Making Everyday Tasks Easier

6. Stop Bending Down for Things You Use All the Time

Pay attention to how often you're reaching toward the floor. Laundry supplies. Shoes. Pots and pans. Cleaning products. Pet food.

If you use something regularly, does it really need to live down there?

Move one frequently used item somewhere easier to reach and try the new location for a week.

7. Make Plugs, Cords and Switches Easier to Reach

Do you have to reach behind furniture to turn on a lamp or unplug something?

Crawl under a desk to reach an outlet? Stretch for a switch?

There may be a simpler setup—a switched power strip, remote outlet, smart plug, extension solution appropriate for the device, or simply moving something a few inches.

Sometimes the easiest solution is just changing where things are.

8. Use Smaller and Lighter Things

A huge laundry basket holds a lot—which is exactly what makes it heavy.

The same can be true of watering cans, garbage bags, cooking pots, pitchers, and storage containers.

Try something smaller.

You may make two trips instead of one, but each trip might be considerably easier.

Easier sometimes beats faster.

9. Keep a Few Helpful Tools Where You Need Them

If you frequently need scissors to open packages, why are the only scissors three rooms away? Keep useful little tools near where you actually use them.

Scissors near the mail. A jar opener in the kitchen. A reacher where you tend to need it. A flashlight where you can actually find it when the lights go out.

Convenience doesn't have to be complicated.

10. Pay Attention to Your “Oh, Forget It” Moments

This might be the most useful experiment of all.

The next time you start doing something and think: “Oh, forget it. It's not worth the trouble.”

Stop for a second. What made it not worth the trouble? Was something too heavy? Too high? Too low? Hard to open? Awkward to reach? Too many steps?

That little moment may be telling you exactly what could be easier.

Don't redesign your life around it.

Just wonder: “What could I try differently?”

Then try one small thing. Live with it for a few days.

If it's easier, keep it.

If it isn't, change it back.

And every once in a while you may discover something so simple that you wonder why you've been doing it the hard way all these years.

Those are our favorite discoveries.

There are probably dozens of little things you do every day without giving them much thought.

Getting dressed. Opening containers. Carrying things from one room to another. Reaching into cupboards. Picking things up. Plugging something in. Cleaning up after yourself.

You've probably done most of them the same way for years.

But every once in a while, it's worth asking: “Is there an easier way to do this?”

Not because you can't do it. Maybe it just takes more effort than it needs to.

For the next few days, pay attention to the little things that make you sigh, struggle, reach, bend, twist, or mutter:

“Oh, for heaven's sake.” 😄

Those are wonderful places to experiment.

Here are ten ideas to get you started.

1. Move the Things You Use Most

Take a look at the things you reach for every day.

Are they on the top shelf? In the bottom drawer? At the back of a cupboard?

Try moving your most-used things somewhere between about waist and shoulder height.

You don't have to reorganize the entire house.

Just move three or four things and see whether you like it better.

2. Make Containers Easier to Open

Some jars, bottles, packages, and containers seem determined not to let us inside.

Instead of wrestling with them every time, experiment with a rubber jar gripper, easy-opening container, different storage container, or inexpensive opening tool.

If something works well, great.

If it ends up in the junk drawer with all the other gadgets we've bought over the years...well, we tried. 😄

3. Make Fewer Trips

Notice how often you carry little things back and forth.

Could you use a small basket or tray to carry several things at once?

Or perhaps keep duplicates of inexpensive things where you actually use them—reading glasses, tissues, pens, chargers, cleaning supplies.

Sometimes the easiest trip across the house is the one you don't have to make.

4. Give Yourself a Place to Sit

Not every task has to be done standing up.

Could you sit while preparing vegetables? Folding laundry? Sorting mail? Working on a project? Getting dressed?

Try it.

You may discover that the task isn't really difficult at all—it was simply more tiring because you were standing the whole time.

5. Make Getting Dressed a Little Easier

Notice whether there's one part of getting dressed that's more frustrating than the rest.

Buttons? Shoes? Socks? A zipper? Reaching into the closet?

You don't need to change everything you wear.

Look for one annoying part and experiment with a different way of handling it—a longer shoehorn, easier fastener, different hanger, or simply sitting somewhere more comfortable while getting dressed.