Monday

Making Small Household Repairs Easier

One more great idea for a station is to set up a bin with everything you'll need for indoor repairs. Some of these items may be duplicates of those stored in the garage.

What the Repair Station includes depends entirely on how handy you are and how likely you are to want at your fingertips midlevel tools such as drills and electric screwdrivers.

The most common things include a hammer; screwdrivers (big and small, Phillips and flathead); an assortment of nails, screws, hooks, picture hangers; a carpenter's measure; a small level and a roll of duct tape.

The key is to fill it only with the items you will use regularly and none of the things you only need two or three times a year.

Saturday

It's a wrap!

A gift wrap station is as simple or as elaborate as your gift-wrapping is.

The key is to put everything together in one place: gift wrap or bags, tape, scissors (that are used only here and never carted off), tissue paper, ribbons, bows, labels or tags and a permanent marker.

Whatever you do, if you are housekeeping impaired, resist the temptation to hoard tiny scraps of wrapping paper in anticipation of wrapping a really small box. Paper scraps belong in the trash or recycle bin even if they're pretty. Also, make a habit of tossing any wrapping paper that gets crushed or bent. If it's too raggedy to use on a gift, why hang on to it?

Sunday

Rabbit Trails and Setting Up Stations

A rabbit trail is sort of like a treasure hunt. It is what you go on when you need to do a recurring task but the items required to do that task are not stored together.

Page 128 of The House That Cleans Itself has suggestions for setting up a Coffee Station.

If you're in the habit of making coffee, it stands to reason that everything you need should be in the cabinet nearest your coffeemaker. This includes coffee, filters, mugs, cups, saucers, sugar, sweetener, nondairy creamer, measuring scoop and anything else that's part of your coffee routine.

You can set up stations for any tasks that you regularly do. Check out Chapter 14 of The House That Cleans Itself on page 123 for more ideas!

Do whatever it takes to keep your stations intact. You'll find that creating and maintining stations saves you an enormous amount of time and energy!