Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#21

Post by hyperpallium » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 10:55 AM UTC

evolve2k wrote: post #9

evolve2k wrote: post #7

I've been aspiring to a philosophy I call "event based processing" (I know the term has other meanings in computing) or alternatively "Zero Impact Activities". Regardless of the name the concept is that in undertaking daily tasks the tidy step is completed as part of untaking the task (eliminating a separate tidy phase). Eg as a Parent I was constantly tidying or managing the kids to tidy the shoes area near the from…

Related I played with washing up and putting away ingredients as I cooked. Commonly I would stir then grab 30 seconds to wash a cooking pot/throw out packaging/put away in fridge etc. It's greatly reduced the washing pots phase which commonly includes items that seem less dishwasher friendly. I found it easy to do for most recipies I know well.

When I googled, the consensus was to wash-as-you-go.

My interpretation is that cooking is an act of creation, and when accomplished, it's over. You don't feel like doing washing up, a non-creation act, because that energy/enthusiasm is gone.

Whereas if you wash as you go, as part of the task, it also uses the energy of creation.

So: not literally time-saving, but enthusiasm-efficiency.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#22

Post by crispyporkbites » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 10:56 AM UTC

fiftyacorn wrote: post #20

Mine is to have a cleaner - my only extravagance. It does worry me that my kids have never seen me hoover or clean a bathroom Ive always wanted 2 dishwashers - one clean, one dirty - then cycle them. So the as the clean dishes get moved they get moved to the dirty one, then repeat We've all got to have dreams

The dishwasher idea is the dream. My wife just doesn't get this concept somehow though!

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#23

Post by ptman » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 10:56 AM UTC

fiftyacorn wrote: post #20

Mine is to have a cleaner - my only extravagance. It does worry me that my kids have never seen me hoover or clean a bathroom Ive always wanted 2 dishwashers - one clean, one dirty - then cycle them. So the as the clean dishes get moved they get moved to the dirty one, then repeat We've all got to have dreams

How about a dual dishwasher? https://www.remodelista.com/posts/appliances-dishwasher-draw...

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#24

Post by jen729w » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 10:56 AM UTC

Never ever wait until the dishwasher is totally full. It’s an efficient device: put it on twice a day, on the quickest setting it has, and don’t feel guilty about it.

Result: it’s never “a thing” that needs to be handled. Emptying it is easy. Takes one minute. You always have clean things.

Sounds ridiculous, I know. Trust me.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#25

Post by BozeWolf » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 11:02 AM UTC

fiftyacorn wrote: post #20

Mine is to have a cleaner - my only extravagance. It does worry me that my kids have never seen me hoover or clean a bathroom Ive always wanted 2 dishwashers - one clean, one dirty - then cycle them. So the as the clean dishes get moved they get moved to the dirty one, then repeat We've all got to have dreams

Dont go with two dishwashers! Thought of this too. You need three. Seriously. You need one extra. Having two only works in theorical or lab situations.

1 for clean dishes

1 for dirty dishes

1 for “overflow” of dirty or clean dishes

you will endup in the situation where two dishes are clean and spread over two dishwashers. This is a serious problem. You have no place to immediately put your dirty coffee cup away, without emptying one of the dishwashers. Emptying one is not a good solution. It defeeds the purpose of having more then one dishwasher. Putting the cup temporarily in the kitchen sink defeeds that purpose as well.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#26

Post by C4stor » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 11:02 AM UTC

roryisok wrote: post #12

evolve2k wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 Slow Cooker and also add a Rice Cooker. My fav recipie is beef stroganoff. I buy cooking steak from the local butcher shop who is happy to cut it into diced chunks for no extra cost. In the morning I chop up mushrooms & onion and throw them with the beef into the cooker with a half cup of ketchup and wostershire sauce and set it on low. In the evening when I get home I put on a rice cooker (cheapest automatic mach…

I've heard people sing the praises of rice cookers before and I just don't get it. I cook rice in a pot and it takes barely any effort. The most time consuming steps are measuring out rice and cleaning the pot afterwards, and you need to do both of those things with a rice cooker? In fact there might be more parts to clean?

For me, there's a noticeable process difference :

1. In a pot, I have to get water to a boiling pot, which means periodically checking the water, and this point add salt and rice. Be there exactly (ok, more or less a minute) the good time after that, stop the cooking, drain the rice, and ideally make it that it's now time to eat, implying everything and everyone else is ready.

2. In a rice cooker, I put salt, rice and water (have to measure those), tap "start", and then, from about 40 minutes onwards I have a perfectly cooked rice ready to be eaten for the next 8 hours or so, since it's keeping it hot until I decide to open the thing.

For me, it's just that more versatile, since it no longers needs any attention between the moment where I decide I want to have rice, and the moment I want to eat it.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#27

Post by javajosh » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 11:03 AM UTC

This one might seem trivial, but I start cleaning by picking up the floor first. This makes it easier to move around, which is a prerequisite for almost every other task.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#28

Post by hycaria » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 11:05 AM UTC

>Maybe you just identified some big time sink that you could eliminate?

Don't have children or pets, don't live in an oversized place (seriously more space is mostly more junk, which you become enslaved to).

Honestly I'm always kinda uncomfortable with everything that is purely outsourcing to other humans (which is a good part of the suggestions here). It's just creating precarious, low paid jobs. I couldn't bear exploiting impoverished people that way to get rid of minor annoyances. It takes 10 min to hang laundry tops.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#29

Post by dandare » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

Our family swears by a Roomba. I have selected/modified our furniture for the minimal height and removed door steps. Living room and kitchen is vacuumed every day at 3am (we sleep upstairs). It is a magic. Ps: I did a lot of research 5 years ago and back then I could not recommend any cheaper alternative.

Re: Ask HN: What are your best domestic time saving tips?

#30

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sat, Mar 03, 2018, 11:07 AM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #11

It's interesting that as we developed technologies like dishwashers, vacuum cleaners and washing machines we used these machines to do more work rather than save time. My dad would wear a shirt for a week when he was young, now he puts a clean one on every day. Perhaps you can just do less, try time-boxing.

This seems like a parallel to the Jevons Paradox. If coal powered steam engines get more efficient you use more coal as you can now do more and more things with them that previously would have been impractical or expensive.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox