Blog

By Jennifer Smith

Returning home from a vacation can make you feel like you need another vacation. Managing the pile of mail, voicemails, dirty laundry, and unpacking can easily becoming overwhelming. If you don’t have a homecoming game plan, your house can easily become more disorganized than your bulging suitcase. Follow these steps to save yourself time and clutter when you return home from paradise.

1. Plan for your homecoming before you go on vacation. Make sure that you wash the dishes, run that last load of laundry, and tidy up so that you don’t come home to a pigsty. Coming home to a mess can make you feel even more overwhelmed while coming home to an organized abode can motivate you to keep it clean!

2. Make a To-Do list of your post-vacation priorities that need to be accomplished. Planning out what needs to be done will help you plan your time and feel accomplished as you complete each task.

3. Designate a spot to unpack and get to it. Unpacking in one area can prevent you from spreading the inevitable mess throughout your home. Aim to unpack everyday items such as personal care products first so that you don’t have to dig through a pile to find something when you need it.

4. Unpack clean clothes. It sounds overly simple, right? Unfortunately it is all too easy to leave this task for last, which means that your clean clothes will likely be wrinkled and in need of laundering. Put clean clothes away ASAP and send dirty clothes off to the laundry room.

5. Don’t let your vacation end the day you get back. Take off an extra day to get things done around the house so that you don’t return to work stressed and jet lagged. If you get everything done with time to spare, take a seat and organize your vacation photos or brainstorm for your next getaway.

Yes the rumors are true, as Scott Kirsner reported this morning, Kevin and I have decided to move west for the launch of TaskRabbit.com in San Francisco. It was a tough decision to head west, and I’ve appreciated all the support from family and friends as we make this journey. I realize there is some rivalry between the two coasts, especially when we are talking about a certain city, but our reason for moving is simple. TaskRabbit has a somewhat unique model, in that we are hyper-local, we scale city by city. It is only natural at this early stage, as the Founder, I would want to ensure that everything goes perfectly in the second market. So in order to absolutely nail our launch in San Francisco, I want to be out there, learning the landscape, the neighborhoods, and the idiosyncrasies. After this second city, we will have learned enough about scaling of the model to go quickly after that. Our Boston-based operations team will remain in place the Cambridge office to support our East Coast growth. Look for us to bring on more Boston suburbs this summer.

In the 18 months TaskRabbit has been doing tasks for people, we have experienced tremendous growth. The company has expanded from me working alone in my apartment in Charlestown, to five full time employees and an office in Cambridge. We have more than 300 runners completing tasks in the Boston area. And we are continuing to grow. It’s a dream come true.

Both Boston and San Francisco are home to some of the brightest minds in innovation and venture and we will look to both coasts when we seek an additional round of funding to support our growth.

Kevin and I are pretty excited. We’ll be driving across the country, with our 100lb yellow lab Kobe in tow. The timing worked out that my sister is getting married in Nashville, TN this weekend – at 2:30pm on Saturday. We’ve got 24 hours to drive from Boston to Nashville staring Friday afternoon. Of Memorial Day Weekend. One of the busiest driving weekends of the year. And hitting New York City at rush hour. We should be fine, right?! I am a little concerned, but we have to make my sister’s wedding, so that’s what we’ll do.

After Nashville, we plan to get on either I-70 or I-80 to make the trek to San Francisco. Would love any recommendations here.

You can follow our progress on Twitter and I plan to checkin on Gowalla the entire way. Maybe even get a few video blog entries in. Kobe is ecstatic, he loves a good car ride. Hopefully he’ll love the 3,000+ car ride as well!

As a recent bride myself (144 days in office and the popularity polls are holding steady) I only just caught up on my sleep and unwound from the fury of wedding planning. I did it all by myself and was super proud of having done so. But behind every frazzled bride is a team of BFFs, bridesmaids, parents and bloggers to help her along the way. No bride is an island!

RunMyErrand.com is very proud to announce that we will be offering Bridal Planning assistance to area brides! Whether you are a DIY bride who doesn’t shy away from a glue gun, or a busy bee bride who doesn’t have enough time in her day to troll the wedding websites and retailers, we can help you.

From picking up BM dresses at Priscilla of Boston to compiling planning timelines to just offering ideas and support, RunMyErrand has a team of bridal planning specialists and errand Runners available at all hours. No need to hire a bridal planner (save that thousand bucks and put it toward the honeymoon!) when you’ve got RunMyErrand here to help.

You can pick and choose which planning tasks you need help with along the way without any commitment- or – You can choose from a package of 10 services that we will be compiling (like today, that’s on my to-do list) for a flat fee.

No car? Hire a Runner to take car of those wedding errands that you can’t do on foot.

No time? Hire a Runner to help you prioritize and work through the mountain of details.

Small budget? No worries. Most wedding errands cost $10-$15 (and you get your first errand free, up to $15.)

Bridal Planning packages should not cost you an arm and a leg. We can make great vendor recommendations and get you well on your way to having the most perfect wedding day ever. Take it from me. I’m a wedding planner myself, and I, along with the other planner Runners, are at the helm of this crazy bridal planning ship ready to help!

Good day RUNmyERRAND! It’s Steve here wishing everyone a season’s greetings from London, UK where I’m studying for the year. Among other things, I’ve been checking out the entrepreneurship scene here and there’s some pretty cool stuff going on! Here’s four companies to give you a taste of what the Brits have to offer. Who knows, you might even start seeing these names in the States soon:

7digital: When it comes to digital music, the market is dominated by iTunes and Amazon, but 7digital is trying to break their dominance. The company has secured rights to a fairly large library with many of the mainstream hits of its larger rivals as well as some indie artists. However, 7digital is trying to differentiate itself with its online locker feature, which remotely backs up all your music. It also has a pretty strong B2B business going and there are plans to add video and ebooks soon. 7digital is available in the U.S., so check it out!

eCourier: This one has a strong American connection (founded by Dartmouth grads) and may be particularly interesting to RUNmyERRAND fans. Unlike traditional family courier operations, eCourier uses GPS, algorithms, and scale to optimize the effectiveness of its courier network. The company’s main clients are banks, law firms, and other business clients who need to send highly sensitive documents. They hope to become the UPS of same day local deliveries. eCourier is only available in London right now.

DIY KYOTO: DIY KYOTO makes the WATTSON, a cool little device for all those environmentally conscious consumers out there. It plugs right into your electric meter and helps you monitor how much electricity you’re consuming. You can also hook it up to your computer and get additional details about your energy consumption and effect on the environment. The WATTSON is not available in the U.S. yet, but as people become more conscious about the energy they use, don’t be surprised if you see this and other devices in a Brookstones in the near future.

Skimlinks: Calling all bloggers and online retailers out there! Skimlinks provides an innovative way to advertise on the Internet. It places links for products mentioned on a certain website to a retailer that sells it. In exchange, the webmaster earns a commission for every successful conversion. This works great for sites and blogs that review products and services. Skimlinks should be available in the U.S., so this could be a good way for some of you to earn some extra bucks!

Of course, one thing we don’t have here is RUNmyERRAND! With the crazy London weather and traffic, I sometimes wish we did. For those of you in Boston, take full advantage of it!

Have a safe and happy holidays everyone! Cheers!