful, we somehow have the exact amount of contents as the space that we have to fill. And that feels like a little too serendipitous.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:47]:

So I oftentimes again, things creep back in. And so that empty drawer, that empty shelf, that empty container ends up being filled almost always. But when we're going through a seasonal purge, when we're going through and kind of like cleaning out a space, I will tell my girls, one empty drawer, one empty shelf, one empty container. And the idea is we are going to have more stuff that walks into this house with birthdays and Valentine's Day and Easter and all of the things that happen. And when all your crap comes home after the lifestyle saved school. And so if we have some space, then we'll have a place to put those things. Otherwise, the first thing that is added into your house suddenly doesn't have a place to go. And that is how crap starts to accumulate and it ends up on a counter somewhere, and then something else gets stacked on top of that.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:34]:

And then suddenly everywhere in your house, it's like, cluttery. So this, to me, is like a real one to live by. For me, one empty drawer, one empty shelf, one empty container. Okay. Another thing that I have is on our main floor, which I'm sure your house is like ours. And our kitchen, living room, dining room, sitting area, area, that is where we do 80 plus percent of our day. We're like, all there always. And so it's a high traffic area.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:03]:

It's also a high activity area. So my little girls especially, they want to play where we are. I understand that they're not always good at going up to the room or going to the basement. They want to be where we are. So every kid has a treasure drawer, which is not very big, but this is where they can put the things that they are, like, loving the most right now that they want to have out, like, stuff out in the main area without it having to stay out. Does that make sense? So, like, it can be their polly pockets. It can be a little treasure bag that they got at a birthday party. It could be play doh.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:40]:

It could be a puzzle. It could be their favorite book that they're reading right now. It could be some little trinkets that I want to throw away from a parade that we were at. I don't know what it's going to be, but it's something that I probably don't place a super high value on. And they can put those things in their treasure drawer. And so that way, on our main floor, there is a place that a few toys can go away. Does that make sense? Like, they can put them in a drawer and they can easily access them if that's something that they're, like, super into right now, they can get it out every single day. And, like, when we do our pick and put at the end of day, it can go away and be put back.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:17]:

So if that treasure drawer starts to get really full and it doesn't want to close or it gets stuck when you try to open it, then I'll say, hey, go through your treasure drawer and you need to pick what the things are that you're most excited about playing with right now and the things that you're not into. We'll go put those kind of where they go in the closet, in your room, in the basement where the toys go. But that way, they do have a compartment of stuff that is really accessible to them, maybe a project they're working on. It might be new coloring pencils they got. I don't know what it's going to be, but that way, they do have space in our main living area where they can have some stuff that's easy for them to access without having to go all the way upstairs or all the way downstairs and without things having to be permanently on the counter. So that's kind of the concept of this treasure drawer that we have done for years. Like, I don't know. I think since we've been in this house, like, ten years.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:09]:

So this one is very aged for us, and it has grown. Even my big girls, if they're reading some books or have some homework they're working on, it's a place that they can put it away in our main living area without having to go upstairs or downstairs. So, treasure drawer. Third thing is our memory boxes. I don't do scrapbooks. That probably does not surprise you. I hardly print off pictures, but I don't do scrapbooks, and I'm not a super nostalgic person, so what I have done is we have these, like, pretty big collapsible. Well, they don't collapse that, but that's how they started.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:46]:

I got them. They are sold flat at Ikea. It's probably a two foot by 18 inch box. You know, like, a good size. They're white boxes, and we have four of them in our basement storage room. And literally, the kids name is written on the outside of it. And so when they get a book that they write at school or even their, like, little footprints from when they came home from the hospital, I know, I'm such a savage. That's, like, literally how their memory box starts is I just throw it in the box.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:19]:

And if they have a special paper that comes home or they have, like, a cute letter that they write me, that I think, like, someday they might want to see it, or they go through seasons where they literally write the word mom on everything. So I'll throw a few of those into their memory boxes, and so that's what they have when they leave the house, they'll take their memory box. Aubrey's 15. She's kind of saying that maybe she needs a second one. I'm like, I don't know. I think everybody gets one memory box, but that's how I do scrapbooking at our house is you have a box. It's white, it has a lid on it. It has your name, and, like, black permanent marker on the outside of it, and when you have something special that you want to save for your future self to see, go throw it into the memory box.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:01]:

I think a couple of them have, like, little dresses, maybe a craft that they made with my mom. I don't really know. They can put whatever they want to in there, and it's a way to get it out of our main living area and a place where they do have memories, but I don't feel the need to put them into a book with lots of stickers and words and, like, thought bubbles. It's just not my gift in life. So that's what we have, is a memory box. You can steal that idea if that's helpful for your family. The last one I have is. I will just call.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:29]:

It's kind of like zones. I think about our house in zones. Is this a play zone or a no play zone? And I try to protect areas of our house, and I kind of call them no play zones. My bedroom is one of them. Our bathroom is one of them. They don't have toys in them. We don't keep toys there. I don't want toys there.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:49]:

Those are spaces for us to be able to live our lives without having to be around toys. I do have a reading zone in our bedroom at the end of our couch. I have, like, this really pretty little leather book holder that has maybe eight books in it that the kids have, like, different reading ability or, like, different pic whatever, you know, like a picture book for Quincy. And if they're waiting for us to get ready or they have something they're wanting me to help them with or something like that, they can sit and they can read. It sounds maybe a little bit militant, but I need area of the house to be protected where I don't feel like I'm constantly living in, I don't know, a daycare. Like, I just want it to feel like adult space sometimes. And that has been really helpful. And even as I talked about, like, these treasure drawers, for the most part, our main living area, for the most part, is a permanent toy free zone, meaning there's not stuff out all the time in those areas.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:43]:

They will bring out projects, certainly in doing on the dining room table or do them on the island, but most of that stuff is kept in the basement and in places where it's like, I don't have to see it all the time. So, anyway, thinking about your house in zones, I think helps teach your kids where things go, what happens in different areas of it. And don't be afraid to say not every area of the house has to have toys. They have tried very hard to make our bedroom a toy zone because we're in there and our kids like to be by us, and I get it. But so we do reading, and they can do flips on the floor. Those are the two things they can do in our room and some results. So, I don't know. That's kind of how we roll.

Tiffany Sauder [00:09:22]:

So, anyway, these are some ways that we keep our house, I would say peaceful, streamlined, and everybody kind of understanding the program and a few really simple tools. I feel like I've taken really complicated things that feel like a lot of pressure, like baby books, and made it just a very simple, like, boop. Put it in the box. So, anyway, I'd love to hear your tips and hacks and how you're keeping things super simple in your house. If you have them, share them with me. I'd love to hear them and maybe I'll share them on the pod. Thanks for listening. Thank you for joining me on another episode of scared confident.

Tiffany Sauder [00:09:52]:

Until next time, keep telling fear. You will not decide what happens in my life. I will.