Whether it’s just beginning or near its end, Daylight Savings Time is a handy reminder to do those twice-a-year chores. Below are a few suggestions for how to spend all that “extra” time. Pick one or do them all!

 

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When you change your clocks, change the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. This also may be a good time to consider upgrading your detectors to take advantage of the newest technology. For more information, read Smoke Alarm Savvy and Carbon Monoxide Alarms.

Practice your family’s escape plan and brush-up on your fire safety know-how. FireSafety.gov has extensive resources for learning about smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, fire prevention, and more.

Purge your files. HousekeepingChannel.com offers excellent advice on what to keep and what you can shred in Keeping Family and Household Records. If you tend to be a “keeper,” Monica Ricci offers 6 questions to ask as you go through the purging process in Conquering the Paper Mountain.

Organize your storage. This is the time of year when our storage areas are most in upheaval from putting away last season’s things and pulling boxes out for the new season. An hour or two invested here could save countless hours and frustration in the months ahead.

Have your furnace inspected and your chimney cleaned. For important safety tips, see the HC-Pedia entry on Chimneys.

Beat the clock. That extra hour we gain when Daylight Savings Time ends is really just a repayment of what we lost in the spring. But if you shave a few minutes off of each of your cleaning chores, you can gain up to 26 extra hours every year! To find out how, read Simple Tips for Big Time Savings.

 

(Note: The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of The Housekeeping Channel, LLC.)