I have recently made changes to increase productivity and reduce friction to prepare for a child that will be born soon. We now have made tons of convenient upgrades, and are looking for more. Robot vacuum was for instance a worthy upgrade, even if I thought it was gimmicky initially.
Any ideas?
RSS feeds. It’s digital so probably not what you’re asking for, but I would often drain time checking tabs or bookmarks for updates each day. Now I just have a specific list of updates from feeds I’ve subscribed to: no ads, no recommendations, no scrolling, no manual refreshing every hour. Just what you ask to see.
Website doesn’t supply one? Luckily some RSS tools let you create one from most websites.
Also, relevant youtube video from Technology Connections about feeds in general.
And, on the topic of digital simplification, learn how to mute specific conversations on your chat apps. Many even have temporary muting (mute for 1 hour). You don’t need constant pings distracting you from life.
I got tired of telling everyone to close the pantry door. It obstructs free movement in the kitchen, bangs against doors, drawers, the oven and fridge. I installed a spring hinge and now it closes itself.
Stupid one but it fits: added a third switch to my kitchen lights (aka four-way switch).
There are three rooms adjacent to my kitchen: family room, foyer to the front door, and hallway to the bedrooms. Only two of those exits had switches. Anytime you entered or left the kitchen by the foyer you’d have to go to one of the other corners of the kitchen to turn off/on the lights.
Minor inconvenience, granted. But if you’ve got a baby in one arm and a diaper bag on the other and you go to walk out the front door, you’d have to turn around, walk through the kitchen to one of the other lights, turn it off, and walk back across and out. The flow was all messed up. Three exits, three switches.
Think about the flow of your house. Where can it be made to reduce effort and friction? Even where you keep things. Dust pan in the closet at the end of the hall? Maybe instead keep it next to the garbage where you’re more likely to need it.
Did you wire it or use a wireless control?
Wired it. I fortunately have attic access over that part of the house. Getting frustrated when a wireless inevitably stops working for some reason was not something I was signing my future self up for.
That makes it easier!
I set up homeassistant with a bunch of smart switches and have moved mostly to motion sensing but being able to add a switch anyway cheaply is great. Or linking one to switch to many. Lots of flexibility.
A 70 euro KVM Switch that I use to switch all my peripherals between my work laptop and my home desktop at the press of a button. My work has a hybrid office policy, so on the days of the week that I need to pack my laptop or plug it back in, all I need to do is remove or insert three cables from the laptop’s ports only, no need to bend under my desk and move the desktop cable to the laptop. It also means that I can very easily switch between work and personal things when there’s not much to do or I’m waiting for a build etc.
How tf. I do this all the time and want to jump off a cliff. I didn’t know this existed.
Diaper garbage. The one with the long plastic garbage bag.
Milk/bottle warmer. We have a simple one that we’ve been using for 3 yrs now. It has fancy/other setting but after a couple of months we use 1 setting for everything.
Don’t use the bottle sterilizer. Pot of boiling water on the stove and a bottle rack. It dries faster after a few minutes on boiling water then on the rack.
We used Dr Brown’s bottle that has a vent/“inside straw”. It doesn’t have that suction while drinking milk.
It helps a lot that our car seat has 2 parts where you can remove the car seat and clip it to the stroller BUT our baby grew out of that car seat fast.
A good changing mat for that messy diaper changes.
We have a few fancy breast pump but if the milk is not coming out then whatever pump it is it won’t work.
It helped me to think of a few reason I can try when the baby cries. Is baby hungry, is baby wet/dirty diaper, is baby uncomfortable with something on her, baby needs a different environment(hot/cold room) or baby needs a nap.
Don’t get stressed on what you read you as a parent “should do” they all don’t know what they are talking about.
For me: Door lock with fingerprint, code and physical key. Added autolock to it as well. So when I walk the dog and leave the home it locks automatically
Robot vacuum
Drying clothes in my “closet”, no dryer, just hang everything up in my open closet, it makes the indoor climate better, smells good, and I have to put the clothes away anyways if I had a dryer. So we have specialized hangers for different things, multi layered, hooks, etc. works great. Duvets etc. we use a drying rack for.
Inoreader with heavy filtering and very high signal/noise feeds to follow. I don’t need to know about sports, movies, etc. It also supports newsletters so that I can get newsletters directly in my feed. So that it has many condensed and curated articles.
Buffer for spreading my socialist memes to several platforms at once, why share stuff with just people on one platform? Creating class consciousness one meme at the time
Automatic dosing of detergent on my washer
2x pet feeders with desiccants
Water dispenser with UV and filter to give my pets high quality water all the time. Have to fill it every now and then.
All black t-shirts, same pants, same sweaters, same socks, share socks with my wife.
If something can’t be washed in the dishwasher, it will be washed there until it breaks. Knives are an exception.
Automatic lights
Automatic payments for all my bills
A charging case for my phone, no worries about having enough battery
All black t-shirts, same pants, same sweaters, same socks, share socks with my wife.
I’ve similarly simplified my wardrobe. It’s been great.
Most of my clothes are made from the same (or at least non-delicate) materials and all my daily wear aren’t light clothes, so they all go in the same wash.
Did this next one with a few things, so for example, socks: Bought one type of daily-wear sock, made sure I liked it and then bulk bought them, so apart from a few special pairs (sports, decorative pattern, other colors), I don’t need to care about pairing socks because they’re all the same. Growing up with 3-pair packs of socks all in different paired-colors, and then socks with the same brand and same colors but different length, was a waste of time.
Do your clothes not get mildewy/musty in the closet? We have a big enough one to do this in, but the few times I’ve tried to dry my clothes indoor they got that mildewy scent to them.
Now we live in an apartment where I’m not allowed to have a clothesline outside, but It’s really like to not use my dryer at all because it’s so hard on clothes.
Not really, we have decent ventilation. A solution if you have this issue is to add a dehumidifier. It drastically reduces the time to dry, and you just have to empty it once it’s pretty full often a few liters. You can also set it to not run under a certain amount of humidity.
I wish I had a decent closet. Hanging the clothes to dry like this is genius.
And to add, newborns are a wild ride, congratulations on your upcoming adventure :)
You’ll do 15thousand things to prepare, but most importantly, be prepared to be flexible and adapt
Smart switches for the lights. We can turn off all the lights in the house from bed.
Food was important (and hard to find time for) when ours was a newborn, ie frozen burritos and delivery options
Then basics like washing machine and night lights
Litter Robot if you have a cat
Just… really research hard before you buy one. I’ve seen multiple stories of cats being injured or killed when safety features on a litter robot failed (or didn’t exist in the first place)
The ones you have seen are cheep knockoffs. The Litterrobot and similar are designed to be physically impossible (not just relying on sensors) to hurt your cat.
I wasn’t suggesting all automatic litter boxes are dangerous, only that some are. If someone is shopping for one, it’s important to be aware that not everything on the market is safe.
Fair enough, I think the video I linked is a good thing to watch before buying one.
that looks really cool, but I’d never risk it malfunctioning and hurting my cats, no amount of good reputation would be enough for me to risk it
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How about a couple baby themed ones?
For starters, a weighted baby wipes container was brilliant. Every baby wipe comes out smoothly and readily every single time, no struggling with the plastic bag and wipping it around trying to get out the last handful while you have your other hand holding the baby’s legs up. Also they sell heated ones, your baby will thank you.
“Sleep Sack”. It’s a night-time onesie for babies that zips up and allows them to put their arms above their head without accidentally hurting themselves. Yes, people typically say babies like to be swaddled. Most do, yours might, but some babies need to stretch a little. Our babies all slept better with these.
I got a 450 dollar roomba and haven’t touched a vacuum or mop for over a year outside of messes i don’t want it fucking around with (i.e. broken glass and shit). I run it twice a day and i go from stepping on cat litter sometimes to never
I call it The Goon (in a Strongbad voice) because it advertised 99.9% edging
