How To Simplify Your Life and Be Happy
Is your life as easy as it could be or are you making things harder for yourself than they really need to be? Most of us need to take a step back from time to time and take a long hard look at our lives and decide what is working and what isn’t. Learning how to simplify your life and be happy is a work in progress but something that we all need to address at times to help us focus on the important things rather than wasting time on tasks or chores that serve no purpose.
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What Does It Means to Simplify Your Life?
So what does it mean to simplify your life? Well simplifying your life means looking at the way in which you live and finding ways to cut out the unnecessary, the unhelpful, the chaos, clutter and anything that may be sapping your time and energy or causing you stress. Living a simple life is a way of trying to keep your day to day tasks to the bare minimum so that you get more time to spend doing the things you love.
Too often we spend our lives multi-tasking and juggling things that stop us from spending time with our families and friends or stop us from having enough free time to focus on self-care. When the unnecessary elements are removed and the remaining tasks are streamlined it can be surprising to find that the really important things we need to pay attention to don’t take up much time at all.
How to Make Your Life Easier
Learning how to simplify your life and be happy involves taking that all-important step back to assess the important things we have to focus on and ditching the bad habits or time sappers that are really unnecessary.
A really easy way to do this is to start writing down a list of all the things that you need to pay attention to each week or even monthly. When you have the list ask yourself:
- Do you need to do that task at all?
- If you have to do the task is there an easier way of doing it?
- If there is an easier way what do you need to do to make that happen?
Remember you don’t need to focus on everything at once. Look at our list that is going to help you to simplify your life and start ticking off some of the suggestions that we have come up with.
Simple Living
Simplifying your life, slow living and minimalist lifestyles are now becoming big movements worldwide. Where once many of us were happy to be overcommitted and on the go all the time there has been a universal recognition that this has a detrimental impact on mental health.
Simple living is a way of streamlining your life so that it works better for you. Slow living is a way of slowing down the pace of your life and creating better habits so you no longer feel overwhelmed.
The book Slow – The Art of Simple Living is a great read if you want to find out more about this growing movement and how it can help you to focus on your health and happiness.
Simplifying Your Life – 20 Ways to Make a Difference
We have come up with 20 suggestions to help you get rid of unnecessary elements in your life so that you focus on simple living and making yourself happy. Each of the tips that we are sharing is designed to help you take care of the important things and ditch the unnecessary. Learning how to simplify your life and be happy will hopefully become much easier with our tips.
Think about how our suggestions can be applied to your life and find ways to change areas of your life that aren’t working. Remember the more free time you claw back for yourself the more time you can spend doing things that you love.
Simplify Life – Limit Social Media
If you regularly post on social media or spend time browsing on Pinterest, Facebook, Tik Tok or Instagram then start thinking about whether this is really a productive use of your time. Spending all day on social media as many people do can negatively impact your mental health and become a bad habit where you are a slave to likes and comments from people that you may not have even met.
Whilst we are talking about social media think about everything you do online including your email inbox as well. Is your inbox regularly cleared out or are you the person with thousands of messages piled up waiting to be answered?
Simplify your life by resolving to spend only a limited amount of time on social media accounts. That way you won’t allow it to dominate your life.
When it comes you your inbox do one big clear out to get it under control. Then either action each email as it comes in or delete it forever. Don’t forget to unsubscribe to all those unnecessary emails either. Nobody needs to get an email a day from every shopping site so start exercising your right to say no.
Build Free Time Into Your Schedule
Is your diary or planner so packed that you don’t have the space to squeeze in anything else? Do you say yes to everything and find that you have no time left for yourself?
Start creating a policy of having a diary with lots of free time built in to do what you want to do instead of having to focus on everyone else. Finding time for your self-care is important for your mental health and will assist your happiness.
It also means that if something unexpected does come along you won’t be worrying about when you will have the time to deal with it.
Stop the Multi-Tasking
If you find that you spend your life multi-tasking and trying to do two or even three things at once it’s time you called a halt on your bad habit. Being so busy that you are trying to do everything at once isn’t something to be proud of instead it is a great way to exhaust yourself and create stress.
Simplify your life and start to focus on one task at a time and do it well. Decide where your priorities are and do the most important things first and then leave the others until later. You have limited resources and energy so use them wisely so that you protect your physical and mental health.
Simplify Your Home – Declutter By Getting Rid of Things You Don’t Need
There is a good reason right now why tv shows about cleaning clutter are filling the schedules. In our consumerist society, too many of us have clutter and junk that we hardly ever use. Our kitchen cupboards, wardrobes and drawers are filled to the brim with clothes and gadgets that barely get used and they clog up our homes.
Taking time to declutter isn’t complicated yet too many people find it impossible to get rid of the mountains of hoarded products because it feels overwhelming. The problem is that clutter slows us down, makes our houses look a mess and prevents us from finding the things we actually want. It can also be detrimental to your mental health.
Take a leaf out of the Home Edit or Marie Kondo and start to find time to remove the clutter from your life. When you do you are going to be shocked at how much simpler and easier your life will be.
Ways to Simplify Your Life – Create Routines
If you are looking for ways to simplify your life and be happy then start to think about creating routines. When you have great routines in place it can be much easier for your life to run like clockwork.
For example, having a morning routine is a great way of getting up and out of the house (with or without children) without it being a last-minute frenzy of activity. Creating good habits and building a system that works takes the stress out of your life. Think about areas of your life where you could create a good routine and you will find that your life becomes much less complicated.
Our morning manifestation routines can even help you to reach your goals and be more successful.
Focus on Friends That Matter
We all have different groups of friends in our life who either enhance our world or make it slightly harder. Start to focus on the friends who make your life better and start to drop the people who are energy vampires, create drama or who are too much like hard work.
Remember you aren’t getting rid of people who love and care for you only the peripheral friends who take up too much of your time but give back very little in return. It may seem harsh but it makes sense to find room for the people who bring you joy instead of the ones who make things difficult or complicated.
Start Writing Priority Lists
If you want to get something done and learn how to simplify your life and be happy then make a list. Lists are great ways to take information and start organizing it into some type of priority order.
There is something about lists that helps us clarify and control our lives so that they become less complicated. They are great time savers, they help to prevent us from forgetting important things and they save us time and energy.
You can create to-do lists, brainstorming lists, shopping lists, meal plans, budgeting lists and a whole lot more. Start by creating some simple ones first and start to tick off everything you need to do. The lists should make your life significantly easier and help you to be more productive.
Automate
There are some things in your life that are just crying out to be automated it’s just a matter of setting things up so that each week or month things get done with as little as possible input from you.
One of the first things you should try and automate if you can is the weekly shop. Why spend hours wandering aimlessly around a supermarket where companies are happy to get your list and bring your shopping to your door saving your hours of wasted time.
You can also automate your bills so that they pay themselves. Alternatively, automate your computer back-ups. When you start to look you’ll realise there are plenty of things that you can do to save time and create simplicity in your life.
Simplify Everything – Get Organized
How on earth are you supposed to learn how to simplify your life and be happy if you are not organized. If you haven’t got a clue where things are and have to wade through mountains of paperwork or junk to find what you are looking for then you are making your life way too complicated.
Organization is different from decluttering. Decluttering means removing things from your home that are never used and are taking up space. Organizing means taking what’s left and tidying it and creating systems so you can find what you are looking for easily.
Organizing your paperwork, cupboards and even your wardrobe means that you will never need to spend another day hunting for stuff.
There are so many great organizational products that you can buy to help. Everything from document folders to trays and storage boxes. Start organizing one room and make your way around your home to save you time and stress.
Get to Grips With Your Finances
One of the biggest areas where we see problems with our clients is in their financial life. Their inability to get a grip of their finances and bills causes worry, stress and debt. Yet by taking some simple steps it would have been possible to avoid this financial stress.
Learn how to simplify your life and be happy by facing up to your money issues instead of ignoring them and burying your head in the sand start to take control of your bills and finances. This might mean creating budgeting sheets, reorganizing your debt so you pay less interest or understanding your pension and contributions.
Use the Clever Fox monthly budget planner and bill organizer to start you on the road to financial freedom. This is a brilliant planner to help you track your money, understand your outgoings and save cash.
Create Time Saving Habits
There are many ways to learn how to simplify life and be happy and that includes making an effort to create time-saving habits.
There are plenty of ways to save time in your day if you only look for them. Here are some simple ideas that you can use to save time on everyday tasks.
- Plan your Meals.
- Use a slow cooker.
- Cook food in bulk and freeze the extra.
- Put things back as soon as you have used them.
- Schedule your time.
- Clean as you go.
- Create a schedule for tasks.
When you find ways to simplify your world everything becomes easier and you free up time to spend doing the things that you love.
Delegate to Others
Do you do enough delegating to family or work colleagues? The fact is that too many people like to control every detail of their life and end up working ten times harder because of their inability to let go of even the simplest tasks.
If your family isn’t pulling their weight it might be time to start delegating some of your tasks to them in order to save time. As an example, your kids might unload the dishwasher or put their clean clothes away. Your partner might take over some of your day to day chores. This frees up some of your time.
The same applies at work especially if you are in a senior or managerial position. You need to start to trust your colleagues or staff with some of your work so that you can concentrate on what is important rather than trying to spend your time filing or doing simple spreadsheet work.
Remember your time is valuable so sometimes it makes sense to play to your strengths rather than waste time on activities that anyone could do.
Goal Setting
If you are looking for ways to simplify elements in your life then goal setting can help. Setting goals helps you to set an intention of what you want to achieve and when you need to finish it.
A simple example of a goal might be clearing a room of clutter. You might decide that the room has to be clear within a month and each week you set yourself a goal to clear one element of the room such as a cupboard or drawer.
Setting goals helps to prevent overwhelm and helps you to achieve tasks with minimal fuss. This is especially the case if you make your goals time-limited to prevent procrastination.
Minimize Your Life – Find a Place for Everything
Do you know where everything in your house should be? Is there a space for everything or systems so that you know where to find something without stress? If there isn’t it might be time to think about ways you can put your stuff in places in your home where it can be easily found.
Learn how to simplify your life and be happy by finding a place for everything. As an example, how many of you have come home and put your mobile phone or keys somewhere and then forgot where you put them? Looking for them can waste so much time and cause you hours of frustration over the course of a year.
There are so many ways to solve issues like this by designating areas of your home for certain articles or objects. For example, you might put up a key rack. You could buy a shoe cupboard to place the shoes that you wear on a daily basis near the front door. You could add a hook to a cupboard where you hang your handbag when you come in. The possibilities for making things easier for yourself are endless when you try.
Pay Others
If you have the money and want to simplify your world then do consider paying others to do the jobs that you don’t want to do or can’t do. There are people out there who can do just about everything so make use of their services when tasks either take up too much of your time or make you miserable.
You could think about hiring any of the following to make your life easier:
- Cleaners
- Decorators
- Virtual Assistants
- Social Media Managers
- Personal Shoppers
- Gardeners
- Declutter experts
- Interior Designers
Be Prepared
If there is one thing in life you can guarantee is that on occasion you need to be ready for the unexpected. No matter what systems you have things go wrong but with a little preparation, you can be ready for the problems and have solutions ready to use when things don’t go right.
Learn how to simplify your life and be happy by creating some simple organization in your home. Some basics you can think about include buying a first aid kit for unexpected minor medical issues. Building a stain remover kit for when you drop that glass of red wine on your clothes or carpet. Have money saved for a rainy day so that when the roof starts leaking you have the money to be able to pay for repairs or have a stash of occasion cards ready to use in case you need to find a birthday card fast.
There are literally hundreds of potential ways you can prepare yourself for lives little mishaps so that when they do arise you are able to handle them with ease.
Change What You Buy
When you are simplifying your life you sometimes need to ask yourself do you really need to buy more items for your home that is already jam-packed full of goods, or clothes that you don’t really wear? In our consumerist society, we can get sucked into spending money on stuff that we really don’t need or want. This leads to us having huge amounts of items around the home that never get used.
Start budgeting your money and get yourself out of debt by saving your money and only spending on the priorities. When you start doing it you’ll probably feel liberated and feel relief that you won’t have to face a huge monthly credit card bill.
Use a Planner
Are you a great planner or do you spend a good portion of your time running from one location to the next leaving a trail of chaos in your wake? Using a good planner is one of the easiest ways to learn how to simplify your life and be happy.
Smart Planner Pro have a great product that has been designed to help you find ways to be more productive and efficient. This is a great planner that has everything from daily schedules and monthly calendars to-do lists, notes habit tracking and a whole lot more. It also has stickers which we love to highlight particular things like meetings and birthdays.
If you get into the habit of regularly filling in a planner and jotting down your appointments, daily priorities and simple lists and notes your life just starts to become so much easier.
Learn to Say No
If you are over-committed in your life then you absolutely need to learn the power of using the word no far more often. It can be easy to fall into the trap of agreeing to do things but each of those things you say yes to soon begin to add up and before you know it your busy life is no longer fun but full of stress and worry.
Start to take a long hard look at your life and decide if you are over-committed and what you can do about it. Some of the things we regularly see in our therapy rooms are people complaining of stress because they are trying to juggle their family life with looking after a house and trying to work. Yet when we ask them to tell us their commitments we find they have also agreed to be on a school committee once a week or they are doing extra charity work or activities that are non-essential.
If you are feeling burnt out then some of these other commitments need to be stopped even if it is only temporarily to give you time for yourself and self-care. If you don’t then you are going to find that your mental health will suffer.
Think carefully and start to differentiate between essential commitments vs non-essential ones. When you start to say no to the latter your life becomes so much simpler.
Shop Online
Finally, if you want to learn how to simplify your life and be happy start shopping online. Online shopping since the pandemic has just exploded because just about everything you ever wanted is there and available at the click of a button.
Gone are the days where you would trawl around the shops all day trying to find the perfect gift or item of clothing. Instead, you just pop online do your searches and you are likely to find what you are looking for on a website in minutes.
Now of course if you love to shop in physical shops that is fine as well because sometimes you want to see what you are buying in the flesh but do you really need to spend your precious time on a Saturday in a supermarket picking up laundry detergent and pasta? Of course, you don’t which is why online food shopping can be a fantastic way of clawing back part of your week so that you can spend your time doing something you love instead of filling it with chores.
More Ideas to Help You Create a Happy Life
Self-Improvement Challenges for Personal Growth
20 Rules to Life by For a Happy Life
How to Manifest Your Dreams Into Reality
10 Ways to Cultivate a Healthy Mindset
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