Simplify your life

So when I heard about living simply or simplifying your life, I thought it meant living a bare bones existence.  I kind of ignored all the articles because I knew I couldn't live without a lot of my stuff.  However, overtime I've come to realize that simplifying your life doesn't mean giving up everything.  Instead, I believe it means giving up stuff that that clutters your house and mind, things you just don't need hanging around.  Here are the top five things I did to simplify my life.

How to Simplify Your Life

Donate, sell or toss things you haven’t used in 2 years.  Seriously why are these things still hanging around.  We have a storage room in our house with lots and lots of totes. Some of these totes have just moved with us from our old house to our new house. What’s in them? Stuff we don’t need or use. I had a tote full of old blankets (nice but no longer used).  These were a perfect donation to our local Faith In Action center. The older blankets went to the local Humane Society. We also had a tote full of snowmobile stuff. We haven’t snowmobiled in 10 years, not kidding. My husband put this stuff on Facebook Marketplace and made a few bucks.

Organizing your clutter can be a life changing experience. Do you spend any unnecessary time on trying to find things in your own house? Such as, the never ending junk drawer. It never seems to be completely full, everything and anything can go in there. When you need a pen, do you have to dig through push pins, charge cords, rulers, cards, scissors, glasses pouches, coupons, etc...ugh!  The best way to get these drawers under control is using drawer dividers. Bottom line is getting your everyday things in order, will make your day a little less stressful and can simplify your life. These dividers are also great for your kitchen spices, bathroom items, desk drawers etc...

Plan Your Meals
Let’s face it food planning and organizing can be a fly by the seat of your pants experience on a daily basis. Taking a few steps to organize your food plan for the week can keep you from stressing out over dinner. Make a meal plan for the week before you get your groceries.  Use a crockpot or instant pot for super easy meals that’ll be ready when you get home from work. Or a pressure cooker for fast easy meals. Cut up your vegetables on Sunday so they’re ready to cook. Prepare your lunch the night before, so you aren’t running out for fast food, or eating out of the vending machine for lunch. Take steps to simplify your meals so you don’t have to worry through the week.

Easy money management. Worrying about whether or not a bill got paid or getting bills paid on time can cause anxiety.  Take advantage of companies offering the option to  pay online with automatic withdrawals. This is a huge time saver. Go paperless whenever possible, this will cut down on sorting through mail too. Set up an automatic savings app, there are plenty to choose from. I’ve been happy with acorns. Streamlining how you pay bills and save money is a great way to simplify your life.

Streamline Household Duties
 Don’t let cleaning, chores, and yard work overwhelm you. Simplify this by making  things easy to care for, use convenient cleaning systems and by delegating household responsibilities.  Keeping handy cleaning wipes under every bathroom sink makes it easy for anyone to do a quick wipe down, this cuts down on how often you have to do the “deep clean”. Use low maintenance plants in your landscape. Keep the knickknacks to a minimum to cut down on dusting. Stop doing everything for everyone, learn to delegate responsibilities here.

Top 5 Ways to Simplify Your Life

• Donate, sell or toss things you haven’t used in 2 years.
• Identify and organize areas of your house that are cluttered.
• Plan your meals weekly, prepare lunch the night before and use a crock pot or pressure cooker for easy dinners.
• Better money management. Pay bills online, go paperless, use Acorns to make saving  money easy.
• Management of household duties. Minimize stuff you have to clean, keep cleaning supplies handy and delegate chores to all members of the house.

Taking steps to simplify your life can make things more convenient, easier and reduce stress.  Hope you find these suggestions helpful. ♥ Kristen