Harness the Cloud: 8 Ways to Automate Your Housekeeping

Doesn’t it sometimes seem that all of this technology that’s supposed to be helping us only makes things more complicated? Between the abundance of social media channels and gadgets, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Thankfully, there are ways to harness technology and use it to simplify your life. These eight ideas for automating things you do all the time (meal planning, shopping, backing up data and more) are good ways to begin.

1. Get household essentials delivered automatically. Take a moment and try to estimate how much time you spend each week or month shopping for groceries, toiletries and household staples like cleaning products and toilet paper. A lot, right? There is a better way: More and more online retailers are now offering the option to save a shopping list and even set up automatic, recurring deliveries.

These services (Amazon Subscribe & Save and Vitacost Set & Save are a few) are typically free; sometimes they come with an added discount. Why cart home giant stacks of toilet paper, dishwashing detergent and canned goods, when you can have them delivered right to your door as often as you need them?


2. Get high-tech house helpers. Houzz has reported on a number of ways you can automate your home, thanks to inventive new technologies that are getting cheaper and more widely available all the time. Wish you could turn off lights and appliances from your tablet, automatically adjust your thermostat when no one is home or lock your doors remotely? Now you can.

See how to use some of the latest smart appliances


3. Streamline your daily life with IFTTT. Short for “if this, then that”, IFTTT is a web-based service that allows you to create rules to manage the huge influx of information you face each day. Just imagine: You can have any email labeled “to do” automatically added to Google Calendar; have all new Craigslist postings you are searching for emailed to you instantly; save your Instagram or iOS photos to Dropbox … the possibilities are endless.


Doxie Go Mobile Document Scanner - $199 4. Go paperless. Scan every important piece of paper you get (in other words, anything you would have filed in a paper file in the past) and send it to a cloud-based service like Evernote. To make this work really seamlessly, you’ll need a scanner with OCR (optical character recognition) technology, so that you can later search the text of your scanned documents right in the cloud.

5. Automatically back up data. Set up your computer to regularly back up your data both to the cloud and to a device like an external hard drive, and you’ll have all of your bases covered.


6. Automate your finances. Chances are, you already switched most of your bills to an online bill pay service long ago … but are your payments automated? Most credit card companies and some other businesses offer multiple options, such as paying the minimum payment or the full balance each month, so you can choose what you are comfortable with.

You can also automate your budget and keep track of your entire financial life online with a free and secure service like Mint.


7. Put your home maintenance and housekeeping on autopilot. Even if you can’t justify springing for a Roomba or Scooba to keep your floors clean, there are plenty of ways to keep your house running smoothly with minimal mental effort. If you and your smart phone or tablet are attached at the hip, record your seasonal home maintenance tasks and daily cleaning schedule in your calendar, and you’ll always know exactly what you are supposed to be doing. Tackling chores in bite-size increments is a good way to stay on top of things without feeling overburdened.


8. Simplify meal planning. A bunch of services have popped up recently offering online meal planning, diet guidance and recipe ideas, and one of the slickest is Plan to Eat. After purchasing a monthly subscription, you can keep all of your recipes in one place and have your grocery shopping lists generated automatically. You can access your meal plans, recipes and shopping lists seamlessly across all platforms, from your computer at home to your tablet and cell phone.


Tell us: Have you made any changes to automate your home or your daily life? Wish you could automate even more? Or are you wary of the cloud? Share your tips and experiences in the Comments.

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