As a parent, I often struggle to keep my household clean and organized. I am challenged with staying on top of family schedules, appointments, household paperwork, shopping lists, cleaning and more. Over time I have found a few tech tools that help me stay on top of many things in my household.
Here are a few tech ideas for family’s that I find are helpful in my everyday household routine.
Smart Speaker
Google, Apple and Amazon are all makers of smart speakers. We have an Amazon Echo Show in our kitchen with a screen and my kids each have an echo dot in their rooms. Our Echo Show helps with the weekly grocery shopping list, viewing recipes while cooking, setting a timer for dinner in the oven, calendar reminders and other reminders we tell Alexa to set up. For fun, the Echo plays music on Pandora and as a family, we often use our Echo for family games like Song Quiz. I think the ultimate feature is the Drop In ability, that connects to the Echo Dots in my children’s rooms, like an intercom, that allows me to easily let them know that dinner is ready or that it is time to leave for sports practice.
ScanSnap Scanner
Like most others, I dislike the paper clutter collected by all members of my family. Bills, medical paperwork, school work, tax documents, receipts and more pile up in our family office. Since buying a ScanSnap scanner, we can easily scan all of our paperwork and save it to a safe and accessible location in the cloud. With a ScanSnap scanner, it has eliminated the paper clutter in our house. There are several different models from the ultra-lightweight & battery charged ScanSnap iX100 and the compact and portable ScanSnap S1300i to the powerful and Wi-Fi enabled ScanSnap iX1500.
Robot Vacuum
Tidy house, happy spouse? A clutter free and clean house definitely makes me happy. My family is currently spending more time at home social distancing and I find daily cleaning is now necessary more than ever. Before heading to bed each evening, I routinely make sure all clutter is picked off the floors and counters in the kitchen and family room areas. I set my Roomba robot vacuum to run as we are going to sleep. I love to begin each day with an organized and freshly vacuumed house. Also, my Echo Show with Alexa connects to my Roomba allows me to turn on the Roomba while I am out of the house on days when I need it.
Now if only we could find a robot to cook dinner and clean the dishes but I suppose I should train my kids to do these things.