On this episode we talk about some dad hacks you can use to save time and help with your parenting.

On this episode of the dudes and dads podcast we're talking all about hacks

You're listening to the dudes and dads podcast

A show dedicated to helping men be better dudes and dads by building community through meaningful conversation and storytelling

Here are your hosts Joel Deman and Andy Lehman

Hackey hack

I'm thinking like hack like old hacks

HACK AT HACK

HACK

That's my way that's the name of this episode

HACK ATHACK

Love it, hey I love it

Hi Andy how are you?

Hey I'm good, hey we're streaming to your Facebook page today too

Oh boy we'll see something we've never done

See how many people unfriend me after this beast

Probably a lot

But we are going live this is the dudes and dads podcast that you're listening to

Oh no, well hey hi everybody out on wherever you are on the social media

Universe

Yeah hey so Andy as I was just mentioning before

On my way over to the studio

Well not like on my way on my way but

We had some piping hot

Dujurno pizza

I was thinking on

Coming out of that

On the way over

No, no I was like okay this pizza needs to be done

So I can put some in my belly before I head over to the studio

And so it came out piping hot

Piping hot

Gotta get that

And I'm like you know what I think I can handle this

I'm gonna get some bites in

And literally I can feel right now as I'm talking to you can feel the skin hanging from the top of the roof of my mouth

Because I destroyed it

Friends what is it?

What is it about super hot pizza?

Where we go all these years

I mean four decades of life plus in

And I have not learned my lesson

That that pizza will come and get you

It will get the top of your mouth it will burn it

And like you think that we would learn that because you know I'm 44 years old and I've done it so many times

So many

But I needed it I need it

Like hot pizza and I need it now

And when I eat it and then my whole roof of my mouth is messed up

It's bad

Yeah I just I can't like I got a really weird weird sensation going on in the roof of my mouth

But you know where I don't have a weird sensation

Where I don't know where this is going

Sitting here talking with you here on the Dudes and Dead's podcast

It's been a long time

It's been a spell we did we took a we took a week off we had some vacation travels and all that good stuff

Believe it or not we do get PTO on the podcast

We did it's part it's written into our contract

We have to we have to sit down with a board of directors every year

And Andy and I we have to you know we have to battle it out we have to say no

We need to keep the PTO

We're going to keep the PTO

And believe it or not all the all the zeroes we still have PTO

That's right the the the board while the Dudes and Dead's podcast executive board

While a bunch of sticklers I will say they've they have come around to our way of thinking

So we're super grateful

Well like Joel said tonight we are going to be talking about

Dad hacks time-saving parenting tips

But first

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Oh boy thanks everons we love you

So so dead hacks

Dead hacks here this uh you you got a lovely list by the way Andy really took charge on this one

I'm so appreciate because I told him I was like Andy I love hacks but uh

I'm just not sure I have I don't know if I have any hacks I'm not sure I'm living in a

Hack filled life a life that is hack aware

Hackalicious

Made me giggle more than it should have

But like as you tossed out this list I was like yeah this is this is I have I guess they have at some point dabbled

And tried some of these done some of them it's helpful so

The first one um Andy

And we can skip around on this list

We're gonna skip all over some of these might really they might really hit home in a deeper level there might be some this might be some real gems of conversation here

Uh you know we're always talking about hacks on the meal prep side I don't know about you Andy it feels uh in some seasons stronger than others that um

Feeding our children feeding our families

Uh in a reasonably timely and reasonably healthy manner is is a challenge

It is yes

And I I know that uh Jackie and I have I can literally play the conversation out my mind

Conversation goes like this

Uh ring ring ring hello

Uh hey where are you

Well I'm uh I haven't left work yet believing soon do you have any ideas for dinner

No no actually this is the first time thinking about dinner do you have any ideas no I have zero ideas and and by the way and this could be either one of us uh saying this

The meat that we would need to have thawed uh at home or whatever it is the thing we would now need to have it somewhat ready in order for us to do this to make this meal in a timely manner is not ready

Uh oh no what are we gonna do and then we have to scramble or get something it whatever it feels it feels like that whole conversation plays out on the regular uh with with you get kids in different activities are going places whatever we are lucky

What would you say is your average dinner time at the layman household right now I mean we try so we try to prepare things ahead of time so I

I hate to be good no but we do I would say I mean our average time is usually you know six o'clock or so just because we do a lot of this meal prep ahead of time

I'm gonna tell you guys one of the best hacks that I found with it well I can't really even claim this one it's gonna be Julie but prepare you can get something that's gonna fit in your crackpot and it you know I get up in the morning and one of us will put all the stuff in the crackpot hit it on low for you know the time being and then all of a sudden we get home and it's like mmm this smells good and

it's done and we're ready to go

Aaron I just I just this is my eldest son Aaron is here with us this evening hi Aaron how are you he's waving hello hi

I just had a great idea I think Aaron because he's the last one out of the house because they don't the junior high doesn't start school until 915 in the morning

Aaron could start our crock pot meals for us in the morning he could be the guy I mentioned this because Aaron actually made also made a dinner for our family this evening oh nice then I'm not chicken curry good job Aaron yeah he's in culinary culinary arts class right now and I gotta say this might be the most applicable

public education that he's received it's from the classroom to our table I'm super excited about it but yes the meal prep time what I will say we did have some luck with this we want to get back to it

eating decent breakfast is a is a challenge specifically Jackie and I because look everybody else you know everybody else getting around right and it's like oh did I even eat anything this morning what we have found what we like to do is pre made breakfast burritos

and freeze and freeze them and then just take like take them frozen with you I pop them in the mic it's like a three minute microwave and done so I also want to remind all of our listeners that if you are listening with us today and you have comments go ahead and put them oh yeah

and get them as if you've got hacks that are great for this we love to we love to see those so yeah yeah yeah can I move on to my mind I loved it I love to hear it so the next one is going to be a shared calendar and I like doing the shared calendars because so I have we have a shared calendar except for I have to make a

confession the other day but we have a shared calendar and it's great because I can see it on my phone and Julie can see it on her phone and the nice thing about it is because then I

when I when we do that

I am able to see you know if I put something on the counter she put something now I have my own calendar still because I

because I can because I because I some things that she doesn't want to see

I don't want to see my wife's calendar because that that is that would stress me out but yes right but there are things that

the chair is nice because then you can see each other's things out my confession though is this I either week she said something like hey

we have this thing going on I'm like no we don't because I'm looking at the calendar is not on there doesn't exist it's not the calendar it's not right and

no look here on my phone it exists and I said no look at my phone it doesn't exist and come to find out my calendar had like got disconnected I needed to put the password back

and I didn't realize that and I was missing all of these things we do live and die by the calendars the shared calendar is great we

we have some

we have some of that we have some shared practice in our in our calendars Jackie wants our here's what Jackie wants she wants our shared calendar up on some sort of on the wall like electronically she wants like an electronic display on our wall of at all times we could probably do that I said I said we

didn't talk to Andy I'm sure you can come up with a great a great solution I think she wants literally like a touchpad screen with our calendar you can yeah and whatever but I think she's gonna like a clear plate pane of glass that it just shows up in front of her it's

the way what she said was like she thinks we live we live in 2050 or something but I think there's probably a solution yeah so toy rotation this this is a good one for for not necessarily when you're even older can do this but

especially when they're younger you know you have all these toys kids are getting toys from everywhere whether it be Donald's or you know whatever birthdays like everyone seems to give everyone everything and so you have all of these toys and then if you especially if you have multiple kids you end up having you end up having these all of these toys that you can the nice thing you can just rotate those out whether I mean I would say also clean them out so get get rid of them if there's a time that you don't like those toys or you know you just say okay you Aaron you've had these toys for a while

I'm picking on Aaron because he's sitting here you've had these toys and I'm getting rid of your kids toys by the way but but you can take those toys and you can put them off to either sell them get rid of them sometimes it helps that I've seen to be able to say okay what we're gonna do is we're gonna sell these toys because you know you can take the money from this and do what you want and the nice thing about that is because then they want to get rid of the toys and so that's what I found it's nice because they can

you can do that and then get rid of the toys the other thing that you could do is you can take and just put some of them away because if you have all of them out kids are gonna get bored with them but so what's nice is if you can put those away for maybe half a year or a quarter and then switch them out because then it seems like they're very new toys and they stay interested in them.

You've got basically a you have a portfolio or a repertoire of toys that you're that you've segmented and you're moving in and out and so sometimes and I know we've done this where we've we've had toys that are out of circulation that come back in it's almost like they're brand new.

Right they are.

It's like oh that's right.

Yeah we had that.

Yeah yeah yeah that's good.

For our for our I guess what we'd say our younger our younger listeners because I remember this the the diaper changing station.

Oh yeah that one yeah.

So we had one in our in our first house that was like almost right by the front door quite honestly it was looking at a central in a central location and just like it was like stocked with all the stuff if I remember correctly because it just feels like in those early years all the the accoutrements of changing the kid changing and all this all the stuff or whatever even as I'm saying it out loud I'm just like I'm having a lot of a lot of flashbacks.

A lot of flashbacks changing but to have some sort of changing station centrally located that was that was one of those ideas where I was like yeah that's that's good.

Perfect idea.

Maybe somebody is you know and on top of that it's also good because like if you're like jumping out the door real quick and you're like oh do we have everything that we need in the diaper bag sometimes you don't and sometimes you need to be able to like jump over to a place grab things and throw it in on your on your way out so to have a.

Yeah have that centrally located of a place and here's the deal just just put it just put it out in front of God and everybody with the people and the people know you've got kids just have it out have it out there this is it's just it can it's part of life so what it comes down to.

So since you mentioned babies and I mean it's been a while since we've been in that stage right I mean it's been a few hot minute or so someone asked me to hold their baby the other day.

Did you know how to hold it even I did but it was like it's it's weird now it was really really lovely and I was so.

I was so glad to hold this little baby girl and she didn't freak out her that's always possible.

I was yeah the a friend of mine had her kid with her and she had to like she had to like lock a door and so like she just turns hands to the child I'm like oh we're doing this now okay all right all right it all came back to me but it nevertheless it's like it was like wow it has been seven years since I've had to do this right yeah and that's it's like.

Right yeah and that's I mean it again these are something a lot of these things are stuff that we're through because if we're talking but some of them are stuff that we're still in you know today but another thing that you can do it is helpful is like the baby wearing slings and this is again like.

Because you can't you can save time with doing those because you can put the baby on where you're washing the dishes or whatever maybe not wash the dishes because it might fall out into the day not really but you don't want to.

Flash the child yeah don dish soap straight in the eyes hey that's another way to save time do the shower with the baby that's right in as you're doing was your dishes wash your baby it's all perfect it's totally fine that will help to be able to keep.

Except for when it frees your hands up to for doing things to because you can move around with your baby but you can also have other things that you're doing but your baby is with you so that that can be helpful.

And I want to talk about.

I want to talk about my because this is a Xeran will know a little bit of a pet peeve of mine.

Car organization.

Oh yeah.

Because people.

Are leaving things.

In the cracks of seats on the floors rolling around.

That's the best place to find all those stale fries that's all my gosh.

Yes.

Yep.

I don't ever go bad right I mean they have that's that's yeah never go bad wow.

I'm gonna back up on the dashboard.

I mean the warm up.

I mean there's they they maintain the same visual appearance I don't I can't really vouch for anything else but there there's a the thing that I who so here's one things I started doing I have like in the side like door whatever.

I have rolled up like shop plastic shopping bags all the time because what I do before they will get out is I will hand them a bag and I will say all your junk all your junk in here right now in here now in here now goes out with you.

Leave it better than you found it.

And we have some success with that not not always.

But that and we've got I think ours is we have we have water bottles in our vehicle all the time to take them to school.

Oh like not like like the disposable ones but actually like yes these I would that I would say that was a little ASMR for that.

I guess that's a little water. No. Yes those but also yeah the the like reusable like the reusable ones all the time because they're sporting events and taking back and forth.

They don't make it back in the house and I just feel like if we but I think it's like they fall on the floor and roll behind stuff whatever and they're out of sight so if you have if you have some sort of like organizational thing that you could like put those in or at least keep them visible.

That would be it would be helpful.

So I'm all the thing I'm going to bring up to is emergency kits and I'm not thinking just like straight on emergencies.

When you're you know when we're talking about like like first aid type things but I'm talking about things like spare change of clothes and first aid but also snacks.

Because you never know what's going to happen with kids you know you may go take a day at the park.

You never know what's going to happen with yourself Andy. Right. So I should put you might. I don't know.

One day you're at work and you're you know you got to you got to make an evasive maneuver and before you know it you know the seams the seams in the pants they don't they don't hold like they used to know what do you do what do you do if you've got an extra pair of gackies.

You're good to go. You're good to go.

Funny story I did have my one time when I was working in the factory. Yeah.

I did have my pants split like right down the back. Yeah.

And I had to just go with my underwear hanging out all day is disgusting and my co-workers probably hated it but I had to do it.

What was it going to do go home life life lesson have the right change ready.

But you never know. I mean you could be at the park and come up on a friend that you've never seen for a while.

And then next thing you know the kid is wanting a snack and you can just pull out your emergency prepared in this bag a snack and a change of clothes for when they get the snack all over their clothes.

And be the awe and be the awe of your community.

You can even share.

You can. That's true. Yeah.

We I have I think I've got a general you know what I don't know if I put it in my car or whatever.

I have like a I do have like a oh like a like a small toiletry kit in a case that I have actually in my office or whatever.

And because you never know like you might need you know maybe you need I've always well here's what I have.

I've got Tom's I've got Q tips I've got I got some deodorant in there.

That's always positive.

That's you never see this.

You just never know. Let me see what else do I have toothbrush toothpaste in there.

And I want to say what else do I'm trying to think of I have some other trying to think about some other tool or some other thing but those sort of you know those sort of things and and I haven't little this little like snap case.

I think it's actually supposed to be used for like a pencil.

Oh yeah.

Pencil case or whatever works really well.

Got at the Dollar General 98 cents.

Nice.

So I'm going to say this is this next one is one that I sometimes struggle with delegating tasks.

So you know you can your children that are old enough so this doesn't apply to you know Sally newborn but it does a I don't know where Sally came from.

I love it.

Neither of us have kids named Sally easy enough Sally newborn instead of John Doe or Jane Doe it's Sally newborn Sally newborn.

So anyways you can delegate some tasks them they can help with the age appropriate tasks and chores and responsibilities but it gets them off of you and this is something that I always I struggle with this one because for me a lot of times I'm like well no my thing is to do the chores my thing is to do the dishes and so that's just my job.

But then I I like being able to say no Reagan I need you to do the chores and I need Eli to put away or go do the dishes wash them I need Eli to put them away and I need Micah to start a fire start a fire yeah no usually it's something like that.

I don't know if you were like I don't I made your family like suddenly in the 19th century.

Sorry.

Go start.

Fire so we can have some food.

That's right.

But yeah so.

That's a quick easy one to take to take but again I mean I know I struggle with that a little bit.

Joel do you struggle passing those things off.

Oh geez yes.

Here.

Well as you were saying this this is a this is kind of a heck this is something Jackie does.

She will put like if there's like a bunch of little like tasks things whatever that need to get done this usually like with like house like house clean up like.

Is we run into the situation where it's like hey we're going to be gone like oh shoot it's kids are home on Friday and we know we're going to be gone a good portion of Saturday and it's like hey we got to get some things knocked out here.

Jackie will get a bowl.

She'll write down a bunch of shake it up tasks yeah like a bunch of things on the sheets of paper and actually it's like it's really effective actually and the kids actually interact with it probably the best.

They just have a it's all these random strips of paper with with like one task to do they mix it all up and they just pull them out of until they're done until they're done.

That's a good idea because then you're not it randomizes everything right and I mean as long as there are things that the kids can all do together I mean each one can do it you know because if right you know there'd be maybe things that Aaron can do that Molly can't do.

I mean Molly's getting older but there may be things but then that's nice too because then you're not like well I always do the dishes or I always full my lawn or whatever so it mixes it up so it's fun.

That's a that's a fun little.

I would it just feels like they have been but they've been more responsive to that sort of thing and and again I think my wife is more creative about those sort of things because she is task driven but she is also she's very driven by like rewards so the reward the reward is that we're we're getting to the bottom of this bowl we don't have any more slips of paper to worry about.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Um, what was there was another one that was going to oh my gosh.

We had one of them here about napping which I feel like I get I don't know if I'm maybe I'll get to that.

These Andy on here on our list we had this kind of like joining parenting groups or joining like online communities or whatever which I am.

I think I'm a part of a couple of those maybe it you know Andy's always I was the big advocate for a lot of different online community groups things that he's a part of and has found that I know helpful I.

I would say this.

You know there's so find yourself a good online parenting group.

There are some that are cesspools of judgment and you know what I'm like because now everybody parents the same way and everybody has the same whatever but there are some I think that legitimately just are just trying to share resources and be helpful and and cool which is which is great which is you know what we're trying to do.

So I would I'd seek out seek out some of those are you I'm trying to think what there's some online groups that I'm thinking of right now that are they're not so much parenting focus groups.

I'm almost embarrassed to say that we're part of them.

They're groups there they're nosy neighbor groups.

Oh yeah.

We're talking about.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Those aren't parenting groups.

They're not parenting groups but it's like hey does anybody know what what Johnny's running around the street.

Yeah.

What's it's anybody's seen this man.

Those sort of things.

That's not really what I'm talking about so much but there there's some good there's some good stuff out there.

People people sharing with each other.

So Tim Blom is commented on it and he says that he's here to spice up the chat.

So Tim Blom thanks Tim for spicing the chat up.

Yeah.

So the next thing that I'm all a fan of is digital record keeping and I'm talking about things like note apps particularly you know whether it be Evernote or just the you know Apple notes on your phone but important information like your medical history.

The nice thing about if you have an app that like the notes on your Apple iPhone or on Evernote is you if you have that a shared account with your wife because I'm thinking about thinking things in there.

Keeping things like medical history, milestones, school activity because inevitably I get somewhere where I end up having to take the kid to one of our kids to the doctor.

You gotta fill out a form or whatever.

Fill out a form and I have no idea what their social security number is or not even that but I don't know.

I mean most of the time I know what my kids are.

I mean I do know what my kids are allergic to so don't get me wrong there.

Good.

That's a job.

I mean I'm not sure but that way you have it with you and you don't look like that dad who's just like I don't know.

Yeah.

What?

I thought frequently it's like I don't.

I think I have pictures saved of my kids like birth certificate like birth certificate and or social security card number but like there's probably there is a better way to.

Jackie and I so we have some Google Docs that are shared like with all of our online account information stuff.

That's another good one too.

I didn't really think about that but Google Docs would be good because then you can kind of keep, especially if it's medical history or whatever you can keep it in a spreadsheet you can keep it in the Google Docs.

Yeah I just, namely it's my Southwest Airlines account whenever Jackie gets tickets.

I need the miles.

I'm working toward a goal and I need, let's get the points.

Let's log into the account.

I totally hear you.

Let's make the most of the situation.

Yeah.

Those are shared Docs are good.

We do, we have a, what I was going to say is we have like our monthly finance doc like Bill paid that.

That like helps us keep track of like, hey, did we pay that?

So that's nice.

Okay.

So Tim, I, Tim actually just commented.

He says that they share notes on like things like eternal shot, eternal shopping lists, you know, so they can quickly pick up something that she needs from the grocery store as well as a shared packing list for family trips so that they know who packed what that isn't.

Excellent idea.

Excellent idea because.

That's an excellent idea.

Because if you're especially if you're packing, you know, you don't want to get to let's say Colorado and for instance, for instance, and then go, hey, Joel, did you pack Molly's whatever and you're like, no, I thought you did.

So no, it's 2000 miles away now.

Yes.

Then you got to go buy it.

Do you guys have a, here's one list.

Do you guys have a camping packing list, like a one that you've established?

No, because, because this kind of goes with our, our, my next thing in the next thing is the designated toy zones.

So, but.

I love to see how you're going to tie this together.

I'm going to because because with your toy, with designated toy zones, you can have toy bins too.

And so that way makes it easy to clean up.

I see.

But the nice thing, I'll go back to the camping thing, don't worry.

But the nice thing about having a toy zone is because then you can say, no, those toys need to stay here.

Instead of, instead of all over the house, because inevitably I'm going to end up, in fact, I just saw this today.

As I was leaving my house, I look and I see right by our back door, we have a rack and it has a little like coat hooks on it.

And I saw two Barbies hanging from that in the kitchen.

Right.

And those don't play.

We don't, we don't have designated Barbie kitchen or kitchen Barbies.

So.

Those Barbies were out of their zone, man.

They were.

They were out of their zone.

They were terrible.

But so I'm tying this back to the camping is because we do have a bin or two of things that are essential.

Like a lot of stuff for us since we have a camper stays in the camper as far as camping stuff goes.

In fact, we do even do have designated toys that stay in the camper for Hattie.

Camper toys.

We know that they're in there and it goes back to the rotating toys because she doesn't get to see those toys every day.

And so then when she's like, yeah.

And so that way, yeah.

And so the, for us, like our essential camping stuff that doesn't stay in the camper stays in a bucket, a bin, a plastic bin that we can easily go find those things when we want to find them.

So, so yeah, that's how I tied that back.

I like it.

Yes.

So you've got it.

And that's the.

I am a, I'm a big, I'm a big fan of, and I'm actually very, I'm a very particular about my, about my bins and my bin management.

Oh, you're one of those.

I am.

I'm a bin elitist.

Well, because here's the deal.

I've just decided with the bins, like I get good ones because it's like, I'm going to beat them up.

And I'm going to put, and by the way, I'm going to stack them.

They're going to get stacked tall.

Yeah.

And so, you know, let's let them hold.

Andy, you'll know the bins I'm talking about because you can get them at Menards.

It's black bin yellow.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

It's the quintessential bin.

They lock in, they lock in nice with each other.

Yeah.

And they sit on top of each other nice.

Yeah.

Can't beat it.

And I'm not ashamed to say that I, that I just have very particular about, about my bins and those, and those are the ones.

I think they run, I think those run around eight.

Well, they were like eight.

You can get them at Menards, I think right around eight dollars per bin.

They're probably more now.

Yes.

Probably a lot more.

I just remember getting them on sale.

I'm not looking for that.

I don't have any of those.

I have more of the bigger rubber made type ones that aren't quite as rugged as the ones you're talking about.

But those, but those ones I, those ones I like to use for our long term storage or the ones that were, well, it's the ones that were,

for like the kids clothes management and stuff like that.

Oh yeah.

We're, we're putting away each year.

We're rotating stuff through in and out all the time.

But the reason I was going to say the reason for the bin is exactly that.

Or if I have a bin that's dedicated to something and for trips or things like that, that we, it's just like, you just know when you grab it and pull it and throw it in, everything's there.

Now, do you, do you label the top of your bins?

So like with a great tape on the top and put.

I do.

The other thing here, let me, let me tell you this.

Okay.

So this is a handy, handy tip too.

So what I would do, and I've not done this for a little while, but I've done this before is I print out a QR code.

Yes, you do.

That I stick on top of the bin.

Yes.

And then I have a note that that, you know, the public note from my, you know, like, whatever note at taking out.

And so I can scan that and it brings up my notes and that you can put right in there and it's easy to update.

Cause then they'll say you take out the lantern and you don't, you replace it with Johnny's shoes.

No, baby set.

What was her name?

Uh, baby.

Silly newborn.

You put Silly newborn diapers in there.

You can see that easily and but you don't have to update the tape on it.

Right.

So that's, that's like.

Andy, Andy, what you've just shared here is worth the price of admission for this entire show.

Uh, you've just blown my mind.

I love everything about that idea.

Uh, so it's basically like, Hey, this is, this has been number one QR code.

Right.

You can permanently assign.

You could cause I, I'm a big fan of laminating things.

If you've got access to a laminator, um, I may or may not have been using church office materials for years, but while I was still in there.

When you find yourself a good church laminator boy, oh boy, laminates at QR code, a fix it.

Maybe some, maybe a hot glue gun situation.

Tim is on it tonight.

He says no one puts baby salad newborns, Sally newborn in a band.

Nope.

That's not what we're advocating for.

No, just the diapers, Tim.

Just the diapers.

Thank you.

Thank you for the clarification.

Um, see how much fun you can have if you join us live.

Yeah.

That's a good time.

Uh, but I like, I love, I love the QR code.

Linking the QR code to a doc.

Doc pulls up.

Right.

See, you have a doc, you have a doc for each bin.

And so that way it's easy to just scan.

And then if it's again, if it's public, your wife can scan it.

Anybody can scan it and see it.

And that way it stays with the bin.

And yeah, that's a, that's a great, that's a great, that's a dude's now.

I like what I would also do is, is I would also maybe, uh, put a number or something on there.

So you are named the bin.

Uh, so that way you know, cause otherwise you'd have like 50 yellow tubs,

yellow and black tubs that just have QR codes.

Then you don't, without scanning each and every one, you don't know, kind of know,

but you know what I'm saying?

Like if you, if you name it something, then you know, um, then you know exactly kind of,

you get an idea.

You may remember that, oh, in bin, whatever, yeah, green bin or red bin or,

I can't think of any naming schemes right now, but, uh,

Bin alpha.

Yeah.

Whatever you want to call it.

That way you, you kind of have an idea what's in there.

Um, again, you may not know all of the details in this, you scan it,

but that way you can kind of get an idea.

Okay.

I know that this is normally the camping bin.

Yep.

So that's the stuff.

That's good.

Yeah.

I, uh, I just like, again, I'm a big fan of a quality of a quality bin.

Not to mention the black and yellow or also the dudes and dads brand.

That's actually true.

That's a Tim Blom.

Another Tim Blom.

That's honestly Tim.

I'm glad you said that.

Um, that's honestly probably like some sort of weird subconscious thing that I

haven't like, why was like drawn to it?

I just, I liked him, I liked him because they were built.

I really think it is they stack the best.

They do.

And they don't, cause Jack and I, a few years ago had what I like to refer to

as the great Ben Avalanche of whatever, whatever year it was.

It was when we were still doing a lot of the child, the children's resale, um,

stuff and we're, you know, we're trying to make use, we were making use of the

bins, but not of any sort of shelving unit.

And so we're stacking them high downstairs in the storage area and a few of them

gave way and it was, it was not pretty.

It was not, there was, there was, there were damaged bins.

So we've, I've tried to our game a little bit and never put Sally in the bin

because then she will be damaged.

Yeah.

That's true for life.

That's for sure.

So, so what do you think about automated bill playing?

Oh, so the reason I would say that is because again, that way you can have,

you make sure that you're not going to miss things.

You're not going to miss the payments.

Um, that, that is a good thing.

And it saves you time too, because then you don't have to go through every week

or every other week or however often you get paid and make those payments.

Now again, this may or may not work for you.

Uh, some people, um, myself included, like, like our, for our family likes to have,

we like to do the bills just because that way we have,

we both can talk about it and have an eye on what our finances are happening.

But, um, if you're into the automated bill, bill pay, or want to give it a try,

I'd say that that's a good thing to try and set up because you end up having,

you get free time back because you don't need to actually make those,

those bill payments then.

Yeah.

There's always just a few that I'm always like, I'm always just concerned about like,

will we, will we remember to do, right?

Or that also can get you in trouble because you can forget that you're paying for things.

Yeah.

That you have, you know, again, I wouldn't necessarily, I mean,

Netflix is a bill that you may forget about that you have that.

And so when you really could be getting rid of it because you're not using it anymore.

So that's the other downside of that is you may end up with accumulating

services and things that you don't remember about.

So that's, as they say, that's how they get you Andy.

They do.

So another thing that I think is really important is an emergency contact list.

Cause this includes things like doctors and schools and babysitters for easy access in

case of emergencies, not just for, for babysitters, because I mean,

that's handy for babysitters because then they can know who to contact.

You know, and this, I would include things like grandparents and obviously parents,

but doctors, cause that way anyone who's watching your kid can have it.

You could even land my QR code and put it on the back of the baby.

I'm all about the QR codes today, but who's baby is this?

Please scan it.

Oh, here's a grandparents.

So, no, I think that's a good idea because it allows you to leave it again on the fridge

or whatever.

And anyone who's watching your kid can know who exactly to contact.

And again, you could even put things like alert allergies,

and things on it, you know, like especially for, for, you know, you have a kid who's allergic to nuts,

tree nuts and, and so like those are things that are important to have.

So I would definitely have a contact list that's visible in your house,

but as well as something that can easily be shared.

Again, I'm all about the notes that can be shared.

So if you can, you know, have, I know that the, the Apple notes app is really easy to create a note and you can invite people to it.

So let's say you have a babysitter for the night, you can say, I'm going to text you this or whatever and text on the link to that.

So it's really easy to, to share that out for the people if they need to get a hold of somebody.

Yep.

I think, I think Jack and I have used those for, the shopping list is what we're going to use.

I've used those for, the shopping list is what we use that for frequently.

I think that's probably the big one.

But yeah, that's, that's good stuff.

Andy, what else?

So here's a couple of things that I, that I'm going to, I'm skipping to the bottom of our list right now,

but I like the two that are the very last like digital story time.

So, you know, and this is, this is something that I mean, my kids aren't necessarily, I mean, that's not true.

Had Elex having story time with me still, because she's still young, but I was actually away on business this last week.

And I didn't do this for her.

Kind of wish I would have now, but digital story time.

So you use something like ebooks or any other apps to read that you can read and read, go open your recorder app on your phone.

So you have the, you know, whatever phone you have has a voice recorder memo on it.

Yeah.

You can read that out and then send it to your spouse.

And that way when you're gone, you can go ahead and play that for your kid.

And it's not quite like you're there.

I mean, obviously it's, it you're not there physically, but it allows them to still hear your voice and still read the thing.

The other thing you could do is if you, if you're going to be away, but you have time at bedtime,

you could go to something like FaceTime or whatever it is, some sort of a video chat app.

And you could go ahead and read it.

If you'd bring the book with you or you have a copy of the book and they have a copy of the book,

you can, you know, read the book to them as they're there.

Love it.

And then the last, I think the last thing that I'm going to say as a parenting hack is using a gratitude journal.

So this is things for, I think all of us because I mean, you can, we've done it with our kids might, you know,

especially how he has a gratitude journal, but I think this is great as a parent too,

because you can reflect on the positive aspects of parenting and life even during challenging times.

Because we know, Joel, we all know that challenging times happen and, you know,

you may end up going pulling your hair out over parenting sometimes, right?

But with the gratitude journal, you can go ahead and look back on that and go, oh, that's right.

Like, but this is a positive thing that happened.

And you can remember what you're thankful for while you're parenting.

And so that can help out a lot.

Yeah. And, you know, you can invite your kiddos into that too.

Do it on a digital note app and share it with everybody.

Perfect with a QR code.

No, don't do that.

Yeah, share your journal with everyone.

Why not?

I think it's called a blog.

Yeah, it really is.

Twitter.

Oh, no, X, right?

X.

Whatever it is.

The artist formerly known as that is Twitter.

Yeah.

Well, and I think, you know, nowadays, as we just think about, you know,

the whole hack thing and shortcuts and things like that, there, there are a lot of,

I mean, a lot of these have, there's a technological component to them.

There's, you know, there's little, little to no cost with a lot of, with a lot of them.

And it frees up a lot of your time.

That's the idea with the hacks you're talking about tonight.

There's a lot of them are time saving hacks.

And so you can actually get more time back to parent.

I mean, to, yeah.

Not, not spending all your time doing, doing the admin work as we, as we call it.

So that's, you know, hopefully it's helpful.

And I would say, you know, these are things, man, just a couple of them, you know,

if you do incorporate a couple of them, you know, you might see some real,

you might see some real changes you and your, you and your spouse partnering together on that too.

Kind of coming together as a team and saying, Hey, what are some,

what are some things that we could do to gain back a little time, gain back a little margin.

It's, it's a good and healthy conversation to have.

Well, we want to thank you guys for joining us tonight.

If you joined us live, which you should now streaming that live,

you can always watch us live when we record.

So that's where the best fun, it's where the most fun is at.

Right. Because Tim joined us tonight for the first time and he loved it.

Gosh, Tim, what a, what a, what a fellow.

What a fellow.

Hey everybody, as always,

you can head over to dudesanddadspodcast.com for all the show notes and all the goodies, past episodes.

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