Open House - A behind-the-scenes view of Manage My Home

A cure to overplanning

I overplan each weekend.

This weekend's to-do list reads something like this: cardio/lift (Saturday), bike 25 miles (Sunday), rearrange guest room, box up and store old VHS tapes, edge garden beds, epoxy antique doorknob back onto doorknob stem, mow lawn, wash bug poop off house exterior, wash exterior windows on 1st floor (I'm using restraint here by limiting it to the 1sr floor), finish glazing and painting basement storms and windows, make a recipe from new cookbook, go on garden tour with eldest sister, go to fancy garden center near garden tour to spend money I don't have on plants I don't need, find place in garden for new plants and plant them.

GASP! It don't take no high IQ to see that it's impossible to get all this done, unless I find a wrinkle in the space/time continuum — which is on next weekend's to-do list.

That is why I have great hopes for the new list feature on Manage My Home. I can record each task, add a little detail (go to hardware store for glazing compound and paint brushes) and assign a due date to it.

Seeing it all right there in front of me forces me to admit that I can't get it all done. So I decide which items I can push out for a week or two or eight, and reset their due dates. That helps me distill this weekend's list to the things that really really matter (gym, bike ride, mow lawn, basement windows, garden tour).

Even better, the tool is fun to play with, because it suggests similar items that other people have entered. I like seeing what it comes up with for random things like "Get passport photo." Ooops, I forgot that one. Back to my list...

-Erin, The Editor

$300 Million Worth of Appliance News

Appliances basked in (energy efficient) limelight this week as the Department of Energy announced that it's making nearly $300 million available to states to fund rebate programs for new ENERGYSTAR qualified home appliances. Appliances eligible for the program are central air conditioners, heat pumps (air source and geothermal), boilers, furnaces (oil and gas), room air conditioners, washers, dishwashers, freezers, refrigerators and water heaters.

The money will take a while to reach consumers' hands, but we know lots of our readers are eager to replace their old appliances with new energy efficient models. We'll keep a watchful eye on this developing news and let you know when you can expect to see your share of the funds. You can find initial details here.

In the meantime, check out the ENERGY STAR website to start planning which appliance (or appliances) you may replace once the rebate programs get rolling. The website has a ton of great information about appliances, tips for slashing your energy bills and several easy-to-use interactive tools for homeowners.

-Erin, Writer

Revisiting written work

Nothing humbles a writer like reviewing old work. Taking time and distance away from a piece of writing is akin to undergoing corrective (editorial) eye surgery. When you review an article a month, a week or even a day after adding the last sentence, you often think, "Did I really write that?" Hindsight can be harrowing.

But sometimes it's not so bad. Sometimes a writer just needs to step away and stop fussing with prepositions or second guessing verb choices. Writing holds an astonishing number of traps, not the least of which is that an article can absorb its writer, skewing her perspective. While time magnifies written mistakes, it also sometimes restores perspective, allowing a writer to think, "This article isn't nearly as bad as it seemed when I was deep in its throes."

This week, Manage My Home launched Dynamic Content Experience (DCE) pages. Users searching for a product manual now can click on a link that lets them experience the product more vibrantly on a product page. This page contains germane tweets from our Twitter community, suggested to do's, related products and relevant articles.

I've experienced both sides of editorial hindsight while working with our team to get DCE running. I spent a chunk of time flipping through our content, tagging articles and videos as Editor's Picks for the DCE system. While I came across a few less-than-stellar articles, I found our content breadth to be much deeper than I anticipated. While I definitely don't want to retag all that content (I now need new glasses), I do appreciate the opportunity the project gave me to spend quality time revisiting our writing.

-Erin, Writer

The long haul

You've heard it all before: We live in a short-attention-span culture based on quick thrills, fly-by-night fads and short-term gratification.

Sorry — what was I talking about? Oh, right. Short attention spans.

Anyway, rest assured that Manage My Home doesn't work that way. When you're doing a long-term project around the house, you want a site experience that will be there the whole way. So check out our Project Center. Not only do we walk you through pretty complicated projects step by step, but our community offers a great chance to expand your project experience beyond the simple act of finishing.

Check out this forum post on lawnmowers. We have experts and homeowners swapping ideas, teaching tips and more, to help you make the most of every project you do.

-Sam, Copywriter

Curating Content

Over the past couple of weeks the content team has been planning a curated content component for Manage My Home. We're scouring the Internet for quality blogs, forums and websites blanketing a range of home and garden subjects. Our developers are creating an editorial tool that will help us collect and present informative and (hopefully) inspirational content in tandem with our proprietary content.

The idea is to keep doing what we do well, while also connecting our readers to what others do well. If you have any favorite home-related blogs, websites or forums you think we should check out, please send us a note.

-Erin, Writer