18 household chores that are a waste of time

Nobody ever said, ‘I wish I could spend more time doing chores’, right? An endless list of the same old household to-dos costs you time, money and sanity. Here are some you can just skip.

It may sound counterintuitive, but if you shampoo too often, you will actually make your hair oilier. Washing strips hair of natural oils, so your scalp produces more, and then you have to wash again. Stick to two or three times a week, says dermatologist Tsippora Shainhouse, MD. Using a gentle, sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner will keep your scalp and hair from drying out too much.

Watch out for these everyday mistakes that are ageing your hair. 

Save time making your bed every morning by skipping the tangle-prone top sheet. Many Europeans sleep directly under a quilt or a duvet with a cover. Just be sure to make time every week to wash any bedding that touches your body.

Unless you’re waiting days to run the dishwasher, rinsing wastes time and water. Simply scrape off any leftover food and put dishes right into the dishwasher, urge the experts at Consumer Reports.

With all the extra time you have from not doing these jobs, you’ll want to do these chores that most homeowners aren’t doing – but should. 

You may swear that gremlins take your socks from the laundry, but in fact, a single sock can slip into the gap between the washing machine door seal and the drum and get pumped away with the water. Prevent this from happening by washing sock pairs together in a wash bag.

Here are more expert laundry tips you’ll wish you knew sooner.

You can easily spend hundreds of dollars on special bins, bags, boxes and other storage containers. But some of the best ways to keep your possessions neat and organised come 
from repurposing simple things you already own. Organising guru Marie Kondo is a fan of using shoeboxes as drawer dividers, for example.

Here are 30 things you can organise in under 30 minutes. 

Those freebie wire hangers from the dry cleaner are notorious for leaving shoulder bumps in tops and creases in pants. Who wants to do all that ironing? Instead, buy better-quality velvet or wooden hangers to save time later on. (Return wire hangers to the cleaner so they can be reused.)

The best bread is bought fresh at a bakery and eaten on the day you buy it. But if you don’t devour the loaf, you’ll want to store the rest in the freezer. It’ll last longer (two to three months, per the experts at epicurious.com) and make much better toast, according to the New York Times. This is the one place you’re forgetting to check your bread for mould.

Letting the sunshine in is a lovely way to greet the day, but if you’ll be leaving the house and not returning until after dark, all those rays can fade your furniture and make your house hotter. North- and east-facing rooms are especially sun-prone, so try leaving those curtains or shades drawn.

Unless you’re preparing pumpkin, celery root, or some other food with a tough outer coating, there’s no reason to waste precious before-dinner time peeling vegetables, reports thekitchn.com. That goes for foods you may have been peeling all your life, such as carrots, cucumbers, potatoes and turnips. You’ll save time and gain flavour and healthy fibre.

Check out these kitchen hacks you’ll wish you knew sooner.