How I Keep My Life Simple (and You Can, Too!)

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A simple life doesn’t just happen. You need to work on simplifying your life in order to live simply. Life has a tendency to get easily complicated if you don’t take care of your physical, mental, emotional, and financial issues, and don’t try to manage them well by keeping things simple.

“To realize the soothing power of a simple life is to find the secret of happiness!”. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan.

A simple life is usually a happy life. Simplifying your life will bring you balance, freedom, joy, and peace of mind. When you get rid of the stuff or people that make life complicated and stressful, you find more time and energy to focus on the things that matter most, that add more value to your life, and that bring you a long-term pleasure. All of this will allow you to enjoy your life more.

You may like to read: 9 Great Benefits of Living a Simple Life

I live a pretty simple life, and from my personal experience I know that simple living starts with a positive mindset and a vision for a meaningful, fulfilling life.

It’s a lifestyle that often includes cutting back what is unnecessary and streamlining your material possession, and living a more intentional life: a life driven by what’s most important and meaningful to you – not by your possessions or status. It’s not a destination but a journey. You can’t ever stop working on it. It’s a continuous process but a rewarding one.

How You Can Simplify Your Life:

In this article, I’m going to share some ideas to simplify your life that I regularly implement to keep my own life simple as much as possible.

Remember, a simple life reflects your passions, your purpose, and priorities. It pushes aside much of the busyness to make space for what truly matters. So, make a few changes to slow things down, reassess your priorities, declutter your home, your mind, your online/offline life, and reclaim your mental and physical spaces to restore yourself. Life will get so much simpler and happier!

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Buy and accumulate less stuff

The journey towards a simple life starts with owning less. Simple living is all about finding the beauty in less and putting quality over quantity. It’s about valuing things that make us happy instead of chasing status symbols or societal expectations.

How much do you really need to live a good life?

Not as much as you think or probably already own. In so many ways, our society repeatedly reinforces this belief that more possessions will make us happy and will impress the people around us. This focus on the materials keeps our minds and our homes cluttered, and drains our bank accounts, and creates further problems.

Make sure anything you have in your life has a good reason to be there, and serves your purpose well. Don’t buy anything if you know it’s something unnecessary or you can do without.

Invest in experiences, instead. They will enrich your life and make you happier than material possessions ever could. They will also put the material things into perspective.

Declutter on a regular basis

Declutter your home to simply your life. It has a profound impact on your mind and your spirit. One room at a time. Go around the room, and eliminate the unnecessary and unwanted stuff. Keep only what you can use and what is truly valuable.

Try to leave only the things that give you joy and add value to your life, and let everything else go. If you need extra tips on how to declutter and improve your life, you can refer to this wonderful book, Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff by Dana K. White, for help.

Related post: The Real Cost of Clutter in Your Life

Add this to your reading list: Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff by Dana K. White

Organize every corner of your home

Once you are done with decluttering and reclaiming your precious living spaces, take some time to organize the things in your kitchen, in your bedrooms, in living room, closets, bathrooms, and all other parts of your home. Find a right place for everything you are going to use.

As soon as you are finished using something, put it back where it belongs. That way, everything will be where it’s supposed to be when you need it, and that will reduce your stress. When you keep your possessions organized, you will probably find things you didn’t even know you owned.

Remember – decluttering comes before organization. If you declutter enough, you won’t need to organize much.

Have fewer goals and focus on what is important and meaningful

Many of us have tons of goals in life that keep us busy with things that are not truly important and meaningful. Also, it’s a lot harder to accomplish things when you have more goals than what you can manage to achieve. Because we often underestimate how much efforts and how long a task will take, and then we beat ourselves up over not making enough progress. As a result, you feel overwhelmed, frustrated, and unhappy.

Go through your priority list, remove those that don’t go with your current values and principles, and only focus on those goals that really make an impact. By reducing the number of goals that you are striving to accomplish, you will improve your focus and your success rate that will also increase your happiness.

Understand that everything being a priority actually means nothing is a priority.

Stay away from negativity or negative people

Do your best not to even entertain it. Negativity drains your energy and makes your life complicated. If you want to live a simple peaceful life, you can’t afford to stay in touch with those who are not positive-minded or like-minded.

If someone is draining your energy and adding nothing but negativity and drama to your life, you may need to reevaluate your relationship with them. Keeping negative people around – who are full of toxic thoughts and habits – guarantees that you will be almost always unhappy and miserable.

Also, ensure that your own self-talk is positive, and you don’t get in your own way and hamper your emotional and mental growth.

Spend time with those you love and care for

Once you let go of the things and people that don’t make your life simpler, easier, or more enjoyable, start spending more quality time with the people you love and care for – that inspire you, that support you, and that you enjoy spending time with.

Whether those people are a spouse, children, parents, siblings, other family members, best friends, or neighbors, find time to do things with them, talk to them, share with them, and be intimate with them.

Learn to say ‘no’ without feeling guilty

It took me a long time to learn to say ‘no’ politely without feeling guilty. As a result of that, I was unnecessarily making my life harder by keeping busy with the things or people that only added clutter and stress to my life. The sooner you learn it, the better it is for you.

Remember that every time you say ‘yes’ to something you don’t like to do or don’t have time to do, you are saying ‘no’ to something else that you want to do. Saying ‘no’ when you need to say ‘no’ is actually one of the key habits for those trying to simplify their lives.

Watch less TV and limit your screen time

Find ways to free up time for the the important and meaningful stuff. That means eliminating the things that are not useful, cutting back on time wasters, limiting your screen time, and making room for what you want to do.

We often complain that we don’t have enough time to do all that we need to do, but honestly, we waste so much of our precious time by staring down at a screen for hours. It doesn’t have to be permanent but deactivating social media and significantly cutting back on TV time, even for just a few days-once in a while, can help remind us of what’s truly important. Social media can be a great way to stay in touch with people, but it can also be wasting our valuable time each day.

Spending too much time on social media can even lead to low self-esteem and unhappiness by comparing yourself to others and trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Address your debts and pay it off soon

Understanding that debt is against simple living is an important step towards simplifying your life.

How simple your life is will be determined by how many “needs” you have, how well you manage your finances, and your freedom to make important life decisions. When you are drowning in debt, it limits all of these factors.

Having to deal with debts can be pretty stressful and overwhelming, too. Debt can be a huge contributor to your mental and emotional clutter. Debt and peace can’t go together. So, eliminating your debt is one of the most effective ways to simplify your life.

Challenge yourself to get up close and personal with your debt. Instead of ignoring your financial problems, face them head on one by one. Cut out unnecessary spending, and make a plan to get rid of any debt. It will feel great to have one less thing to worry about.

Sacrifice today’s luxury for tomorrow’s financial freedom.

Related post: 15 Possible Reasons Why You Are In Debt

Save for an emergency fund

You might be thinking what an emergency fund has to do with simplicity. But believe me, when you know that you have a cushion to fall back on in case of an emergency, you will sleep better at night and enjoy your life more.

Ideally, you should have enough to cover at least 3 to 6 months worth of living expenses, but any amount is better than not having anything at all. Having even $1,000 saved can get you out of many financial scrapes. Start putting something away now, and build your fund over time.

Related post: An Emergency Fund and Your Peace of Mind

Consider downsizing your home and your car

Downsizing is an important part of simple living. Anything large or big can be downsized with careful planning. If you get rid of all the clutter or unnecessary stuff from your home, you may realize that you actually don’t need that much space or a bigger home.

A bigger home means more time cleaning, more energy for tidying up, more money for maintenance and repair, and more stress, too.

Same with a bigger car or SUV. It comes with bigger monthly payment, uses more gas, needs expensive insurance and more space. If you have young kids, you can’t probably go for a very small car. But if you can manage to get by with a smaller car than what you have right now, go for one.

Live within your means

This is one of the most important steps you can take in order to live a simple life. Without living within your means and without making the most of what you have, you can’t simplify your life. Be content with what you have, and focus on what is truly important and meaningful. Don’t spend what you don’t have, on things you don’t need, to impress people you really don’t care for.

Create a budget, and stick to it. Spend less and save more. Embrace frugal living if necessary. Simple living isn’t about painful deprivation. It’s about freedom from that unsatisfying cycle of desire. Once you learn to live and manage well within your means, your life will get so much easier and stress-free. Try to increase your income if you can to enjoy some financial flexibility, but the bottom line is – live within your means!

Slow down and live life more deliberately

You can’t, despite your best efforts, be in constant motion and be at your best. You need to know when to slow things down, take a little break if needed, and do things mindfully.

If you are always rushing to get your chores done, you will end up feeling emotionally drained, mentally stressed out, and physically exhausted. By slowing down, you can pay more attention to what you do, breathe easy, enjoy things more, and have the ability to start living simply.

Do one thing at a time

Instead of multi-tasking, try to do one single task at a time. That way, you won’t have to deal with the pressure of doing several things at once, and you can accomplish more things in a productive manner.

Some people are good at multi-tasking including myself, but I do admit that when I don’t have to focus on too many things at a time, I feel relaxed, and perform better as well.

Multi-tasking means more stress, and it’s actually a far less productive way to get things done.

Establish daily routines

A great way to simplify your life is to create daily routines to get your important tasks done on time without rushing or stressing over things. Get some regular routines in place and stick to them, and your home will function so much better without you running out of food, clean clothes, or having to do a whole day tiring deep cleaning session.

Advanced meal planning and preparing simple healthy food at home saves your time, money and energy, and helps you and your family live a healthy life. Being unhealthy is complicated and can make your life very stressful.

Also, incorporate some self-care ideas into your daily routines so that you can show some love and much needed care to yourself, and feel recharged to take good care of your home and family.

Enjoy simple pleasures of life

Those who know me well also know how much I talk about finding beauty and pleasures in simple things around us and appreciating all the blessings we have, however little they are.

When you take time and allow yourself to enjoy simple pleasures of life and be grateful for that, you will experience an increase in your level of happiness and mental well-being. So, make a list of your favorite simple pleasures and sprinkle those throughout your day.

Also, writing down everything you are grateful for is a powerful practice that increases your happiness and wards off those nagging feelings that your life just isn’t enough.

Parting Words

I will end my post with this reminder: your life is a result of your decisions and the choices you make on a regular basis. And a simple life is built upon a thousand of such humble decisions and simple choices that you have to make everyday. Be deliberate in making life’s choices because you have to live with the consequences of your choices and decisions.

Let’s choose simplicity and enjoy life more…

Looking for more tips and ideas? Check out this helpful and beloved book: Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff by Dana K. White