(Image: nullplus / iStockphoto)

Many go-getters neglect their kitchen, proving that modern society has evolved past its own reasons for existing. The whole point of work has always been to feed yourself, and even money was only invented so that some people could take time off to do other useful things for the tribe without starving to death. Neglecting food to fit in more time to work is like keeping your car on blocks to better maintain the engine.

Food is a fundamental joy of life, and the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” applies to your body as well as your work. We present a quintuplet of quick kitchen tips and tricks:

1. Double Up On Ice Trays

With ice trays, it has to be two or none at all. When moving in, most people check if there’s an ice tray and move on. You’ll need those ice cubes, most likely serving drinks at a party, but the instant you take a few, you’ve put yourself in an inescapable ice cube quandary: Do you leave the tray as it is, guaranteeing you’ll run out and be entirely iceless before long? Or do you refill it, meaning you can’t take the cubes already formed without spilling water everywhere?

(And if you just said, “Take out the existing cubes,” you’ve never spent time trying to store ice conveniently. It slips, melts, and even the best option — back in the freezer — is someday going to be full and you’ll be stuck.)

Ice Trays

Far faster and more efficient is using two ice trays, one on top of the other. Refill them as they empty, stacked on top of each other they take no more space than normal, and effectively you have an infinite ice supply.

2. The Six-Way Opener

It’s not an incredible Oriental martial arts technique; it’s much more practical (unless your kitchen’s ninja crime levels are far above average).

Universal Opener

The six-way opener is a single tool which opens jars, bottles, pull tabs, safety seals and even bags. It’s not just a handy mini-MacGyver; it eliminates at least five different types of “Where did I put that, I saw it here last time.” This could otherwise add up to hours of your life digging through cluttered kitchen drawers. The six-way opener also reduces that clutter for everything else while it’s at it. Add the considerate bright green handle — easy to spot in a sea of silverware — and it’s a must-have at less than ten dollars.

3. Cramped Kitchen Pipe Hooks

Many have to make do with whatever apartment they can afford, especially in crowded cities (which, by definition, are almost all of them). The most brutal structural space-saving is often inflicted on the kitchen. A Lifehacker post found a way to turn the most obvious clue to a compacted kitchen — visible pipework from where the plumbing was installed after the conversion — into extra space.

Pipe Hooks

Simply buy some hose clamps and hooks from the hardware store and you have effective shelf-space for commonly used tools, saving precious counter-top space for actually cooking.

4. Kitchen Monki

A common complaint among those who attempt to eat better is that they never have what they need, they never remember what to buy, they are “too tired” to go out again to get it, and it’s “just easier” to eat microwaveables. You will note how we did not append the word “food” to that descriptor.

Kitchen Monki aims to assist in the goal of actually eating food (and the fact that the Internet now has to help us with that is some sort of important sign for the species, though whether it’s a good or bad one is up to you).

Kitchen Monki

By automating grocery-list construction, and more importantly turning “choosing what you want to eat and when” into the enjoyable agony of choice that it’s meant to be, you’re motivated to eat better… and reminded how. It’s far faster than Farmville and you can eat your harvest.

5. Do The Dishes!

The simplest system for upgrading your kitchen, your apartment, nay, your entire life! They’re not just dirty dishes; they’re a physical incarnation of every single inevitable task in your life and how you deal with them.

Do you spring into action, eliminating obvious tasks as soon as possible and basking in the satisfaction and freedom from filthy things hanging over your head? Or are you a fool who has to be forced into even the most essential tasks, thinking “I’ll do it later” and spoiling the very spare time you’re giving yourself with the specter of unfinished work?

Do them!

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(Photo: spxChrome / iStockphoto)

Moving is one of the most stressful experiences you can go through, whether you’re packing up your house or your office. Not only do you have to get everything into boxes, you have to organize the unpacking when you get to your final destination. There’s a saying that three moves are as a good as a fire: things get misplaced or broken, you get stressed out and eventually, you may even wish that some of the items you are moving would catch fire.

1. Finding movers: It’s important to work with reputable movers who will handle your property with car. Rather than calling around and trying to get estimates, there are a variety of review services online that can help you find a mover quickly, such as Yelp.
2. Estimates: Planning your move requires some numbers. You can get an estimate through online calculators. When you actually select a mover, most will want to do a walk-through and provide a more specific estimate.
3. Packing: One of the most time-consuming part of moving is packing — and you have to actually be good at it if you want fragile items to survive the move. Most moving companies will provide someone who will come in and pack your property before the move.
4. Floor plans: To speed up your move, you should have an idea of where everything goes before hand. Software like Floorplanner can help you build a house plan quickly.
5. Minimize office downtime: Moving offices can be particularly difficult, because you may have many employees — each with their own desk, files and personal items to move. Many commercial movers will work with you to create a schedule where a move is completed overnight or over a weekend to minimize the time your office is out of commission.
6. Household inventory: In order to make sure that you have the same stuff you started with when you get to your new location, it’s important to create a household inventory. Rather than trying to write down every serial number and keep track of the information, software like Know Your Stuff makes the process simple.
7. Remodel moves: In order to paint, remodel or otherwise work on a space, you typically have to get all the furniture and other items out of the house or office. That means not only finding a mover, but a place to store your property and then get it back into the building just the way it was before. While not all moving companies will handle such projects, many will. Especially with commercial movers, it can be possible to have them map your office and return furniture to exactly where it came from.
8. Moving supplies: In college, picking up boxes from behind the local grocery store may have been the cheapest option, but a much faster method is to call your mover and ask them to order supplies for you. They can typically estimate the supplies you’ll need, based on your property, and new boxes are guaranteed not to contain anything left over from yesterday’s produce.
9. Storage: There are a variety of storage options beyond hunting down a unit where you can move all of your own stuff in and out. Many moving companies now offer to take care of the problem for you, with pods and trailers. They simply move all of your stuff into a portable storage unit and follow your directions as to how to handle it.
10. Systems furniture: Your office may have cubicles or other specialized furniture that requires a pro to take it apart and reassemble it. Contacting the maker can be the easiest way to find someone to handle your systems furniture for you.
11. Piano moving: Pianos are particularly awkward to move and, considering the price tag on most musical instruments, you don’t want to mess with moving them. However, there are many moving companies who do nothing but move pianos and other odd, heavy objects. Fisher Piano Movers, for instance, will move gun safes and similar items, using specialized equipment for delicate moves.
12. Ordering a truck: If you’re interested in handling the move yourself, it’s still useful to make the process simple. Most companies allow you to request trucks and moving supplies online and it’s set up in such a way for companies like U-Haul that a virtual assistant could easily complete the task.
13. Car shipping: Moving across country? If you’ve already got all of your stuff packed into a truck, why waste time driving your car all that way? Sites like ShipMyVehicle can take care of your car without requiring you to spend hours on the road.
14. Junk removal: After you’re done packing, you’ll likely have some junk not worth moving to the new place. Rather than hauling it to the dump yourself when you’ve already got plenty of moving to do, calling a junk removal service can make the day a lot easier.
15. Donation pickup: If those items that you don’t want to move are still in usable condition, many charitable organizations will make arrangements to pick up donations.
16. Utilities: Turning on and off utilities can be a difficult process. Having someone, like a virtual assistant, who can afford to spend the time on hold to get all the details taken care of can be invaluable. The help is even more useful if you’re on the ground, trying to organize the move and something goes wrong.
17. Change of address: When you move, you need to change your address with anyone who sends you mail. That means filing out paperwork with every company you have an account with, as well as sending out notices, either to friends and family or your own clients and customers. A virtual assistant can handle most of these tasks, leaving you with only those that require your personal approval (like changing the address for your bank accounts).
18. Transfer records: School, medical, legal and even veterinarian records should be transferred if you’re moving to a new city. A virtual assistant can handle contacting each office and making sure records wind up where they need to go.
19. Memberships and subscriptions: Newspaper subscriptions, health club memberships and other contracts need to be transferred or ended. Unfortunately, there isn’t a tool that can handle all your subscriptions and memberships in one go, but a virtual assistant can handle such a task.
20. Cleaning: Especially if you’re moving out of a rental, cleaning out the place your vacating is a necessary task. Many cleaning services offer a deep cleaning option that will make sure your last apartment or office passes inspection when you turn the keys over. It can also make sense to bring in a cleaning service for the new location.
21. Learning a new area: If you’re moving to an entirely new city, learning about it can be a long process. However, most local chambers of commerce offer new resident packets that can help you get acquainted with the area.
22. Finding a rental: Whether you need a new location entirely or you just need a place until your new location is available, there are rental services for both apartments and houses and for offices. They take your needs into consideration and narrow down the field to just a few options.
23. Complaints: If anything goes wrong with your move, getting the moving company you used to resolve the situation can be difficult. One of the easiest options is to take the problem to the local Better Business Bureau and ask them to handle it.
24. Tax deductions: Depending on why you’re moving, you may be able to deduct your expenses on your taxes. Hand your receipts for the move over to your tax preparer, explain the situation and see if you qualify.
25. Insurance: While many insurance companies make moving insurance from one property to another relatively easy, the change in rates makes it a good idea to gather new estimate from a variety of insurance companies. There are a few websites that will compare rates from multiple companies or you can ask a virtual assistant to research your options.

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(Modified image from LitterMaid.com)

For those of you who own cats, you’re well aware that litter-box maintenance is by far the most difficult, disgusting, and time-consuming dimension of cat ownership. Just how time-consuming? Well, my peculiar editor estimated somewhere around 15 hours per year (see the math below). This is obviously an unacceptable use of our time. So what is one to do? Well, this post explains how I reduced the time it takes to maintain my feline’s litter box from 15 hours to 5 hours per year (again, see my peculiar editor’s calculations below). I think you’ll find that my hard-learned methods will help optimize your time, reduce costs, and make you appreciate your little kitty just a bit more.

Automated Litter Box is the Only Way to Go

I’ve researched, owned, and even customized so many different litter boxes and spent so much money on you name the contraption, I’m embarrassed to tell you how much time, how much money, and how obsessed I became with solving the litter box enigma. I’ll spare you the gory details and just tell you about what I discovered after almost a year of hard-core, scientific trial and error.

Without question, an automatic litter box is the way to go if you own an apartment, a condo, row home, or any other enclosed environment that generally doesn’t encourage your cat to be outdoors. In my opinion, cats and dogs should be outside from time-to-time, but if this is not possible, you’ll learn that some cats (actually most cats) will embrace indoor living and develop an extremely reliable routine. Once your cat and you are in the groove, you can greatly reduce you cat-related labor through techniques such as the modified litter box that I’ll outline here.

My Brief Introduction to the LitterMaid

So after innumerable failed litter boxes, I finally settled on the LitterMaid automatic self-cleaning litter box.* In particular, I recommend one of the following two models: LM500 or LM900. The reason I encourage you to buy one of these two models is based on the fact each one has a hardened plastic rake that does a better job than the metal-pronged series. With either of these models, you should be able to get at least two or three years of use. I recently replaced my LM500-based version after three years of relatively low-maintenance use. Check out the reviews on Amazon.com for a broad overview of these models and take a close look at the user reviews. For those of you looking for a panacea, you might be slightly disappointed by my litter box recommendation. However, for those of you who recognize that there’s absolutely no easy way of dealing with this unseemly dimension of cat ownership, you’ll find that this hacked LitterMaid litter box will be a great help.

LitterMaid LM900 (photo: LitterMaid.com)

The LitterMaid litter box is shaped very much like a traditional litter box. On one end is an enclosed motor housing and on the other end you’ll find a plastic, disposable receptacle that’s sole purpose is to house the hardened, clumped, shall we call it cat “fun.” In the center of the box, you simply place a 2-inch layer of clumping litter, and once evened out your cat will obediently climb in and do what he or she does. Once the feline exits the box, a motion-triggered optical “eye” starts an internal clock that after 10 minutes activates a lengthwise plastic rake that descends from the motor housing, scrapes the top 1/2 inch of litter, moves anything it encounters across the litter, and finally, pushes it up, over, and into the plastic disposable receptacle.

Now this thing works fairly well but you can’t just fill it and completely forget about it. Cats differ in their use of any litter box so your in-house experience may vary, but after you and your cat get the hang of this thing, it will become predictable and simple. The LitterMaid litter box company, like many consumer corporations, wants to make as much money off you in any way possible. Thus, LitterMaid sells litter, filters, disposable plastic receptacles, and many other accessories. Don’t buy any of these accoutrements. While I appreciate their effort to make money, I believe there’s a better way.

How to Hack the LitterMaid

Step 1. After you purchase your LitterMaid litter box, go to your local Walmart, Kmart, Target, or similar venue and purchase two 12″ long by 6″ wide by 5″ deep plastic container. You’ll need to two of these items; the lids aren’t necessary. If you have a larger cat and purchase the LM900 LitterMaid litter box, you may need larger receptacles.

Get something that looks like this. (photo: Sterilite.com)

Step 2. Once you’ve unboxed your LitterMaid and assembled it, which shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, place the litter box in a location that’s out of sight yet accessible to the cat. I begin by setting the whole system on two entry mats that I bought at Walmart (or try Camping World). These mats, which look like fake grass, will help knock the litter off the cat’s feet after it extricates itself from the box as well as catch most of the litter your cat kicks out. In fact, these mats are so effective I have very little collateral litter to deal with. If you have a cat that fires litter all over the place, I suggest you purchase one of the litter box “houses” that will further help keep the litter localized.

Step 3. Now, take your first plastic container, put it under the motor end of the litter box, and then place the other receptacle under the other end where the clumped litter would have been pushed into the disposable receptacle. What we’ve done here is replace LitterMaid’s tiny, disposable receptacle with a much more voluminous container that you’ll only need to empty once or twice a month. Another trick that will speed things up is to line the new plastic receptacle at the dumping end with a garbage bag. Come emptying time, all you need to do here is lift the bag out, cinch it, and toss it. When I put in a new bag, I usually pour some baking soda over the fresh plastic receptacle lining to help mitigate odor. In addition, I scatter a sizeable amount over baking soda over the litter itself. Now, pay attention here. The litter I recommend for this operation is the World’s Best Cat Litter (original or extra strength). This litter is all-natural (from corn), clumps well, and minimizes the odor. It’s slightly more expensive than other litters, but it’s truly worth it. Trust Smartlife on this one and spend a few dollars for this extremely good litter.

Step 4. Now we remove the plastic disposable lid that goes into the two holes on top of the litter receptacle lid. Throw the lid away and duct tape the top and the bottom of the two holes to help contain the litter. Finally, I take one of the LitterMaid disposable receptacles (the deep plastic pieces) and cut out the bottom of one. I then place the cut receptacle container in its appropriate place. We do this for two reasons: (1) to help ensure that the cat “fun” gets where it’s supposed to and (2) to limit the amount of exposure to the larger storage container (odor).

Here's what a successfully hacked LitterMaid should look like.

Step 5. That’s it. Now all you need to do is monitor the litter level, keep the litter box somewhat clean, watch the receptacle fill level, and use everything I’ve recommended without variation and you’ll be able to go away for long weekends without a concern.

Cats like clean litter boxes, and my method will save you a lot of time. Believe me, once this is up and running and you have it dialed-in, you’ll thank me for saving you a lot of effort.

How Much Time Will You Save with the Hacked LitterMaid?

You'll save yourself a whole 10 hours of litter maintenance per year.

Click here to see the details behind these estimates.

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*When I made the decision to purchase the LitterMaid several years ago, it was the only self-cleaning-litter-box game in town. Since then, a number of competing products have hit the market such as ScoopFree, Litter-Robot, and CatGenie. You may want to investigate these, as I’ve heard some users say that they make litter-box maintenance even easier. Smartlife will conduct a product comparison in the future.

This thing is here to save you time, not abduct your kids. (photo: Husqvarna)

Next time you see a low-hovering spacecraft over your neighbor’s lawn, don’t panic. It’s not a UFO here to abduct and perform ungodly experiments on you. Rather, it’s a robotic lawn mower manufactured by Earth-based companies here to take the painstaking labor out of cutting and mulching your grass by doing it for you — automatically.

Inspired by the Roomba, robotic lawn mowers function just like their carpet counterparts. They self-charge at a docking station, run during programmable schedules and self-navigate within virtual boundaries set up along the perimeter of your lawn and garden. The automated grass munchers also self-navigate over rough terrain such as steep inclines, around objects like your naked fountain boy, and in difficult weather conditions, so you can even have your grass cut in the rain!

According to their manufacturers, lawn robots benefit both you and Mother Nature. Benefit to you: eliminate hours of unfulfilling yard work, reduce landscaping fees, and cut back on the ridiculous fuel costs of your gas-powered lawn mower. Benefit to Mother Nature: eliminate noise pollution, reduce carbon emissions, and promote involuntary U.S. compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. This YouTube video demonstrates how one of the lawn robot product brands, RoboMower, works.

Lawn robots are great for people who are seniors, disabled, allergic (like myself –- or at least that was my excuse), and smart with more important things to do. (Pulling weeds doesn’t fall into the important category.)

There are several product brands that you can purchase, including RoboMower (Friendly Robots), LawnBott (LawnBott) and Automower (Husqvarna), but only from a limited number of brick-and-mortar and on-line stores. Prices range from about $900 to $3,800 depending upon product brand and model. At those prices, you’ll need to mow your lawn about 25 to 100 times before your investment pays off, but sure beats push mowing. (Crave, Wired)

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Hissssss! (photo: Eirik Newth / Flickr)

Is your floor dirty, sticky, and downright disgusting? No time to vacuum? Then you’ll be elated to know that the new Roomba 500 series (510, 530, 560, 570, 580) actually sucks more (and supposedly scares pets less) than its predecessors. Its new and improved features offer greater time- and energy-saving benefits. Though the Roomba does require some maintenance, in my estimation, its dramatic improvements make the world’s most popular brand in vacuum robot cleaners a smart-life purchase.

Just recently, I purchased a new domicile that is 70% hardwood, 15% carpet, and 15% tile. Being at that point in my life where order from chaos marches closer and closer to a fully embraced ideology, I spent much of the first four months vacuuming with a brand-new Kenmore upright. One morning after chasing a moderately sized dust tumbleweed across the room, I realized that the battle against dust, dirt, grime, gunk, and related interlopers is not for the occasional cleaner: it’s an ongoing battle that must be waged on a daily (if not bi-daily) frequency lest all progress be lost and your life ruined by unsightly items of suspicious origin. So I enter my home command center (the den) and surf the net looking for a means to reduce my vacuuming time allotment while simultaneously increasing cleanliness, a difficult equation for even those studying applied mathematics at MIT, let alone for a math for poets guy. Since I fear purchasing something only to find a day, or week, or month later that I could’ve bought something better, or worse, shouldn’t have bought at all, I conduct extensive research. I find that the next-generation Roomba earns excellent user review ratings for its much-improved features, performance and cost-benefit, as compared to earlier models. So I take the plunge and type in the AMEX numbers.

Several days later, I receive the Roomba 510 model. It comes sooner than expected. When I see the box at my door I have a Rene Magritte (or for you modern art fans, Mark Rothko) moment: no idea what I’m looking at. Once I recall my order, I’m all but knocking my door open with my shoulder so I can it operational. The box is compact and the packing well done so I don’t have to waste my time returning damaged mail-order. (Truly, what could be worse?) Once I find the directions, I carefully read them, which are straight and simple. I then plug the Roomba in for its initial battery charging.

The following morning I’m up early. I place the Roomba on the floor to watch and see if this thing lives up to the billing. I tap the “on” button…and then again…and it begins a very unique whir (to some annoying, but to me a welcome symphony I call “Etude in C: Work I’m Not Doing”). It circles a few times to begin its algorithmic-computed comprehension of the room. Once done circling it begins to move in a straight line until it approaches an obstacle and slows for impact. The Roomba “senses” proximity and changes direction once contact is made and the front section gives, promptly sending the Roomba in a new direction.

At first, I’m very skeptical that this will actually cover the space as well as Roomba’s on-line propaganda claims. How, I ask, is it possible for this object moving in a seemingly unstructured and random pattern possibly going to vacuum every inch? Well, I sit there and watch this damn thing for quite some time (a duration I’ll not admit to) and it does what it promises. It covers every inch (sometimes several times) and intuitively recognizes walls, corners, thresholds and other challenges and alters its agenda to match the situation. A small star of brushes attached to the bottom front spins at a high-speed to gather little pieces just outside the reach to the main body. I see things lodged against the baseboard, and just when I think it will miss something, it gets it. If it does miss it, the suction monster somehow comes around later and snags it. The Roomba also goes under my sofa by slightly bending the skirt and then works its magic hidden from view until it resurfaces either out the front or one of the sides. I hadn’t thought about it getting under furniture but I’m here to tell you it does.

After about an hour of vacuuming, it quits. You’ll find that after several uses, sometimes it stops in a good place and sometimes in not such a good place. If you can’t find it, look under the piece of furniture that will pose you the most trouble to get under and there it will be. Fortunately, the 100 times I’ve run this thing, 85 of those times it stopped in an easy to find spot. For those of you who lack interest in the Where in the World is My Roomba Safari Adventure, I’d recommend the upgraded model; it has several additional features including schedule programming as well as an internal sensor that allows the Roomba to know when it’s running low on juice, prompting it to navigate itself back to its charger. For me, this was an unnecessary feature so I’m completely fine with tracking the Roomba down and plugging it in for its recharge.

So how does it vacuum? Well, I’m perpetually amazed that no matter how many times I run this thing over a given day it ALWAYS comes up with something. It grabs the dust, hair, debris and other items and sweeps them into a fair sized collection bin. Although the collection bin is bagless, it does not collect enough unwanted material to be a pain. While the Roomba is fantastic for relieving you from manually vacuuming every day, it’s not a complete replacement for more tradition sweeping. The suction produced by the whining electric motor is nothing in the realm of even the least anemic upright or canister vacuum but enough to cover light to moderate needs. Despite the limitations of its size and capability, it does a surprisingly good job. Once it completes its cycle, I merely haul the Roomba to the closet where the Kenmore vacuum is ignited and the hose attachment with the aardvark nose piece is employed to clean the bin and small filter (the filter catches most of the dust and hair). After 30 seconds of that vacuuming the vacuum, the Roomba is clean and I reinsert the bin into the body and plug it back in. It generally takes just an hour or two for a pretty good recharge.

This YouTube video, produced by electricshopping.com, demonstrates how the Roomba works.

The Roomba is wonderful but it is not a panacea, and you should be aware that it does have certain limitations. For example, it doesn’t clean super deep on shag carpet and only does a fair job on occasional rugs. It’ll get caught on bath mats and, although it uses an anti-tangle mode to deal with the multitude of cell phone, blackberry, USB, and other power cords, from time-to-time it’ll get stuck on these items and shut down. It’s fascinating and almost life-like when it does get stuck as it will buck, turn, and gyrate and flail until it frees itself from the situation. It rarely gets stuck and in terms of starting it and not having to supervise it, I give it an excellent rating.

Another downside is that, like all appliances, this needs some care. The vacuum brushes spin at high speed that can be retarded by hair and carpet fibers that get wrapped around the internal ends. To deal with this, I clean it after every tenth to twelfth outing with a pair of needle nose pliers.

The other issue is the front-side brush arms that articulate at high-speed to snag stuff. While a great idea and very effective, the rubber design is extremely flawed as the arms will break off and end up being acquired by the dust bin. I’ve tried reattaching them but it is merely a stop-gap as they will fall off again (trust me). Perhaps this is not a design flaw but an engineered lifespan that represents a revenue generating endeavor for iRobot, the parent company of Roomba. I see a secondary market for someone who manufactures a better corner and wall sweeping arm (someone owes me dinner or a shout-out on Donny Deutsch for this one).

In the end, I highly recommend the Roomba in any of its many permutations (510, 530, 560, 570, 580). It does a great job of cleaning but be advised you’ll have a little bit of maintenance. Now that you are educated on the efficacy and deficiencies of this modern marvel, I implore you to get out your credit card and make your life easier and enjoy the free (and simple) entertainment of this great product.

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