Our laundry room is in our basement and that’s where we used to keep our stain remover.  It made sense to me to keep the stain remover where I washed clothes.  Looking for and spraying stains was my least favorite part of doing laundry.  I inevitably missed stains and they inevitably didn’t always come out, partly because they’d been sitting so long.  I especially hated dealing with poopie diaper blowouts once Ellie came along.  The stains never seemed to come out after the first washing.  I always knew I should just go down to the basement to spray the stains as they happened but never seemed to find the time or motivation to do it until laundry day.

Fast forward to Mark and his stained laundry:  A couple weeks ago it occurred to me that I could keep the stain remover under our kitchen sink and just spray the stains as they occurred!  Brilliant!  Generally right away, or at least the same day, I spray all the dirty laundry (rinsing out first if necessary) and then throw it in the pail that we keep our cloth wipes and diapers in until it’s time to wash a load of laundry.  I haven’t had a single problem with stained baby clothes since.

Why didn’t I think of this before?  I just made it easy on myself to do the thing that I knew I should do but somehow couldn’t make myself do.  In the self-improvement-blog world, I think this is referred to as a “life hack” – something that makes a task in your life easier, more streamlined, and more productive.  That’s also why we hide our paper towels in the linen closet – it’s a reverse life-hack, designed to make it harder on us to use paper towels rather than our dish clothes.

So that’s my brilliant idea for you all – store your stain remover where it’s easily accessible to be used every time a stain occurs.

I’d love to hear any life-hacks that have made your life easier!

Now, if only I can figure out a life-hack to get me doing those abdominal crunches for getting my abs back in shape after growing two babies…