Since the beginning of this year, I've been on a mission to upgrade my household, because this work-business year is tough for all of us, and we need to save as much time as possible for important things.

Just a few purchases have freed up my day, so now I have enough time to relax, go to the office, and work on projects.

Sharing with you.

✅Countertop dishwasher. Our tiny studio didn't have a dishwasher, and this became a real lifesaver, even though it took up quite a bit of counter space. It turned out to be easier to learn to cook in a small area than to wash piles of dishes by hand, which was taking up a huge amount of time.

✅Electric scrubber. It looks exactly like it sounds—an electric rotating brush with replaceable heads. It whips up foam, cleans dirt and grease without needing to scrub by hand. It cleans the oven, microwave, fridge, and everything else twice as fast as I could by hand.

✅Extraction vacuum cleaner. Technically, it's a water vacuum, not a vacuum cleaner, or simply put—a carpet cleaner. It sprays special chemicals (extract) with water and sucks it all back up. I cleaned all the upholstered furniture (I was horrified—just looking at the first tank made me want to call a priest, the sanitation department, and ghost hunters all at once).

✅Robot vacuum. Relatively useless for deep cleaning, but it can at least do some maintenance cleaning, and you can mop under the sofa less often.

✅Household steam generator. Also known as a garment steamer. In my case, it looks like a kettle with a complex system of tubes, and the results make me want to cry with joy. If before I spent about half an hour cleaning grease off the kitchen backsplash, now with a blast of hot steam and a cloth, I can remove it in about 2 minutes and 15 seconds, of which 2 minutes is the time to prepare the steam in the generator.

How many hours did I free up with all these gadgets?

By my calculations—about twenty. And in the context that we optimized meal prep and now cook not every couple of days but for a week ahead, storing everything in containers—life has truly taken on new colors.

Now I'm off to work.