20 Chores You Can Stop Doing

An endless list of the same old household to-dos costs you time, money, and sanity. Here are some you can just skip.

- Jody L. Rohlena

1 WASHING YOUR HAIR EVERY DAY

It may sound counterintuitive, but if you shampoo too often, you will actually make your hair oilier. Washing strips hair of natural oils, so your scalp produces more, and then you have to wash again. Stick to two or three times a week, says dermatologist Tsippora Shainhouse, MD. Using a gentle, sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner will keep your scalp and hair from drying out too much.

2 USING A TOP SHEET ON YOUR BED

Save time making your bed every morning by skipping the tangle-prone top sheet. Many Europeans sleep directly under a quilt or a duvet with a cover, as do about 30 percent of Americans. Just be sure to make time every week to wash any bedding that touches your body.

3 RINSING DISHES

Unless you’re waiting days to run the dishwasher, rinsing wastes time and water. Simply scrape off any leftover food and put dishes right into the dishwasher, urge the experts at Consumer Reports.

4 SEARCHING FOR LOST SOCKS

You may swear that gremlins take your socks from the laundry, but in fact a single sock can slip into the gap between the washing machine door seal and the drum and get pumped away with the water. Prevent this from happening by washing sock pairs together in a wash bag.

5 BUYING HOME STORAGE ITEMS

You can easily spend hundreds of dollars on special bins, bags, boxes, and other storage containers. But some of the best ways to keep your possessions neat and organized come from repurposing simple things you already own. Organizing guru Marie Kondo is a fan of using shoeboxes as drawer dividers, for example.

6 IRONING HANGER BUMPS OUT OF CLOTHES