Two minute tidy tip: use chalkboard stickers to label household items

Chalkboard stickers are great! They're reusable, and you can clean off whatever you 've written and start again - so they're really cost effective.

You'll need:

A set of chalkboard labels - I got mine for around £3 on Ebay:

 A chalkboard pen - this cost about £4 from a stationers, but normal chalk would be fine too.

 

Write out what you want the label to say - you can wipe it off with water and a cloth if you make a mistake:

 

Then attach your labels to wherever you want to stick them! I chose them to identify these boxes at the top of my wardrobe:

 

And you're done! Cost: around £7 - I already had the boxes, and they cost £2 each.

Two minute tidy tip: keep disinfectant wipes in the bathroom

There are some jobs that need to be done around the home that can be tricky to get motivated to do. I sometimes find cleaning the bathroom a challenge!

I wish this was my bathroom!

My quick two minute tidy tip: keep a pack of disinfectant wipes (or even baby wipes) in the bathroom. When you've finished your shower or bath, grab a wipe and quickly wipe down the surfaces. It really does only take a couple of minutes, and it'll save you having to do more work when you next clean your bathroom.

Two minute tidy tip: declutter your pens

How many pens do you own? You may be surprised!

 

My quick two minute tidy tip: gather up all of the pens you own - look in your bag, your desk, the kitchen drawers and put them in all a pile. Test them to see if they all still work, and then find a central place to keep them and put them there. 

Next, ask yourself - how many pens can I write with at once? I helped someone recently who had 18 pens, and when we tested them, about a third of them weren't working. You're really only going to need two or three pens. You could even donate the rest to a good cause.

Two minute tidy tip: take photos of receipts and store them electronically

If you're anything like me, you'll keep hold of important receipts and every time you open your purse/handbag/desk drawer will see them and think: what do I do with these, and how long should I keep them for?

My quick two minute tidy tip: take a photo of your receipts with your smart phone, connect your phone to your PC with a USB cable, and save them into a folder:

Next, name and date your receipts so that they're easy to find:

What do I do if I need them again?

If you need to return or check something and want to be able to show the receipt, you can use one of the free, easy to use document sharing solutions available. You'll be able to quickly access your files from your smart phone, tablet, home or work computer, which cuts down the need for paper.

I use the free version of Dropbox to store my files and can open them at work, on my phone, and at home - but there are lots of free variations out there. They're simple and fast to set up and will save you a lot of time: you can store your to do lists, addresses, etc and any changes you make to your documents will sync and take effect across all of your devices.

Or, if you want a really quick way to access an important document, draft an email to yourself, attach it and save it! You can then retrieve it when you need it.