A few weekends ago, my husband and I made a big list on a piece of poster board to #GetOurShitTogether. It has projects around the house we want to get done, things we need to buy (we’ve been living together long enough that suddenly we need a new couch, mattress, and car?!), and majorly unfun administrative adult tasks like applying for a home equity line of credit “just in case” and upping our disability coverages. The list was long, the piece of poster board was enormous, and I couldn’t stop thinking about all my adulting fails (the “what’s for dinner?” argument is currently strong in our house), when I realized that the places where I am actually winning at adulthood are the ones where I have a tool that I am obsessed with.

So because sharing is caring, I thought I’d round up the tools I’ve been using that are actually working, beyond, you know, poster board.

My Winning #Adulting Tools

Budget: Thanks be to YNAB, money is actually the one thing my husband and I hardly ever fight about.

Calendar management: Since I’m a visual person who works from home, every year I treat myself and my home office to an enormous paper calendar from Neu Year. If I was better at sharing, I imagine one of these would be super handy at managing multiple people’s schedules and would still look nice in the kitchen. (Click here t0 get 10% off all their products.)

Tasks management: Todoist, my task app of choice, is basically like Present Me having Future Me’s back, over and over again. As soon as I know something needs to get done, I pop in a task (which takes exactly five seconds because the app is A+) and months later, I’m reminded of things I clearly would have otherwise forgotten. (Annual car inspection, I’m looking at you.)

Shopping: You guys, Target will finally mail me paper towels and toilet paper. I cannot tell you what a dream come true that is. I mean, is it just me or is shopping for regular household products on Amazon like trying to game some kind of black market trading ring where the same product is $3 one day and $35 the next? (And Amazon Pantry vs. Amazon Fresh vs. Amazon Prime Subscribe and Save just makes my head hurt.) But now, Target ships me all the store brand products I love for the same price they’ve always been right from the app or website. Saves a trip to the store and the $50 in random impulse buys those trips always seem to accumulate.

Skincare: Konjac sponge + cleansing balm + facial oil = no one guesses my real age anymore. After struggling with rosacea for six years, settling into a nighttime routine that works has been a huge self-confidence win, and I no longer have shelves filled with half-used products that make me break out.

And finally, smoothies: When I can’t even about making food, throwing some spinach and almond milk and fruit into a blender sounds like a way less guilt-inducing way of consuming necessary nutrients than something from a box. Once I proved to myself I deserved a nice blender wore out my old one, I sprung for a refurbished Blendtec. A year and five hundred blends later (what? The counter makes me feel like a healthy person!), it’s still going strong. (And P.S. the recipes from Simple Green Smoothies have even converted my husband into someone that drinks his veggies.)

Which brings me back to “What’s For Dinner?”: Things we’ve tried and loved include CookSmarts (this silenced the arguments in our house for at least a year until we got tired of the recipes), Veestro (have only tried it once but it was a sanity and $$$ saver when we were so busy we couldn’t possibly think about cooking), and Munchery (which, if we’re gonna order takeout once a week, at least it’s not always pizza). Sure, it’s frustrating sometimes that feeding myself is a thing that I still don’t have all figured out, but hey, at least there’s a boatload of twenty-first-century options?

SO HOW ABOUT YOU? WHAT are some of the apps, tools, and products that you can’t live without? ANY PARTS OF #ADULTING WHERE YOU ARE KILLING IT? ARE SHARED GOOGLE DOCS STILL THE BEST WAY TO PLAN A WEDDING OR IS THERE SOMETHING WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT?

Image CreditLaura Ford Photos

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