by Kara | Feb 14, 2024 | Grocery, Laundry, Residential
Personal household assistants aren’t just for CEOs. The Seattle area is full of families with working parents who need an extra set of hands. Believe it or not, personal household assistants can do more than just get coffee, take phone calls, and remember to send anniversary presents.
Whether you’re a single working mom, a stay-at-home dad, or simply a couple that’s doing their best, it can be difficult to parent your children, run a household, and still have time for yourself. The 2023 State of Motherhood Survey reports that over 60% of moms get less than an hour to themselves each day.
It’s sadly understandable. With work, meetings, school, after-school activities, helping with homework, going grocery shopping, and prepping for the next day it’s a wonder parents get any free time at all.
This is why hiring a household assistant can be so beneficial for busy parents.
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Asking for Help Is Okay
We know asking for help can be difficult. It’s almost ingrained in us to try to take care of everything ourselves, and to view reaching out for assistance as a sign of weakness. We’re here to tell you that asking for help is okay — even encouraged!
Outsourcing tasks to a personal household assistant can help you focus on and be engaged with what truly matters, time for yourself and your family.
Imagine Your Life With a Pepper’s Personal Assistant
Pepper’s Personal Assistants can help you get some time back by taking care of that pesky to-do list and streamlining otherwise chaotic tasks and organizational duties.
For example…
While you’re at the office working, your household assistant can be taking care tidying up around the house.
When you’re in meetings, they could strip the beds, run a few loads of laundry, and fold everything neatly.
While you’re sending emails, they could load the dishwasher, take out the trash, or make lunches for the kids.
You don’t have to take time out of your day to run a pet to the vet or take your car to the shop because your assistant can do it for you.
When you come home in the evening, your dog is happy and relaxed because your assistant took her for a walk. And forget about the pet smells! Your kitty litter is freshly changed.
Your home is clean and tidy, and the fridge is full of groceries.
Instead of returning to a long to-do list, you’re coming home to a place where you feel comfortable. Now you can relax and focus on the things you want to do, not the things you have to do.
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Personal Household Assistants Can Relieve Stress and Improve Your Happiness
Having a personal household assistant is about more than just getting all the chores done. The peace of mind we bring can be a huge stress reliever.
When you’re dreading going home to all the dishes, it impacts your productivity and happiness. Instead, leave your home in the hands of someone professional, trustworthy, and eager to help. Life is too short to fight about who’s going to do the laundry.
Contact Pepper’s Personal Assistants Today!
If you’re a working mom or dad who needs a little help, 
to meet your new house manager and ally!
by Kara | Mar 31, 2021 | Home, Laundry, Organizational
With the change of season comes a reset of home life, and when we talk about spring cleaning, the question on everyone’s mind is: Where to begin?
This is our four-week guide on efficiently checking every nook and cranny off your list and who to call if you don’t have the time. Pro Tip: Start saving those Amazon boxes now for donations, repair, and storage.
This is a 3-minute read and a month full of activities. If you don’t have the time, we understand, follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, and we will make sure you get the spring cleaning bullet points.
Week One
Dust Everything
From top to bottom, start in the corners of the ceiling with either a broom or vacuum attachment to reach those pesky cobwebs hiding in your kitchen, living room, bedrooms, and bathrooms.
Then to the drapes, either launder them yourself or have them dry cleaned because, depending on how old they are, they have been collecting dust for years.
Now to shelves and tabletops, not forgetting your books and other decorative knick-knacks while adding anything for donation to the donation box.
Finally, the floors, vacuum, mop, wax, and shine because what goes up must come down, and this task will no doubt leave debris.
Clean Your Electronics
With a damp microfiber cleaning cloth, wipe down all the surfaces of remote controls, phones, both mobile and landlines, tablets, and computers. As some of the most touched items in the home, they are also the least clean.
Week Two
Sort Through Your Shoes
Open toe season is right around the corner, meaning the snow boots and wellies can be stored away, and any older shoes that need repair should be taken to the cobbler.
Clean Winter Bedding
Wash your couch covers, pillowcases, and any other linens used around the house to keep cozy, and take your winter coats to the dry cleaner.
Store Winter Items
As the weather begins to warm, the amount and weight of our clothing start to lighten. Begin boxing sweaters, coats, scarves, gloves, and woolen socks. Don’t forget to check the under-bed storage boxes. Is there anything to sell, donate, or consign?
Week Three
Declutter Your Medicine Cabinet
Believe it or not, cosmetics and medicines expire, and now is an excellent time to weed through them. Get rid of liquid makeup over three months old and powdered makeup that is over a year old. Remembering to be cautious if you have children or pets and where possible dispose of your expired medicines at your local pharmacy. Do not flush them.
Toss Bathroom Clutter
Take everything out of the bathroom linen closet, cabinets, bathtub, and shower. Wash all towels, rugs, and bath mats. Wipe down all surfaces before returning the items and sort those for trash, donation, or consignment.
Week Four
Clean Your Appliances
Take a microfiber cloth with some baking soda, vinegar, and salt as a natural cleaning solution to the oven, microwave, kitchen aid, and toaster oven, anything you cook with, including their plugs, tops, bottoms, sides, and accessories that came with them.
Clean Out Your Fridge and Cabinets
Pull everything out of your fridge and freezer, including the shelves, racks, and storage bins. Bulky things like this we have found best to wash in the bathtub.
Toss any old or unused, spoiled, or expired food items.
Use a cooler to keep things frozen and cool while you work to avoid spoiling.
Run your icecube trays through the dishwasher.
Wipe down insides and out before putting everything back in.
This is also an excellent time to check the kitchen cabinets for any other food that can be thrown out.
And Done
One month full of responsible spring cleaning activities complete. Now when the April showers begin to clear and the May flowers bloom, your home will be ready. Or you could just call someone:
Peppers Personal Assistants
206-228-5768
We’ll take care of it.
by Kara | Mar 5, 2021 | Home, Laundry, Organizational, Outsourcing
Some tasks only need to be done once or twice a year. In this new world of work-life balance from home, we forget to do them because work became life.
Below are our top five things to mark off your list this March to get the work done to only experience life.
This is a 3-minute read; if you do not have the time, we understand; follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, and we will make sure you get the bullet points.
1: Pull Everything off the Shelf
We put things on the shelf at work because they are good ideas but not the right time to execute. In contrast, we place items up on the shelf at home to celebrate them as done, accomplished, complete, or simply forget about them. March is a great time to clear everything from your home shelves, dust, and sort through to decide what stays and what goes.
2: Un-Box it
Life is one Amazon box after the other. Combined, all of these boxes fill our recycle bin to capacity. What do you do? Do you pay for the extra bin, or do you stack the cardboard in your garage until the next dump run? No! Donate it.
Give Back Box provides vendor services to retailers and charities, giving each cardboard box a second life to help people in need. Receive a box, unpack it, then fill it with the unwanted household items down from the shelf: clothing, shoes, etc., and make a significant difference in the life of another person.
3: Flip your mattress
In the world of foam mattresses, the question is to flip or not to flip, and our advice is to consult the manufacturer when in doubt. Most foam mattresses on the market today: Casper, Purple, Lucid, are not made for flipping; however, you can rotate them, remove the zippered cover, wash it and return it for fresher night sleep.
4: Wash and sort all linens
While washing the mattress cover and pulling things down from the shelf, now is also an excellent time to wash all your linens, and we mean all, even the ones at the very back or bottom of the closet or shelf.
5: Get Help
March can be a lot of work…Why not let us take care of it?
Find your personal assistant
by Kara | Sep 5, 2018 | Grocery, Laundry, Organizational, Residential
You’ve probably admired successful people who seem to do it all, and wondered just how they do it. A likely answer is that they don’t.
Outsourcing Spurs Success
Working professionals are increasingly turning to outsourcing as a means to lessen their loads, avoid fatigue, and perform higher-quality work. And they don’t just do this for business tasks, but for housework as well.
In fact, a study performed by the American Association of University Professors, which analyzed scientists’ “strategies to lighten the household load in order to maintain highly productive careers,” found a correlation between outsourcing core housework and being a highly productive science faculty member (based on the amount of articles published throughout a scientist’s career).
You can boil this down to economics — and we’re not talking about monetary costs here, but about opportunity costs. Every hour spent on a monotonous chore is an hour that could have gone toward a more productive activity. Professionals who understand the value of their time know that it’s better spent on what they’re really great at than scrubbing dishes.
What to Outsource
If you’re now wondering whether you’ve spent too much time doing tedious tasks yourself, you’re probably also wondering what to start outsourcing. The following tasks are a good place to begin, as they’re time-consuming and unrewarding for many people.
Grocery Shopping
Have someone else shop for you, have your groceries delivered, or even have someone else set up your home delivery. Either way, you’ll save yourself tons of time: The average person spends around 60 hours grocery shopping every year, and that’s not even counting travel time.
Cooking
People who are crunched for time often end up eating frozen meals or takeout more often than not. Outsourcing cooking can not only save you time, but also enable you to eat much healthier than before.
Those who really enjoy cooking also have the option of outsourcing meal prep, leaving everything ready for them to get started when they get home from work.
Laundry
For women, laundry consumes even more time than grocery shopping, at over 103 hours a year (men spend around 30 hours annually). Although you can always do the folding while half-watching TV, why not put all of your attention toward something more worthwhile?
Pet Care
Pet care can encompass at-home grooming, grooming and veterinary appointments, walks, cage or tank cleaning, and other chores and errands. These tasks often make having a pet feel like more of a burden than anything else, and leave you too worn out to spend any quality time with the animal.
Pave Your Own Way to Success
At some point, just finding the right people to take over these tasks for you becomes a task in itself. The easy solution to this problem is to hire a personal assistant. We’ll handle any household management, errands, and chores ourselves, and find, contract, and schedule the rest of the services for you — so you can put that time toward whatever you see fit.
